Three New Species, One Real Oddity!

So yeah... that happened this morning. Every once in a while I get weirdly lucky, and this was no exception. I saw a wake in a shallow cut off tide pool, walked up to see what it was, and found the biggest clear nose skate I've ever seen. I put the blue crab fly I had on in front of it, it came over, swam over top of it, and made some weird motions that I interpreted as a take. My first few attempts to set the hook failed, but it gave me a few more chances and eventually the hook found flesh, though it actually pulled out of the mouth and caught the skate's wing. I don't really mind, the fish ate the fly. That counts in my book. 

And that was the first of three new species I caught today. This was one of the best mult-species fly fishing days I've had in ages. Noah added two species to his list as well. We caught a few of the intended target, striped bass, but they were overshadowed by variety and unique situations.

After getting minimal action from the larger stripers we got ourselves over to a jetty to see what weird things we could find. There, dipping stuff in the crevices and holes where sea-bottom fish love to hide, we found bergalls and small tautog. I didn't actually have any saltwater flies small enough for the bergalls, but there was a sz. 10 Stimulator stuck in one of the pockets of my bag that was more than suitable and appetizing after I trimmed the hair off. Some little jig nymphs would have been far more useful though.

For their size all of these fish fight very well, especially the tog on light tackle. They dig down hard and rub the line against the rocks. Noah actually had a few larger tog get off by lodging in the crevices, which they are masters at. It was a really fun morning session, and I'm now a few steps closer to landing that world record tautog... the season opens on the 1st.