The West Branch of the Farmington up at Riverton is New England's best tailwater — a cold, fertile river running out of a chain of dams in the Connecticut hills, with a permanent Trout Management Area that holds wild browns alongside the stocked fish. It fishes year-round because the bottom-release water stays cold through a New England summer and warm enough through the winter, and the hatches are first-rate: Hendricksons and a long sulphur season, caddis, then the small-fly grind of midges and olives. Watch the release out of the reservoirs — there's a published flow plan — and time your wade to the window.
The West Branch of the Farmington is southern New England's premier trout river — a cold tailwater running out of the Goodwin Dam in the wooded hills of northwestern Connecticut, holding wild and holdover browns and rainbows in numbers and sizes that surprise people who don't expect such things an hour from Hartford. The cold bottom release keeps it fishable through summer and grows healthy fish, and the river is fertile enough to throw prolific hatches — the Hendricksons, the sulphurs, the famous summer caddis. It's a medium tailwater over rounded cobble and ledge, winding through hemlock and hardwood with a steady, dam-governed flow. The bed is freestone cobble, the lies in the riffle seams and the deeper runs. Wading is comfortable on firm footing when the flows are moderate. The Farmington is a quiet, civilized, genuinely first-rate trout river hiding in plain sight in a corner of the country nobody thinks of as trout country.
Wading: Deeper runs, release dependent flows
- Mixed metamorphic
- Unconfined
- Pool riffle