Small Fish With Attitude

 As December wore on I ended up with progressively less time and fewer good weather windows to make it down to the shoreline for mackerel and herring. My last trip happened under fairly uncomfortable conditions in terms of temperature in wind. At the first spot I tried I watched a couple guys very occasionally catching fish on the next pier over while I struggled to focus with frozen fingers and missed the only take I got. I moved, then moved again and finally settled in though the going seemed slow. At least it was slow in terms of the mackerel and herring. The cunners though? They were fired up. Wrasse have such ridiculous attitudes. 

These buggers were taking a pretty sizable EP fiber baitfish imitation, and if my fly was near structure they were unavoidable. Even more ridiculously most of the ones I caught were far smaller than the ones shown here.

Entertaining those these cunners were I started to really hope something else would show up by the time I'd caught the 20th one. I'd have taken anything at all, and really hoped for a hake, tomcod, or herring as any of them would be new species. 

Eventually the seemingly absent mackerel made a showing and I picked one up. This ended up being my last one in 2021 as I never made it back down, but hopefully in the coming weeks I'll manage to get to the salt and see either if they're still in the area or if something else has filled their void... please let it be herring. 

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, C, Franky, Geof, Luke, Streamer Swinger, and Noah for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.