Fly Fishing the Farmington River. Grady Allen

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      Farmington River (Northwest Connecticut)

       Location: Northwest Connecticut, about a 2-hour car ride from Boston; about 3 hours from New York City. Bradley International Airport is 40 minutes away in nearby Windsor, Connecticut.

      The Farmington River tailwater flows from Hogback Reservoir, providing about 30 miles of fishable trout stream. Anglers from all over New England, New York, and New Jersey come to the river during the summer months to take advantage of the cold waters that teem with an abundance of rainbow, brook, and brown trout. The trout are a mix of wild and

      stocked with a 12-inch average size, though it is not uncommon to land trout in the 20- to 28-inch range. The popularity of the river comes from its fantastic management practices. A full 6 miles of year-round catch-and-release and an additional 15 miles of seasonal catch-and-release area ensures good fishing all year.

      The banks of the Farmington River were once home to the Tunxis tribe of Native Americans, who farmed its fertile meadows and caught Atlantic salmon as they ran upriver to spawn. By the mid-1800s, both the Native Americans and the salmon were gone, with the dams of the Industrial Revolution blocking salmon passage. Today, all that is left of the Atlantic salmon are the small parr stocked as part of a restoration program. Floods in the 1930s and 1950s erased most of the factories built along The Farmington and facilitated the building of the dams and reservoirs, which now protect the valley and provide cold water for the trout.