Shoulder Season

November sits in a shoulder season for a number of things in CT fishing. Migratory striped bass fishing out front may last well into December but I consider mid November till Christmas the shoulder season for that. Most wild trout are post spawn and can get into weird moods in November, and this has always been one of the most frustrating trout fishing months for me, tied with January and August for my least favorite CT trout fishing months. Panfish fishing can be... weird, especially the last half of the month, but at times quite good. Same with black bass. And carp.

It's this shoulder season that drives me nuts, as it's mostly a string of really mediocre days, often in uncomfortable weather as I'm not yet used to the cold after a summer and early fall of wet wading and kayaking in just shorts and a t-shirt, with the odd stupidly good day mixed in every once in a while. The days are short, the weather is inconsistent, and the fish are in transition. I'd like November a lot more if I hunted, frankly. Though I'm fishing a lot and rarely skunking, it's a tough month to cobble together a report that I think is actually worth reading. But I've found something recently that should have been obvious.

If you aren't totally over fishing for stocked trout, and honestly I'm pretty close to being sick of  doing it during the day, hatchery rainbows, whether stocked this fall or holdovers from last year, might well be the most consistently obliging fish in CT in November. I've been catching copious amounts of them fully accidentally lately while targeting other fish.
This is how it has been: Fallfish? Nope, have an ugly rainbow. Big wild brown trout? Here's some rainbows. Smallmouth? How about a bunch of rainbows instead?

So... no, I'm probably not going to go target these crazy little buggers this month even though they seem pretty exceptionally active and easy. At least not during the day. And it doesn't seem to matter as they keep finding me anyway. Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not a fan of stocked rainbow trout. Catching a broodstock or big holdover at night or on a dry is cool but I'd sincerely rather catch a 12 inch fallfish than a 16 inch stocker rainbow. Don't let my distaste for them take anything away from you though, if you enjoy catching stocked rainbows, enjoy! They're fun and they're great practice, and some aren't all that ugly. Go out and catch some this month because everybody is hunting and most of the TMA's aren't getting fished that hard. Streamers from 1" to 3" in olive, white, yellow, or orange in various permutations will work, eggs will work, beadhead softhackles fished deep and slow with the strip-tease method will work. Enjoy.

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

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