Multispecies Fishing in an Old Maine Harbor

Maine's old harbors can hold an abundance of fish, though in my experience they at time hide themselves very well. Despite absurdly clear water, bergalls, pollock, sculpins and mackerel often hide themselves quite well. Sometimes it takes dropping down a bait, lure, or fly to determine if there are in fact fish present. Then the shapes materialize from them depths and the excitement begins... sometimes. Noah and I struggled the first time we went to Maine. Finding fish turned out more trick than we'd anticipated. A few trips down the line though I've learned a bit and have started to get a bit better at consistently finding something to catch in Maine harbors.

A couple weeks ago I went to Maine with my field herping friend, Bruce, to look for snakes. We found plenty, enough so that by the end of the last day we were satisfied enough to spend hour last hour or so at the ferry dock seeing what swam these water in mid September. We'd already seen some mackerel surface feeds earlier that morning, and there were some on the surface just opposite the dock. What was present at the dock in abundance was large bergalls. It didn't take me long to catch a few of these. 

These were moody bergalls though, and after a little while they became much more shy to the fly. Not being a snob has its perk and I had no qualms chunking up the next bergall I caught and using it as both chum and bait. This, unsurprisingly, resulted in a feeding frenzy that not only got the bergalls fired up but drew in some pollock and mackerel too. Soon I had what one might call a Maine Harbor slam, a few of each species on both bait and fly. I was using the 1wt, of course, and the fights were tremendous. It was a great way to round out a successful trip. 

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.

1wt Hickory Shad

 Some days I don't find quite what I set out looking for... many days, frankly. I spend a lot of exploring new water, or fishing familiar water at new times and in new conditions. I have to do this to stay on top of things. I'm trying to have a running schedule of what goes on everywhere I fish throughout the year. One evening a little while back I was looking for bonito. I was not finding said bonito though, and there weren't really bass around to pick up the slack. I did have my 1wt with me though, and that provided me an opportunity to do something a bit different when I found a school of peanuts being disturbed by hickory shad late in the day.

It seems to be a bit easier to get hickory shad feeding on very dense peanut schools than it is to get schoolie bass. If the Triple P is off, hickories are your friend. Sinking a fly under the peanuts and fishing the periphery is effective, and it doesn't seem that matching the profile of the peanuts matters at all. 

I could have just used my 5wt again, but I wanted to really test the 1wt. Anyone that has caught these shad knows they fight pretty well for their size. I figured the little rod had just enough backbone to land fish without killing them. I was right, I had no problem adequately fighting these fish. It was certainly more fun though. I have an old Ocean City reel on that rod right now and the drag is really loud. So far though I hadn't had the chance to hook a big enough fish to really make it scream. The hickories did just that. It was awesome. 

Of course, hickory shad are a delicate fish compared to most. If you aren't prepared to give them everything you've got on such light tackle, or to take them home with you, don't use a 1wt. If you utilize the strategies I highlighted in my recent fish fighting post though you'll have no problem safely catching and releasing shad on a 1 to 3wt fly rod and 4x. 

As the sky darkened more and more I realized I had to slow down my retrieve until I was hardly moving the fly at all. Most of the fish ate it as it sunk. I'd make a cast, let the fly fall, and suddenly I'd be tight. I didn't need to set the hook, the fish did it for me. Eventually though the feeding diminished too much and the bite was over. It sure was fun while it lasted, and far better than giving up after failing to find the bonito.

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.

Chesapeake Bay Multispecies Fly Fishing

 Noah and I did an eel pickup down in Maryland a little while back. It was a one stop shop and we had a fair time window before the scheduled pickup, so we of course decided to fish first. Noah had already fished the area on previous pickup trips, so he had a pretty good idea of where we should fish. He'd caught spot, white perch, and some exceptionally tiny striped bass previously but we hoped to add Atlantic croaker and some other species to that list. 

We awoke in muggy conditions at our hotel and drove to the area we'd fish in darkness. Upon arrival, there were vague signs of false dawn but it was mostly still dark. The little public fishing dock we'd found had a light on it that was attracting some needlefish, which proved too finicky for us to catch. It took a while before we were actually catching anything. The spot croaker came along first and they were a lifer for me. 

Lifelist fish #181: Spot croaker, Leiostomus xanthurus. Rank: Species

I was using the 1wt, and on such light fly gear that little spot was a fun scrap. I was essentially nymphing, using BHHESH and bouncing along the pilings. Sometimes I'd make short casts and figure eight retrieve. Both strategies worked fine. As the sun rose the action picked up a bit.

Working long the bulkead towards the exit of what appeared to be an old boat basin I caught something different. It was clearly another small drum of some sort and certainly a new species but for a while we weren't sure what it was. Noah did a bit of research on the way out and determined that these were American silver perch. 

Lifelist fish #182: American silver perch, Bairdiella chrysoura. Rank: Species

As things progressed we got more spot, more silver perch, and soon some extremely tiny striped bass and some pumpkinseeds as well. The water in this part of the Chesapeake was just fresh enough that there were a few sunfish kicking around. Catching them adjacent to the other species would seem stranger to me had I not already experienced catching bluefish, stripers, pumpkinseeds, and common carp on the same day in the same estuary in CT. The tininess of the stripers was to be expected, since the Chesapeake is the most important spawning ground for striped bass on the East Coast. Unfortunately it is also one of the most environmentally damaged waters I have ever seen. The Chesapeake is being killed from pesticides and nutrient runoff at an alarming rate. It is also being severely over-fished. It's unfortunate that this is far too often ignored as a part of the equation in the decline of striped bass stocks, especially when you talk to fisherman. 

After a little while we decided to move just a little bit south to see if we could find something different. Indeed we did, under a bridge not far away. Tiny bass were blitzing on silversides and juvenile spot in the shadow of a bridge. We began hammering them, as well as the white perch that the were schooled up with. 

It was fast fishing that kept my 1wt bent and the little click and pawl reel singing, and in time I also discovered that there were quite a few spot hanging around as well. I actually caught them by indicator nymphing. I employed this tactic in salt water in Florida to great affect last March, and indicator fishing in saltwater is something I intend to delve deeper into soon. Float fishing saltwater isn't non-existent but it isn't common either, and using an indicator while saltwater fly fishing is even less frequently done. The possibilities interest me. 

Noah was fishing a small soft plastic on a jig and mostly catching schoolies and white perch. Lots of them, actually. They were pretty fired up. I kept with my nymphs, but switched up when Noah caught something that surprised us both- a speckled trout! Speckled trout aren't unheard of in the Chesapeake but it was pretty far from my mind when considering likely species in the are we were fishing. It was a tiny little thing, but any speckled trout is a speckled trout and it would be a lifer for me. I up-sized a bit and after more of the same old same old, I eventually and pulled up a baby trout! I'd missed so many opportunities to catch this pretty, toothy drum species in Florida. I honestly didn't think for a second my first speckled trout would come from Maryland. 

Lifelist fish #183: Spotted seatrout, Cynoscion nebulosus. Rank: Species.

None of these fish were big. None of them were rare either. They were definitely all fun on the 1wt though. It's unfortunate that the Chesapeake Bay is in such a bad way. If its possible to have this much fun there now, I can't even imagine how good it was years ago. Like the Everglades and so many other places, we have lost so much and continue to lose so much more. 

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.

Jetty Cunners

 Bergalls or cunners are a very common wrasse along the New England coastline. I've heard them called a number of inaccurate names. They are sometimes misidentified as baby tautog. On Cape Cod I once heard them called rock bass, by a tourist using crickets in the Cape Cod Canal... I kid you not. So, as wide spread as bergalls are they aren't the most well known fish in the world. They're generally small and uninteresting to most anglers.

I, of course, am not most anglers. Bergalls don't obsess me or anything like that, but I definitely enjoy catching wrasse and bergalls are often the most available wrasse species in the Northeast. It also seems that the further north you go the bigger they get, with Main and Massachusetts producing some of the largest I've seen. Somehow that's usually not what I encounter, but I still find some big enough to eat a fly. 

On our way back towards home on the Maine trip, Cheyenne and I briefly stopped in Rockland. My hope was to perhaps catch a handful of mackerel there, but the water seemed a bit too warm and the tide too low. There were, of course, plenty of bergalls around. 

Sometimes bergalls are pretty unwilling to eat an artificial fly. Their moods aren't predictable either, there's no sure fire way I've found to know if you'll be able convince them to take. You just have to find some, put flies in front of them, and hope they're interested. Small nymphs are my primary fl for these little guys and the 1wt glass rod is the perfect delivery system. This was the first time I'd gotten to use the one weight on bergalls and it was pretty darn fun!

This was a situation where sight fishing was necessary. I couldn't feel the takes at all, so being able to pick out my fly six or more feet down through a background of irregularly colored aquatic plants and rocks was imperative. It was not easy at all, but I managed to make it work. Of course the result was just tiny little wrasse, but if your tackle is well chosen there's no reason fish like this can't be fun. And some days you just have to accept that you are probably catching jetty cunners or nothing at all. 

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.

Local Brook Trout

 Some days I don't really have the time to go much of anywhere. Luckily, I can damn near throw a rock to good fishing where I currently live. One day in late July I was waiting for my boss and his driver to get back from Virginia with a load of eels. While waiting for the call to come help offload, I went and fished local spots. The first few were too high for what I was looking for (redfin pickerel) so I ended up going after brook trout. This has been a reasonably tolerable summer for brook trout around here, especially now that the rain has slowed a bit. Summer runoff is warm, so though the rain was nice it did boost stream temperatures a bit. As the runoff has given way to spring flows, the water temperature has dropped right along with the flow. By the time I payed my visit to one of the better local streams the water temperature was an even 60 degrees.

I was armed with my Brackish Flies 1wt glass rod and only the flies already on the brim of my hat, of which a BHHESH made it on to my tippet. Little else is necessary, and in the plunge pool below the waterfall a good number of healthy char were fooled.

The above photos are of the same fish. I felt showing the color differences in different lighting would be interesting, and all I needed to do was turn slightly. Most of the fish were that size or smaller, but just before I was about to leave I hooked something more substantial. A wonderfully sized wild brook trout churned the surface of the pool to a froth while putting a deep bend in the rod. This ended up being one of the nicest brook trout I'd ever caught out of this particular stream.

It's nice that I don't need to go far to catch trophy fish, and that brookie certainly was one. Really, that's the case in most places. Try to seek out the trophies right under our own nose. I bet anything they're there. 

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, 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. 

Vibrant Sunfish & Bass on a 1 Weight Fly Rod

 Geoff Klane of Brackish Flies had been trying to get a rod built for me for a long while now. I was looking for something very specific and very uncommon: a 1 wt fiberglass rod. Eventually the right blank came along and Geoff was able to build me a very special rod that I could still afford. What resulted is unquestionably the most beautiful stick in my arsenal. He did a phenomenal job on it. I went out to the Cape to pick it up from him and got to spend a little bit of time casting for sea run brook trout with it. I moved a couple but didn’t connect. It wasn’t until a few days later that I’d really get to put the new rod to use. I visited a small park pond with some particularly pretty pumpkinseeds. 

Bluegill x pumpkinseed hybrid.

Pumpkinseeds are the predominant stillwater native sunfish in the Northeast, and a very underappreciated species. Everyone waxes poetic about the beauty of brook trout, but in my opinion pumpkinseeds give them a run for their money for looks. With a white and red edged dark “ear”, shades of aquamarine, orange, red, and green across their face and flanks, and fabulously ornate fins, pumpkinseeds are a spectacular animal to look at. They are often very aggressive, and I had no problem finding them in this little pond between the bluegills. More than a dozen strikingly colorful fish put a bend in the new rod. 

I also found a non-native species, largemouth bass, in the early stages of spawning. The small males were especially willing and put up an exceptional fight on the light fiberglass rod. A couple actually peeled drag. Some of them were quite lovely too- there's definitely something appealing about the shades of green and live on their sides. There are certainly some large ones in this pond, but pressured as it is they are very difficult to fool. Maybe I’ll return soon to try catching one of those old fish. For the time being the colorful and willing pumpkinseeds were very satisfying. They were exactly the sort of thing I wanted a glass 1 wt fly rod for. 

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, 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.