The Best of Late Fall

Bear with me for the next two weeks everyone, my computer crashed on Friday so it's going to be touch and go for me as far as work and posting regularly. My new computer should arrive on or by Saturday. I've got most of my data backed up in some form or another so I won't loose nearly everything if nothing can be recovered from my hard drive, but there were a few things I was hoping to show you eventually that at this point I think are probably gone. Notably my biggest totaug on the fly and some really cool shots of a submarine leaving Groton. Not a huge set back, but an annoyance for sure. 

Back to what I was hoping to write and post on Friday... Thursday afternoon and night were warm, comparatively. It actually warmed up throughout the night until the front passed. It made for good fishing conditions, both while the sun was up and after. I got to fish for brook trout and stripers. Two very different native fish in very different habitats. 

I payed my favorite brook trout stream a four hour visit, hoping I would be in time for the kind of fishing I got last November when some of the smaller fish were spawning and lots of their comrades were waiting for the eggs. That was not the case today, although egg flies were top producers. It was a steak and eggs kind of day. Streamers and egg flies. I also got a couple dry fly fish to bring my month count up to 33.  

Because I don't have my computer to do photo editing, you get to see what things look like when I don't get to work with them. I don't like the saturation I get with the Fujifilm, it doesn't reflect what I see in the field. I can't fix the saturation on these photos right now so they are a but more dull than they should be, but I think they still get the idea across. These brookies were stunning.

Well after dark, I unpacked the small stream gear and replaced it with saltwater tackle. Time to chase striped bass. I love night fishing. I love the feeling I get when I step into the black water. I love the moment I get hit, not knowing exactly what the moments after will bring. Alec and I fished from 8:00 until midnight, catching the last portion of the ebb and the first half of the flood. My favorite

Schoolie bass are extremely ravenous, especially at night. The second spot Alec and I visited was absolutely stacked with fish I was swinging flies, just giving them a little bit of action. The fish were hitting ever cast, almost always within a short part of the swing. We stood there on the rip rap, wind at our backs, catching schoolie after schoolie for and hour. That's just fun. Sometimes easy action is just what you need. The hunt for the big one, though, goes on.