Fogfish

The lights of homes and business defined the shoreline as we sped back towards the launch. But where were headed was a deep, dark void, so ominous and eerie it actually made my stomach turn... because I knew it shouldn't look that way. A giant hunk of the normal shoreline landmark lights was missing. It soon became clear that the river we had launched in had become a fog machine in our absence. Things were about to get hairy.

we'd headed out that night bent on getting some dogfish. Dusky smooth hound, more specifically. These are a much maligned fish most places they're found. These benign little sharks are one of the most prominent of species considered "trash fish" in these waters. Ironically, they are also fantastic fighters and a quite good eating fish. This time we were just out to catch and release, and hopefully bring a few big ones to the boat. I quietly hoped for such an off-the-walls crazy good bite that I might be able to get one on the fly, but barring that I was more than happy to just cheat and skewer a chunk of eel on a big streamer and chuck it out there. 

It was kind of impressive how rapidly it worked, as I was soon into a sizable dogfish, which bent the 10wt deeply and went on a blistering run. I put the metal to it and soon had the fish at the boat, still pretty green. Noah boated it for me, and it beat the piss out of him. To me, this is a great fish: a really cool animal, perfectly worthy of respect and admiration.

Fought on a fly rod, but most definitely not caught on the fly... I will though. But this night, that was the only dogfish of any real substantial size to come into the boat. I got two more tiny ones, and each Noah also got one cookie cutter small dog fish each. The original Noah took forever to get his, it was almost 4:00 a.m. by the time he did. So it was that we headed back east dog tired, into the scariest fog bank I've ever seen. We pointed at the faintly visible breakwater lighthouse, and as we plunged into the cloud everything else soon disappeared... if we lost sight of that lighthouse, and at times it was very faint, we were good and truly f***** until the sun burned off the fog. We never lost sight of it, but then had to slowly edge our way along the breakwater. After a time it became clear we needed to anchor and hookup the Q-Beam, which was more of a pain in the ass than it had any right to be. And once hooked up that really wasn't much use for navigation, but made me feel better about other boats seeing us, in spite of the bow and stern lights both being imperfect working order. At one point, I spotted some sort of animal waking at the surface and hit it with the light. To Noah and my shock, it then charged the stern and briefly looked like it may jump right in the boat. I suspect we'd interrupted an otter's morning hunt.

We pressed on slowly. I, having spent a fair bit of time on boats in thick fog by that time, was most comfortable. I tried to keep as level headed, calm and decisive as possible. And Noah, though he hated every bit of it, did a great job navigating us out of a dangerous situation. I'm honestly pretty proud of how well we handled that as a team. There's a lot of reasons Noah remains my favorite person to fish with, and his ability to deal with problems like this effectively is one of them.

Soon, the sun was setting the fog aglow in blue. Dawn was here, wed been out all night. We made it safely back to the launch. All that, for a handful of dogfish. Was it worth it? I think so.

Until next time,
Fish for the love of fish.
Fish for the love of places fish live.
Fish for you.
And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, and Franky for supporting this blog on Patreon. 

Not So Little Things

It was one of those full, heavy summer days. High humidity, some puffy cumulus, very little wind... I'd gone out mostly hoping to see a copperhead that day, but ended up not seeing a single snake of any kind. I had my 2wt though, and one box of flies. And there was a stream where I was herping. The water was low and this wasn't a wild trout stream but I wondered what sort of fish might be in this water, having to fished it. I assumed I'd be in for some small fallfish. But when I brought the first fish to hand I was almost a little surprised to see that it was not a fallfish at all, but creek chub. I've caught creek chubs everywhere from North Carolina to Deboullie in Maine. But I rarely ever catch them so close to home. Eastern CT has a very patchwork population of creek chubs. I caught one once in a small stream about 15 minutes from my house and was so thrown by it that I remember every detail of that capture to this day. I'd never before and have never since caught a creek chub in that watershed, an area I've fished most of my life. Most fisherman wouldn't bat an eye at catching a creek chub anywhere, but of course the average fisherman isn't ichthyologically literate. That's not necessarily a dig, but I wish more fisherman sought to really understand their local fish. But to most angler it seems "creek chub" applies to any silvery minnow species, and in Eastern CT that is fallfish, common shiners, and golden shiners far more often than it is Semotilus atromaculatus.
I certainly lack far more knowledge of ichthyology than I possess, I'm still way behind properly identifying the sea chubs on my life list. It's hard to keep up with updated classification in the study of fishes. But I know a creek chub when I see one, and I was delighted to see this one! The thick lips, the defined lead grey lateral line, the wonderful hatched pattern made by dark scale edges, the faint tints of lavender on the gill plate and face, the small black mark on the dorsal fin....

This may seem like such a "little thing", as in "the little things in life". But to me it isn't. To me this is all that matters, an appreciation of all things natural. That appreciation come from both academic understanding... studying the native range of the species, where it has been introduced what niche it fills, what it eats, how it spawns... as well as what some would call spiritual understanding... watching the species in it's habitat, or holding one it my hand, and thinking about how these things make me feel. Both feed into each other. I don't think you can have a full appreciation of a species without a healthy amount of both. I hope, above all else, that I can impart this on as many of my readers as I can. That's really all this is about. I want as many people as possible to care deeply about even seemingly insignificant, entirely stable fish species like creek chubs, because they're still important. A stream full of native dace, darters, and shiners deserves to be protected as much as any full of more at risk fish like brook trout and slimy sculpins (of these two, we're more likely to lose sculpins here in CT... food for thought). The latter may require more, time, effort, and money, and that's fine, we're closer to losing those. But letting a stream go dry or get poisoned because it lacks glamorous species like salmon or trout is no more acceptable.
Learn to love the little things. They really aren't so little.
Until next time,
Fish for the love of fish.
Fish for the love of places fish live.
Fish for you.
And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, and Franky for supporting this blog on Patreon. 

Look Up

One midsummer night, during a new moon, I fished from dusk till dawn in the marshes and estuaries where I first started striper fishing not all that many years ago. I caught a number of beautiful fish, and watched each swim away strong. I sniped bass popping on the marsh banks using the same sort of presentations one would fish to rising trout. But more importantly, I also looked up.

Early on, C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) started the show in spectacular fashion. Seeing it, and getting a mediocre photograph of it, before it disappeared not to return for thousands of year, is a huge highlight of my year. But the night had just begun, and the dark moonless sky just kept showing new faces. The milky way spread across the inky darkness, making my jaw drop each time I looked up. A very distant thunderstorm, so far away that it wasn't in range of the closest radar sight, sparked the most exceptional show of red sprites I've ever seen (if you don't know what sprites are, here is an excellent video explaining the phenomena by my favorite youtuber: Red Sprites and Blue Jets Explained).

Anglers often end up outdoors at times of day and under weather conditions when most people are apt to stay indoors. If we don't take the time to appreciate the non-fish related occurrences that transpire while we're out there on the water, we're doing ourselves no favors. 

Look up. Look down. Look around. Stop and listen. Smell the smells the breeze brings. Fishing is absolutely about catching fish... but not to the exclusion of all else. 

 
Until next time,
Fish for the love of fish.
Fish for the love of places fish live.
Fish for you.
And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, and Franky for supporting this blog on Patreon. 

The Largest Fish I've Ever Caught

I was awoken on the morning of July 18th by a phone call. I answered groggily. "Got plans today?" my friend Joe Apanowitch ("Boots") asked.
"No" I replied.
"Want to go fishing?"
"Yes."
"Good. I'll be there in about an, hour we're going to Block."

That woke me up.

One of the last big biomasses of huge striped bass in the Northeast summers in the cold, dark waters off Block Island. There's no place else quite like it, and the giant bass draw anglers from all the surrounding states. It is, unquestionably, an abused fishery, and not really my style (if it can be said I even have a style). But I'd wanted to go for years for one reason. I wanted to see if it was possible to get one of those huge bass out of relatively deep water on the fly. I figured it probably was, but I also wasn't seeing 50 pound Block Island fly caught stripers getting posted on social media so maybe there was a reason for that. It would be a huge challenge, requiring well thought out strategy and lots of problem solving. That, to me, was as appealing as the prospect of huge striped bass.

Later that day, I watched Race Rock come into view. Joe Karnik was at the helm. Russ "Doc" Zivcovich was inside getting some rest (they'd been out already for tuna the day prior), and Boots, Erik Badger, Sammy and I were on the deck. I was the only one who'd never done this run before. It felt strange to watch Race Rock slide by without stopping to look for breaking fish, or cast to resident bass right against that monolith in turbulent waters.

It wasn't long before our view was devoid of landmarks familiar to me. Montauk was faintly visible, and soon I was looking at Block Island from the opposite side I was used to. When we got to the big bass promised land, we were greeted by a large ocean sunfish finning at the surface. That was quite the welcome. The last time I saw an ocean sunfish was, if I remember correctly, in October 2017, with my good friend Mark Alpert back in more familiar waters in Long Island Sound. Seeing one isn't that common an occurrence. They're strange creatures, very alien looking, and only vaguely capable of moving under their own power. They eat jellyfish, so they really don't need speed, not for feeding purposes. They do get chomped by sharks and hit by boats though.

We weren't expecting lights out action right away, the tide was a little weird. But I did catch a big male black seabass before too too long. I was actually pleased with how easily I was able to get a big fly to the bottom, even in relatively deep water, without resorting to the methods I had to in Maine to get cod and haddock on the fly. I was getting the odd seabass bump, and that allowed me to take note of one of the significant issues using a fly rod in this fishery... I could barely feel those hits. It was nearly impossible to prevent there being a big bow in the line. I didn't know yet how the bass would hit the fly in this situation, so though I was sure I'd register a strike I didn't know if it would happen with enough time to react and set hard.

A got my answer earlier than I was expecting. Joe gestured to me, indicating that we were about to drift over a big pile of bass, and right on cue I got absolutely slammed. I stripped like a madman, trying to compensate for the bow in the line, and I though momentarily that I had her, as my rod bucked hard with her huge head shakes. Then, slack.

That was my one chance on this trip to get it done with the fly rod. I never had another take from a striper. I got another big seabass, and some ambiguous takes, but I blew my one real chance. Now though the gears were turning. I know I can get this done, I just need to hone my gear and tactics a little more.

After dark the guys started to hook some fish on eels and soft plastics. It was hard to watch 30-40lb class bass getting boated and keep grinding with the fly rod without any takes.

So I switched started fishing eels. The last time I'd fished live eels had been in shallow water with Mike Roy, free lined. This was very different from that in many ways, but the first time I registered a hit it brought back memories... it felt very much the same. I got a couple fish, after getting a better feel for the fishing style, and barely even registered the fact that one of them was the largest fish I'd ever caught.

Photo courtesy Joe Karnik

Then, a bit after midnight, I hooked a fish that felt a little bit larger. Judging the size on unfamiliar tackle was difficult, but when the fish came into the light it became pretty obvious what we had.

My largest striped bass, my largest fish ever, measured just a half inch under 50 and weighed just a hair under 50 pounds.
I'd never caught a fish that weighed one pound per inch before.

The night then took on a surreal quality. Thick fog periodically engulfed us, completely hiding the rest of the fleet. It was as if we were the only ones in existence... just us and the boat. Like a gigantic sensory deprivation chamber.

To add to the unique feel, huge schools of squid swam in and out of the lights. Occasionally, they were quite nervous, likely being fed on by big stripers and bluefish. I've seen squid before, leaping to evade bass in the first wave of a rip, but I'd never seen this many. There were thousands of them out there. It was remarkable to see.

We kept catching fish at a steady pace through the night and into the morning, but to me what was impressive wasn't simply the size of the bass or how many we were catching, but how effective this crew was. Doc and Joe had been doing this together quite a while, and it showed. Boots as well has been fishing Block successfully for years, and has his own techniques he employs when on his own boat. Their experience was evident in the subtleties of presentation as well as the fact the Joe could sometimes accurately call hookups before they happened.

The fog remained thick most of the morning, and I switched back to the fly rod hoping to get a second chance at glory under the fog bow.

Frankly the rest was a blur of exhaustion. I was in and out of sleep on the way back in to Niantic, despite the relatively rough conditions and sitting upright, so it wasn't really until the next day that I got to think about what had happened.

I knew it the whole time though. That very nearly 50 pound striped bass, as well as every other fish I'd caught on eels that night, was not my accomplishment to flout. Not at all. I put no work into that... everyone else on the boat had exponentially more experience in this fishery than I did. I was just along for the ride. Though that was the largest fish I've ever caught and could easily remain my largest striper for a long time, every bit of the credit goes to Boots, Joe, Doc, and Badger. That fish was their accomplishment, a testament to their hard work and dedication, not mine. Thanks guys, that was really something. I won't soon forget that experience. Those fish are amazing animals, truly something to behold. Breathtaking. Jaw dropping. It almost feels wrong, bringing such an old majestic beast out of those dark waters, a place mostly hidden from our prying eyes. I only have one need to accomplish at those waters off Block now... I need to get a 50 pound class bass on the fly. And I may not accomplish that. But I'm going to try. And if and when I've accomplished that feat, the bass at Block Island won't have me to worry about anymore. I really only want that one fish.

Until next time,
Fish for the love of fish.
Fish for the love of places fish live.
Fish for you.
And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, and Franky for supporting this blog on Patreon. 

Micro Bait Season

In August, our coastal waters get flushed with young of the year baitfish. Minuscule in size but numbering in the billions, juvenile menhaden, bay anchovies, silversides, and butterfish fuel some of the most visually spectacular surface feeds of the year. The last few years the weather has been awful most of October and November, which would normally be big blitz time here. August and September, the micro bait season, have surpassed the following months for heavy action and visual spectacle in Eastern Long Island Sound, South County Rhode Island, and Narragansett Bay for the last three years. In August this year and last, schoolie bass and chub mackerel have put on some of the greatest shows while feeding on bay anchovies less than an inch long.

My friend Captain Ian Devlin asked if I'd like to make a run east with him on August 1st to partake in the early days of the chaos. Promise of chub mackerel froth feeding and rafting stripers was also accompanied by trustworthy reports of frigate tuna, a small scombrid species only occasionally found in these waters. Of course I was game. So it was that Ian and I readied to launch his Lake & Bay skiff as the sun rose on the first day of August, watching a greater black-backed gull admire his own reflection in the chrome bumped of a parked truck. Soon we were on the water and speeding towards Watch Hill. We didn't get there before finding a couple big schools of chub mackerel froth feeding.

The sound these fish make when a big school surface feeds is really something to behold. From the calm ocean surface arises the sudden roaring of hundreds of fish blasting through the surface in a frenzy to get as many bay anchovies in their mouths as possible. Every once in a while though, one of those little bait fish is a fake.

It's amazing to think that Scomber colias were unheard of inshore just five or six years ago.Now for at least a couple weeks each summer, it's difficult to run a boat along any four mile stretch of shoreline between Niantic and Point Judith between sunrise and sunset and not see at least a small school some where along the way. They're fun, beautiful little fish, and bend a five weight a lot better than any trout of similar size.

We had our fill with those schools, then headed further east. Watch was a zoo in terms of blitzing fish, slowly becoming a zoo in terms of boats as well, but we got some time without too much traffic to photograph and cast to schools of both bass and chub mackerel.

When the crowds descended we continued east and found a third of a mile of chub mackerel working east to west down the beach, literally making waves in their wake. The biomass of fish in these waters at this time of year is quite astounding. We were able to get ahead of the school and get shot after shot as pods came by the boat.

The chub mackerel school led us way back west, right to a school of bass up near the beach.

Eastward bound again, we glimpsed a handful of brief blows that were certainly not bass but didn't seem to be chub mackerel either. They appeared like tiny false albacore slashing through bait balls... these must have been the frigate tuna we'd so hoped to encounter, but they were up and down quickly and we got no shots at them.

The final blitz we encountered was an interesting mixed bag. There were bass and chub mackerel up top, scup just below, and hickory shad on the bottom. I got one each of the scup and hickories, making for a unique mixed bag of scombrid, moronid, sparid, and colubrid species. A wide range of fish were taking advantage of the plethora of micro bait. (I didn't photograph the hickory as it was bleeding heavily)

We ended our day on the flats, expecting very little there but finding loads of bass. In the heat of August stripers typically seek deeper, cooler water, but the micro bait had lead some to the shallows, were fish were inhaling tennis-ball sized schools of tiny menhaden. This fish have proved over the years to be just about impossible to deceive, and we certainly didn't figure it out this time. But just seeing that there was so much going on in all sorts of areas and in different depths was exiting. Stripers in particular are remarkably versatile fish. It never ceases to amaze me how broad their range of comfort is. 

But then again apparently scup are quite versatile too, as I got another up on that flat on a Jiggy. 

A few weeks later, micro bait season continues in these parts... and honestly things have gotten pretty wild. But I still have a lot of catch up to do before we get to that.

Until next time,
Fish for the love of fish.
Fish for the love of places fish live.
Fish for you.
And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, and Franky for supporting this blog on Patreon. 

Carp in Flowing Water

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, and Franky for supporting this blog on Patreon. 

My expertise and experience with carp lies mostly in stillwaters. My carp fishing revolves either around walking or kayaking my home lake or hopping ponds looking for fish along beaches, rocky shorelines, or on mud flats. It's fun sometimes, frustrating oftentimes, and engaging all the time. In the summer here in CT, carp are one of the prime species for exciting freshwater fishing. Heat doesn't put them off like it does many of our fish, so pond hopping is a regular routine. The high on July 12th was a little over 90, and Noah and I found actively feeding carp everywhere we went that day.

The last stop on our route was actually a stream, though a heavily altered one, with wide pools that could more appropriately be called ponds in it, and a heavily channelized course. I'd fished it before and caught plenty of bass and panfish, including some very nice largemouth, but though I'd seen carp I'd never caught one there, nor seen one in the flowing, shallow, narrow parts of the creek.

This time things were different. First off, there were more carp around than I'd seen any time prior, and second, many were in about a foot of flowing water, tailing vigorously and rooting around in the rocks and mud.

Carp in this water... yes please.

I only hooked one, and it was an absurd fight. The thing dumped into the backing very quickly, but then came in to just under a fly rods length and stayed at about that distance, taking and giving a few feet of line here and there, making my baking knot click up and down through the guides. That knot, which had had come and gone through the guides a bunch of times while carp fishing in the weeks before, gave way. I acted quickly, lunging into the water and grabbing my fly line trying to prevent lightning from striking twice (years ago I lost a fly line to a big carp in this manor. It's back in the archives, if you care to look. A post in August 2014 I believe). I managed to hand line the fish most of the way in but it broke off just before I could land it. Noah's decent bass on the ultralight ended up being the best fish out of that creek on this day.

The next day, I wanted revenge. I wanted one of those shallow water belly crawlers. Conditions were no different and the fish were in a great mood still... I felt confident. 

It took me a little while to get a really good shot at a belly crawler. I botched a few shots at fish both in shallow and deep water on my way down stream before I reached the best stretch and got a fantastic shot and a fish feeding in less than 10 inches of water. I saw three fish dropping slowly out of a run, and one of them split off and turned into the current to begin feeding. I carefully made my way down the steep bank and got into a casting position, crouched on sand bar. The fish made a couple aggressive digs, likely rooting out some macroinvertebrate, then angled a bit towards me. I chose that moment to go for it. My cast and presentation were perfect and I was rewarded with a great eat; sucking my white mop fly off the brown bottom in plain site. The hookup and then a blistering initial run were every bit of what make fly fishing for carp so damn fun.

This time the fish went without any hiccups and I ended up catching a great fish. This was one of those moments I live for, a bit of a gap in my fishing experience filled. And it was so exciting. What a joy it is to wander with a fly rod, observing and sometimes catching fish big and small.

Not long thereafter I got another smaller fish. It was a big monkey off my back. I don't get to fish for shallow, moving water carp nearly often enough. Though I will say it is incredibly difficult to decide what to do some days. Too many fish, too little time. It almost makes my head spin.

Until next time,
Fish for the love of fish.
Fish for the love of places fish live.
Fish for you.
And stay safe and healthy.