My now-partner-then-friend Emily dropped me off next to an unfamiliar river in an unfamiliar town in the middle of Ohio. Unfamiliar to me, that is. Emily had grown up around there, but I'd actually never fished in Ohio before this trip. Now I had about an hour to figure out a short stretch of river full of unknown-to-me species, and there is nothing more exciting to me that literally just that- getting dumped next to a random river full of fish species I'd never caught with a fly rod in hand. A low-head dam below a bridge immediately called to me... these sorts of things are a fish magnets by default, being that they are choke points at best an migration barriers at worst. I had an Ausable Ugly on... what else... and went about tight-lining the spill over. The first fish was a smallmouth bass. Leave it to the aggressive and ever-present Micropterus to beat all else to the fly in such a situation. Unlike home, though, smallmouth were native to this place. These creeks and drainages in Ohio had been teaming with smallmouth for ages before they were dumped in Connecticut. I do love a native fish.
A couple more smallmouth later I decided to move down into the slower water and look for some suckers. Though they'll often sidle right up to the base of a dam in the faster water in the spring, many of the sucker species will settle back into the deep, slow pools for the summer and fall. That's exactly what I found. In a lovely deep hole bellow a bridge were various redhorse, quillback, and some white suckers. The quillback immediately became my primary target. Quillback carpsuckers (Carpiodes cyprinus) are so named for their similarity in appearance with carp. They aren't carp, but unfortunately the unearned poor reputation carp have long held in this country also carries over to species like carpsuckers and buffalo. Given my exceptional reverence for these species it seriously hurts to see photos of them dead on the bank with holes in them... I won't apologize, bow fishing is a scourge and the bad characters in that community FAR out-weigh the good ones. Every time I see a "carp" being foisted on a spear that is actually a native sucker, quillback or buffalo it gives me both mental and physical discomfort. But these ones were safe, save for a little prick in the lip. At least that was my hope. Quilbacks are notoriously fickle and even more so on an artificial fly. I know a small number of people that have caught them and there are no defined tactics. Unlike bass or trout you can't pick up dozens upon dozens of books, watch hundreds of videos or find magazine articles galore about how to convince a carpsucker to eat a fly... this was something I'd have to find out on my own with whatever time I had left to fish this spot that day. I do love a challenge.
I stood pretty much on the same rock for the rest of my time there, studying the behavior of the quillback. They were fairly active foragers, moving around and feeding methodically. I noticed that the focused most of their effort is spots that had a little bit of vegetation or small collections of detritus. They sifted through this stuff, presumably looking for tiny insect larvae and nymphs, their small mouths working much the same way a sucker's or carp's does. I estimated that I'd need quite a small fly to dupe one of them, and tied a size 20 Pheasant Tail onto 6x tipped, with two shot just above it. For a while I tried to present to specific fish, and this didn't work at all. Either they ignored the presentation or I lined them and they spooked. Eventually I got smart and realized that they were so methodical with their feeding pattern that if I dropped the nymph stationary on an algae covered rock or in a pile of detritus, one would eventually make its way to the fly. They weren't feeding in the drift anyway, but on stationary things. So I found a suitable spot near where two were feeding and settled my nymph in a clump of moss green algae and waited. It was probably only three minute before a quillback started rooting around in that clump of algae. I payed close attention to my shot- I couldn't see my fly but I could see the weights -and hoped that if the fish picked up my fly they might move.
My anxiety was high as I watched the fish feed and my shot sit stationary on the bottom. This was one of my most coveted North American fishes; I really, really wanted to catch one of these. My shot never moved though and that individual moved on. I stood there for another five minutes trying not to move my rod too much and dislodge my fly before another moved in. This one seemed to notice the fly and move directly to it. The shot twitched on the bottom and I struck. In retrospect, I hit that fish way too hard. The anticipation had been killing me. The was a bright flash of a brassy color and a momentary sensation of tension, then the fish hurried off and my fly and shot landed in the water behind me with a plop. I slumped my shoulders and groaned. I didn't know if I'd get a better shot than that.
For a while the quillbacks went quiet. They clearly didn't appreciate that disruption. So I decided to present to some redhorse. These fish were in slack water and up in the column. Bad targets, really, I can't recall ever getting suckers that were resting high in the column to eat. But I'll be darned if the first one I sunk a Walt's Worm past didn't immediately move to it and take! As interested in the quillback as I'd been, I'm an absolute redhorse freak. I adore this diverse genus and the crazy challenge of catching them on flies.
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| Lifelist fish #199, Moxostoma erythrurum, golden redhorse. |
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