Deerfield River Watershed Trout Unlimited

05/03/2026

As the spring season moves from April into May, some of our favorite bugs are beginning to appear! Throughout Western Mass, warmer afternoons have seen hatches of dark and light Ephemerella subvaria (Hendrickson) mayflies with some great spinner falls around dusk.

Here is a video from our upcoming chapter meeting speaker Tim Flagler with instructions on tying the "Hendo Hammer", a great emerger / klinhammer style pattern that will surely get some looks in the film.

199 likes, 9 comments. "Hendo Hammer"

04/25/2026

A ringing endorsement from the Massachusetts Office of Outdoor Recreation, of course we've known for a long time how special the Deerfield River is.

04/24/2026

Tim Flagler will be presenting “What Trout Like to Eat & Flies to Feed Them” at our upcoming chapter meeting on May 14th. The meeting will be held at GCC room C201 at 6:30pm. This is definitely one you won’t want to miss!

We also want to give a special thank you to the Deerfield Fly Shop for co-sponsoring Tim’s visit with us.

Feel free to DM with any questions!

Deerfield Fly Shop

*photo provided by Tightline Productions

03/13/2026

This month’s chapter meeting will be held at Greenfield Community College, Room C201 next Thursday, March 19, 2025 at 6:30pm.

Our featured speaker will be Nicolas Miller of Field Geology Services who will present on Recent Habitat Enhancement Projects in the Deerfield River Watershed. Nic has worked on numerous projects in the watershed and this should be a fascinating talk. We hope to see you there!

02/27/2026

What are you doing on Pi Day?

We’ll be at Tree House Brewery in South Deerfield for Flies, Pies & Lies — an afternoon built around fly tying, pizza, and the sharing of fish tales.

Saturday, March 14
11am–4pm

All are welcome to come and stay as long as you'd like. Bring your vise, materials, and appetite. If you’ve never tied before, this is a good place to start — we’ll have instruction, vises, and materials on hand so beginners can jump right in.

We’ll also share highlights from our latest aquatic macroinvertebrate survey and suggest fly patterns that reflect which bugs are most prevalent in the Deerfield River.

We will be providing pizza from Treehouse and there will be raffles throughout the event. If you feel compelled and it is within your means to do so, donations are accepted as all proceeds will go towards future conservation projects in the Deerfield River Watershed. Some upcoming projects in need of funding include repeat macroinvertebrate surveying as well as a new annual spawning survey.

We also want to thank our sponsors who are helping support this event:
Deerfield Fly Shop
Firehole Outdoors
Sugarloaf Tackle

Feel free to DM with any questions, we hope to see you there!

01/28/2026

We are certainly thrilled about the recent snowfall, how about you? Snowpack plays an important role in the Deerfield River watershed — From groundwater recharge to coldwater inputs from tributaries, winter snowfall helps support water quality and habitat that wild trout depend on year-round.

01/13/2026

📅 Chapter Meeting | January 15 | 6:30 PM
📍 Greenfield Community College, Room C201

Join us for our January chapter meeting as we welcome Mike Cole and Kate Abbott for an in-depth look at macroinvertebrates in the Deerfield River!

They’ll be presenting results from a recent pilot macroinvertebrate study conducted this past September and comparing those findings with earlier, comprehensive entomology studies led by Mike Cole in 2006 and 2013. This work offers valuable insight into river health—past, present, and future.

Whether you’re interested in conservation, aquatic ecology, or learning more about the insects that drive our trout fisheries (and inspire our fly tying), this is a presentation you won’t want to miss.

All are welcome—hope to see you there!

12/25/2025

As another year draws to a close, we’re thankful for the conservation work accomplished across our watershed. Looking ahead to 2026, we hope you’ll join us in continuing this work together to support wild and native trout.

Happy Holidays to you and yours. See you all next year!

12/08/2025

Join us Tuesday December 9 at 6 pm at Tree House Brewery in Deerfield for the first Bugs and Beers of the season! The theme this week is Catskill Style Dry Flies. is sponsoring Bugs and Beers this season and supplying hooks. Deerfield Fly Shop will provide the materials. Just bring your vise, tools and some thread in dark and light colors in 8/0 or 70 denier. Cost is $10. Cash please! Going forward, Bugs and Beers will take place every second Tuesday of the month at Tree House through March.

11/26/2025

Important news for the Deerfield River!
The new FERC license for the Bear Swamp Project now requires a minimum flow of 225 cfs from the Fife Brook Development between Nov. 1 and April 15—a critical improvement for the overwintering protection of trout redds in the mainstem river.

This outcome reflects years of collaborative work by Trout Unlimited, Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife, and MassDEP, who pushed for science-based flows that support natural reproduction and a healthier, more resilient river.

11/22/2025

Area salmonids have been in the throes of passion and the Deerfield watershed is no exception. Brook and brown trout have been migrating to their preferred spawning areas and digging redds where their eggs will be deposited.

Please be mindful of these areas when angling this winter, treading over redds could unknowingly crush or dislodge the eggs. Salmonids generally migrate upstream to reproduce, and as shown by our brown trout telemetry study a few years ago, the upper Deerfield is a literal hot bed of spawning activity.

We would respectfully encourage anglers to consider fishing lower sections of the Deerfield while active spawning is taking place and to be observant for areas where gravel or cobble has a “clean” appearance when compared to the surrounding substrate.

If you do happen to spot trout on a redd, please observe from a distance and in a way that does not disturb this incredible process.

Feel free to dm with any questions!