I'm In! A Late Spring Early Summer Striper Retrospective

Alright, I'll say it. This spring and summer has sucked overall in Long Island Sound for sizable striped bass. I mean, there are pockets of fish to be found, and there are some big fish getting caught, but that's just what the whole fishery is now... mediocre overall but good enough in small pockets that people fishing there that are too enclosed in their own bubbles are making it sound like nothing is wrong with the fishery.

Flats fishing has sucked.
Places that have consistently produced good action in years past have been remarkably inconsistent so far this year. Fish uncharacteristically showed up in then left areas where they'd typically be at everyday with good conditions, even through the summer doldrums. Nunzio and I went out on my birthday with a great tide, great wind, the right barometric pressure, and a high sun, and found diddly on the flats. We got our reprieve at a bridge and got a few fish each at the start of the flood, but even that bite wasn't as good as it typically would be that time of year.

The reefs have been decent but sporadic. There are some bigger fish here and there but a lot of really small ones too. The written reports I've seen don't seem to be very realistic based on what I've heard from other anglers, and how I've done out there, but I've come to expect that anyway. Mark and Myron invited me out the day after a pretty good bite, and we had some action, but the fish were clearly responding to pressure. They were very boat shy.

I won't go much into detail on the one bite that is shining bright in Connecticut right now, because, well, it's best if people don't know. Suffice to say, when we got on it it was good enough to convince Rick and I we ought to come back the next morning in the rain looking for more. I didn't really capitalize on the better opportunities that I did get, which is frustrating when such chances are clearly few and far between, but put up decent numbers. I've been most impressed by the number of extremely small bass around. I don't want to catch any more of them, but there sure are a bunch.

Most recently, Mark and I went looking for a topwater big bass bite to do bait-and-switch on, and we didn't find it. But I suspect that fell much more to timing than anything else, we'd not fished that area that early before and didn't really know what to expect. We did find fish, but not the size we wanted or in the place we had intended to focus on. The waning daylight hours were a treat though, featuring one of the best sunsets I've ever seen and a spectacular fireball streaking across a long stretch of sky. 

After Mark and I had secured everything on the boat and started walking down the dock at the end of our outing, I did something  that pretty well symbolized the present striped bass situation. I, while looking right where I was going, walked right off the edge of the dock into the piss warm, muddy water. My words, upon realizing what I'd just done, were simply "I'm in!".

Towards the edge we continue to walk, looking at all the signs as we go.
Striped bass are not in trouble as a species. But the quality of the fishery is. I hate to sound divisive but if you can't see the problems here, you don't deserve to take part. Seriously. It shouldn't be as hard as it is to come by 30-40 inch striped bass. A productive striper fishery should be loaded with fish of those size. If you feel like you are catching a whole bunch of those size fish and bigger, good for you. You are lucky. You are also in a tiny bubble where those fish are abundant. And they won't be abundant forever. You too will soon be complaining about how bad the fishing is. Fisheries managers are currently taking some steps in the right direction. It is time to step up and light a fire under their butts and make sure every possible advantage is given to striped bass, the fish they eat, and the habitat they require.

If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Also, consider supporting me on Patreon (link at the top of the bar to the right of your screen, on web version). Every little bit is appreciated! Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, john, and Christopher, for supporting this blog.

A Lifer Sculpin and No Snakes

Today (Thursday) my mother and I headed to Rhode Island with the objective of looking for a very hard to find snake. Smooth green snakes had a naturally spotty range made even more spotty by urban sprawl. Although they are still abundant in a handful of locales they are lacking in numbers overall. And as if being rare weren't enough, their habitat and behavior make them even harder to find and photograph. They are wicked fast, like hanging out in vegetation the same color they are, and don't sit still when handled. The best way to find them in a good scenario for photography is by lifting board and bark and rocks. Though the area my mom and I searched was great habitat (and we covered a lot of it), we failed to find either a basking snake or anything really ideal to lift that one would like hiding under. I heard a number of things make a break for it in the brush, but what those things were I will never know. One was certainly some kind of snake.

A coyote raided turtle nest.

So, we skunked out. No snakes! But it would be silly not to have a backup plan, and I did. We paid a visit to a favorite breachway of mine after lunch and I targeted micros. At first I was after rock gunnels. It just wasn't happening the tide was too high to fish the places I wanted to, and the bergalls kept getting in the way. 

Then, wading through some sandy areas, I noticed I was spooking a bunch of little flatfish. Some were definitely juvenile summer flounder, the rest were hogchoker. I started targeting them, which was very, very frustrating. These little flat fish may turn out to be extremely hard for me to add to my lifelist. I eventually had to call it quits and head back towards the car. But I did decide to walk along the edge of the breachway instead of the road on the way there. I found some more hogchokers hanging around a few rocks, but in trying to catch them, I ended up catching something very different. I saw come out from under a weed covered rock a pair of very stout fish with big heads and mottled coloration. They were clearly sculpins of some sort. And, true to the ravenous nature of many sculpins, they pounced on my tiny tanago hook fly. I hooked it and immediately lifted it's incredibly minuscule body out of the water. My heartbeat increased rapidly as I carefully waded back to dry land, worrying all the way that the fish would free itself, knowing full well this could only be a new species no matter what sculpin it turned out to be. I quickly got it into the photo-tank, before which time it did indeed throw the hook, and got as many photos as I could. Then I went back out and tried to get the other one, which was bigger. I did, and I got it safely into the photo tank too, where I was lucky enough to get one key photo, though I didn't know that until I got home. These are the results from both fish:

Specimen #1

Specimen #2

Now, for the aforementioned key photo of the larger of the two sculpins: 

Why, you are probably asking, is this the key photo? It is a bit less well focused than the rest and doesn't seem to show some key parts of the fish in any detail. 

Well, it shows one specific part of the fish in enough clarity for me to confidently identify the species. These two fish could only really have been either shorthorned sculpins or little sculpins, also called grubbies. It was much more likely that they were grubbies because they are more common than shorthorned south of Cape Cod Bay, and shorthorned sculpins are rarely in very shallow water in the summer up north. So it would stand to reason that in Southern New England in a spot with water temperatures just above 60 degrees, these would most likely be grubbies. But weirder things have happened in this spot than a shorthorned sculpin showing up in late June... just 25 yards away, I'd caught a barrelfish on the fly... so it could go either way. Except I got a good enough shot of the larger specimens anal fin with rays extended to get a count of 10. 

Grubbies have 10 or 11 anal fin rays, shorthorned sculpins have 13 or 14. 

So, life list fish #133 for me is the little sculpin. It had been far too long since I got a new fish to add to the list. What a relief! Only 17 to go before I reach my year end goal of 150. 

Lifelist fish # 133, little sculpin/grubby, Myoxocephalus aenaeus. Rank: species

If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Also, consider supporting me on Patreon (link at the top of the bar to the right of your screen, on web version). Every little bit is appreciated! Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, john, and Christopher, for supporting this blog.

Flowing Water Sunfish

As water levels drop and temperatures rise each year in CT, some of my time that would be dedicated to trout gets altered towards fishing for sunfish in the same kinds of water. I employ a lot of the same methods as well.... tightline nymphing, dry droppers, and micro-jigs.  I love fishing for sunfish in moving water. I love fishing for them anywhere, frankly, but it's a little more pleasant to wet wade a 5 degree rocky stream on a hot day than an 85 degree muddy, weedy pond. I'll go knee deep in slop for certain things, but bass and bluegills aren't one of those things. And yes, I'm lumping black bass in with the other sunfishes. Bass anglers need to get over themselves. You're fishing for sunfish. I'm fishing for sunfish. We're all fishing for sunfish. Because sunfish are awesome. But I digress.
When the water gets warm and the air gets warmer, it's time to put some shorts and a cheep pair of tennis shoes and get wet feet and fish slime covered hands.

One of my local honey holes has been loaded with two species this spring that have been more of a minority in the past, rock bass and largemouth bass. Normally rock bass are outnumbered by redbreast sunfish and yellow perch and largemouth are outnumbered by smallmouth. Not only are there a ton of both but there are some big ones. On my last trip I got at least 30 rock bass and missed one that was about 12 inches. I did land one 12 incher in late May at night, and it was an impressive thing to behold despite the rock basses very lacking fight. I've only really caught these sort of numbers in VT, and it definitely got me thinking... now that there are a ton in this spot, it might be time for me to fry some up. Warmouth are delicious, why wouldn't rock bass be?

Ambloplites rupestris

Something I just don't have the heart to kill intentionally is redbreast sunfish. Along with pumpkinseeds, they are every bit the colorful, tenacious, feisty indicators of a vibrant ecosystem in warm water around here that brook trout are in cold water. If there aren't a bunch of redbreast sunfish or pumpkinseeds don't outnumber other species in their niche or aren't present in the right habitat, something is up. And did I say tenacious? Moving water redbreast are some of the meanest fish around. If they grew teeth like a bluefish, human lives would be lost just from wading in shallow river. People would never let their dogs go for a swim. I've had redbreast sunfish ram my legs trying to chase me from their nests. Just as often as they shy away the'll seem to play a game of chicken with you. Put a four inch streamer in front of a six inch male redbreast and that bastard is going to take a swipe at it. They are pint sized condensations of pure rage. 

Lepomis auritus 

Largemouth, the most overly glorified of the sunfishes (sorry, bass goons) are very much the species that got me into fishing. And I never fell out of love with them, my respect for other species just grew up around them. I still get shaky when I see a giant bass cruising the edge of a gravel bar or sliding into a weed bed. I understand their appeal. And when I stuck this beauty, I felt as happy as I did catching a creek fish of this caliber when I was a complete bass head:

Micropterus salmoides

But nowadays I'm just a thrilled when I catch really good looking bluegill.

Lepomis macrochirus

Alas, my local water are also home to another beautiful and aggressive but also very invasive sunfish. I caught one in a part of the watershed they'd not been found in yet recently, and I killed it. Green sunfish have a habit of taking a watershed over. They've got big mouths for their size and are voracious predators. But if there is one thing they're better at than eating, it's making more of themselves. Green sunfish wreak havoc outside of their native range. I've found that in closed systems, especially small ponds, green sunfish will even often out compete bluegills. 

Lepomis cyanellus

Last but certainly not least, I spent the evening hours dead drifting streamers for smallmouth. I caught the numbers but not the size. But that doesn't especially matter... even an eight inch smallmouth bass fight until the last second. Actually, I did hook one good fish of about 18 inches. Frustratingly, it came off. There aren't many fish that size in the river I was fishing, so I know I'll have to go searching some more. It seems the prolonged higher than average flows did bring in bigger fish this spring. I should be able to find a few, in time. Catching them is a different story. 

Micropterus dolomieu

If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Also, consider supporting me on Patreon (link at the top of the bar to the right of your screen, on web version). Every little bit is appreciated! Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, john, and Christopher, for supporting this blog.

Convergence '19: Grand Finale

It was a sight to behold. The river, under moderate flows and good clarity, packed back to bank and top to bottom with blueback herring. I'd seen nothing like it. It was a proper herring run, thousands of fish packing into a freestone stream to do what herring do in the spring. At first I didn't see much. But then, where a tongue of current swept around a rocky island, I saw a continuous stream of herring headed upriver.

In the runs, where photography from above the water's surface wasn't going to do anything to reveal the fish below, the herring were packed tightly against each other from the bottom of the river to just below the surface. In the eddies behind rocks, huge numbers of scales collected. Smallmouth were swimming around with herring in their mouths that they couldn't swallow. There were so many herring that they pushed right by the deep striper hole where they usually stop, unable to proceed without being swallowed. This school was so big they just pushed right on through that hole with ease and didn't stop until they reached rapids they couldn't pass. I just watched them for hours. They never really spawned, and I wouldn't see them do much spawning the next night either. I'm not quite sure why, I'd have expected a hellacious amount of spawning noise after dark. But they were there in massive quantities and it was an incredible show. It took me a while to peel myself away and start fishing.

 The fishing was slow those two nights.

A half dozen bass between 25 and 28 inches kept me optimistic but I never got the hookup I was hoping for. In fact, the most impressive fish I caught during that time was a walleye that smoked a large black deceiver. 

To be fair, I didn't really need much more than what I got. What fish I did catch were enough to keep me alert, and the shear significance of what was going on around me was all I needed to take away in memory. I can't possibly impress upon you the volume of herring that was swimming in this river these two nights. It was an awesome spectacle. The air smelled of them, a sweet, melon sort of small, and loose scales made the water sparkle in the light. Other wildlife abounded too. This period featured one of the strongest pushes of yellow eels I'd seen. I found five wood turtles in three nights. The grey tree frogs all worked up. Giant helgramites were wandering in the streets. This was it. Big striped bass or not, this is why I put up with the sleepless nights, pouring rain, cold wind, and risky wading. As the calendar turned over to June and the run petered out, I was satisfied with all that I'd seen and done, and already thinking about the next season. I'll be waiting. Convergence '20 starts in just 10 months.

If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Also, consider supporting me on Patreon (link at the top of the bar to the right of your screen, on web version). Every little bit is appreciated! Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, john, and Christopher, for supporting this blog.