Jack Attack

 The cook-an-egg-hot Florida sand barely registered beneath my calloused feet as I wandered a mostly vacant beach. As it turns out, an August weekday with a heat index of 118 degrees can provide fair solitude on what might otherwise be busy beaches. I'd surprised myself with how rapidly I adjusted to the conditions, and as with many prior trips to Florida I was routinely being asked the sort of questions that would be asked of a local. My physique didn't hurt the "from here" impression: barefoot with stained khaki shorts and an unbuttoned blue long sleeve, a sling pack, a stripping basket, worn and sun bleached ball cap, 8 weight fly rod in hand, and the ends of my shoulder-length hair blonding from half a season's worth of sun and salt damage. The heat wasn't phasing me, I brushed it off like I do any natural factor. I take some pride in my ability to adapt to different places and conditions. I feel there's a lot to be said for being just as comfortable on a sun bathed strip of southern sand in mid summer as on an icy, dark urban trout river in the depths of January. At least there's merit if you intend to be as versatile an angler as I'd like to be. There's also merit, outside of fishing, to being able to relate to people anywhere you go.

I'd been on the hunt for tarpon for days now. The hope was to encounter balls of bait along the beach being marauded by silver kings, and though I'd seen tarpon there was a distinct lack of minnows to pull them in tight to the beach. The hours and miles covered had jaded me enough that for this excursion I'd left the 12 weight in the car. This beach had produced a couple small snook for me the previous day on the same tide, so I was hoping just to get tight to a favorite species of mine, size irrelevant. And that's how I found myself entirely under-gunned when one of the most remarkable shows I'd ever seen made its way up the beach. 

I'd been working my way north towards a point, picking deeper parts of the trough as I went, when I looked back south and saw absolute melee in progress. large menhaden were being flung as much as eight feet into the air in car-sized whitewater explosions. My jaw about hit the sand and I began jogging in that direction. The attackers were crevalle jacks... huge ones. Suddenly, the Helios in my hand was not the tool for the job at all. It felt like a toothpick. I was quickly tying on the biggest fly in my limited arsenal though, with the chaos rapidly approaching at the same time. As the sounds of death and ravenous consumption became audible the Yak Hair Deceiver entered he fray. It was quickly consumed, followed by about 10 seconds of screeching drag before I thought better of my decisions and buttoned down to let what would have been an unlandable trophy jack break off. I traded the rod for the lens and chased the fish northward, at times just walking, at times at a full on sprint. 

The visuals were incredible. Menhaden beached themselves in a desperate bid to get away from an unescapable death at the hands of one of the fastest and most powerful fish in these waters. The jacks surfed waves over the bar in groups as numerous as 30 or more, then layed siege on the desperate baits in as little as a couple feet of water. Their yellow dorsal fins sliced though the foam in a way that seemed both coordinated and erratic at the same time. 

The fish were so widely spread that at the same time as I had jacks zipping around almost at my feet I could see more over the outer bar and yet more still exploding beyond the breakers. It was a blitz like I'd never seen before, putting any striped bass feed I'd seen to shame in terms of shear ferocity. It was fast too. Before I realized what had happened I was out of breath a solid mile from where I'd started chasing them, watching the fish continue northward. 

In a desperate bid to try to catch up and have a shot at hooking and landing one of these fish, I ran full tilt back to that car, physically spent put pushing myself forward be shear will alone. I threw my gear in the back and tied a large slammer on the 12 weight with my teeth and one hand as I sped north to another access. Even in a vehicle, it was too slow. I had just a couple mediocre shots at stragglers coming down the beach. The whitewater eruptions were just visible a half mile to my north. I'd try to run north again but lost the fish. Ah well, what a show it was while it lasted. These are the moments I live for. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, Oliver, oddity on Display, and Sammy 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.

Quality Bass in Sloppy Weather

I met Andrew at the launch early one morning expecting to have a decent shot at finding some tunny without having to go very far, which would be a good thing considering the impending east wind. The waters would be rough that day and we wouldn't find a darned thing close to our chosen launch. This was particularly disappointing since we did find fish very close to another launch that we could just as easily have used. 

Some days I predict things well, some days I don't. This was one of those days where I could have planned things out much better for us and had us on good sized stripers earlier and longer. But perhaps I should take the fact that we got on them at all as a significant positive. We worked our way steadily west from where we launched, finding clouds of bait that weren't being touched at all, before pulling alongside a mud flat and watching a nice bass smash and adult bunker just 70 feet away. I quickly pulled out the big flies and we went at it. I lost the first fish I hooked, which is a bummer because it was almost certainly in the 40 inch class. We had no time to feel dejected though, because we then had a little window of time where it was a hit every cast, and most of the fish were really good ones. 

There's an old saying: "wind from the east, fish bite least."

On this day that didn't seem to be true. With a howling east wind we had bass cartwheeling over flies for a good little while. I could barely get a white Popovics Beast Fleye in the water before a slot sized bass was on top of it. It was exceptionally good, fast fishing. 

I find that slot sized stripers feeding on or around big bunker are much, much easier to get on the fly than very large bass, which have a perfectly easy time swallowing something far larger than the largest adult menhaden. The slot sized fish, though, have a somewhat tough time getting such a large baitfish in their mouth, so they hoover down a fly a lot more readily than would otherwise be expected from, say, a 40 pounder. 

All good things must come to an end though, and so did this bite window. It ended far earlier than I would have appreciated, frankly. I could do battle with stripers of this size all day long. I was actually using my new White River Fly Shop Heat on this outing, a 7'10" 9wt. It's a cheap fly rod, but currently the only short fly rod on the market that I can afford, and at it's extremely inexpensive price point I'll try anything. Paired with the equally affordable Lamson Liquid and a SA Mastery Titan 10wt line, it's a very lightweight outfit with a good amount of backbone, and frankly it's a hand canon. I'm probably an above average fly caster but having no problem zipping out most of a fly line with a cheap Bass Pro Shops brand fly rod felt a bit wrong. It just proves two points I've known for years: fly setups don't need to be expensive, and fly rods don't need to be 9 feet long to cast well or far. I'm not going to go overboard and call the Heat a great fly rod- it has its flaws. But it's a work horse. I'll be utilizing it quite a bit. 

The ride back, straight up wind, was bumpy. It was worth the ride for those fish though. 

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.

Edited by Cheyenne Terrien

Big Bait, Big Flies, Small Stripers

 This November and December have been highlighted by the largest biomass of adult menhaden I've ever seen locally. They were everywhere: tidal creeks were packed bank to bank, flats had roving schools, and there seemed to be a continuous unbroken line of menhaden from the Connecticut River to City Island. 

One would think that with so much big bait around there'd be loads of predator fish on it.               Nope.                                                                                                                                                       We don't have big stripers and big bluefish anymore, not enough to make something spectacular happen with so much adult bunker. There is definitely such a thing as too much bunkah. Now, if there'd been an equivalent mass of juvenile bunker around that long, there'd have never been no end to the schoolie blitzes. Those bunker are still here, actually, at least those the cold snaps haven't yet killed. I was out this Sunday and had thousands in front of me. There were also many that were dead and dying. It's unfortunate that so many menhaden seem to have gotten stuck in many of the warmer backwaters to die as it just gets colder and colder. The repetitive record breaking warm spells encouraged so many of them to overstay, the ocean temperatures are now colder than the mud flats so there is no escape. 

Oh how I wish those were bluefish tails.

On only two days was I so lucky as to find anything eating the bunker. One day, they were out of range, bass and maybe blues pushing them. I stopped and parked just to watch, I'd seen the blitz from the road. Little did I know I was missing a better show to my East: a couple humpback whales had found a school of bunker and were getting their fill. 

A few days later I returned to the same area and this time found nervous bunker in tighter to the shore. I ran back to the car to gear up, heart pounding. Menhaden are huge baitfish and and usually if bass are on them, they aren't little schoolies. I tied on a long Slammer, but even that wasn't as at all as large as many of these menhaden. 

With the bait so nervous, I was sure I'd soon see some large splashes or boils. Indeed I did, and there were clearly a number of large stripers visibly working the school.

I wanted my fly to stand out and look easy to catch, so I worked it with a very slow steady two hand retrieve and the occasional quick short burst. This drew strikes, but not from the 45 inch bunker filled cows I was hoping for. How sub-20 inch striper thinks a 10 inch long Slammer is small enough to snack on I do not know. I caught a number of them. It was certainly better than nothing, but my hopes for just on big surf bass in the 2020 season were crushed as they had already been many times. 

Regardless, it was very nice to see some stripers on the adult bunker even though it should have been happening much more often this season. Big bait and big predators is a very exciting dynamic for obvious reasons. Hopefully the fishery will return to it's former glory so more anglers can experience such things, myself included. It's up to us to be good stewards of the species as well as the habitat and food sources they require. Stop eating stripers if you still do, don't use fish oil products mad from menhaden oil, and limit your impact by using barbless single hooks and intentionally catching fewer fish than you could.

 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, and Geof for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. 

An Unforgettable Striper Day

There's a lot of things that make a fishing day good, or great, or even one you'll remember forever. There are some days burned into my memory. Though a particularly big fish or rare fish or catching an awful lot of fish sits at the core of most of those memorable days, it's the places, the people I was with*, and the other things I saw that package the day and make it truly remarkable.

*Or sometimes not. May 7th, 2019, is memorable in part because I got to catch a fish I'd worked hard for years for, and not a soul was around at all to see it happen.

November 11th, 2019 ticked off all the boxes.

Photo Courtesy Ian Scott Devlin 

Noah and I rolled up to a little Western CT Cove, where Captain Ian Devlin told me to meet him, and almost immediately spotted gulls frenzying and schoolie bass popping at the surface. Before Ian even rolled up, Noah had landed three fat young stripers. 

But in short order we'd eased out of the cove, and were soon flying south on Ian's 17'6" Lake & Bay Palm Beach, towards waters completely unfamiliar to Noah and I. The weather was glorious, the sort of November day I'm always wishing for but rarely ever get to spend on the shoreline, and this time of year the fish don't care if it's sunny. 

We breezed by a small blitz on the way into the first cove. This was going to be a pass fish to find fish, leave fish to find fish sort of day, because Ian knew we could afford to do what many anglers wouldn't consider, and he was hell bent on showing us as much of his home waters as the short late fall day would allow. And, quite frankly, there were bass basically everywhere we went. There were menhaden too, both the juveniles being flushed out of the backwaters by dropping temperatures and adults milling around un-molested in big schools in some of the coves. I saw more adult bunker this day than the whole rest of the year, with not a big cow bass or gator bluefish on them. That was sad to see, but at least the bait was there at all. And the schoolies? Hahahaha! Thank God for them. 

Photo Courtesy Ian Scott Devlin

With many juvenile Atlantic menhaden's live being ended by gull and striped bass, Ian, Noah and I cast our artificial imitations into the fray and more often than not, came out of it attached to a fat, healthy, hard fighting fish. I may at times say I'm tired of schoolies, but put me in front of a blitz like this and give me a camera or a fly rod and I'll be as happy as I've ever been at any time in my life. 

Bill Dance Style

Ian let my play with a few new toys, prototype rods he's been working on. Ian, along with Mark Sedotti and Steve Rajeff, were responsible for the G. Loomis ShortStix rods. Short rods are very poorly represented in the fly fishing world, and I'm not talking 5'-7'6" light trout rods. Those are plenty well accepted. But short rods well tapered are perfect for saltwater and distance casting applications. The two short prototype rods I got to fish with took a little getting used to but in no time I was getting that big "thunk" at the end of most casts, the sound of the line going taught right to the reel, the sound that means that cast could have gone a lot farther. It'll be exciting to see what comes of these rods in the future.

Photo Courtesy Ian Scott Devlin

Photo Courtesy Ian Scott Devlin

After fishing three pretty typical late fall blitzes in not altogether "odd" looking scenery for Noah and I, we motored up to a big school of bass breaking with tons of gulls against a piece of shoreline that felt more like a lake shoreline than a bit of Long Island Sound. With the the lighting now perfect and the water dark we had ample opportunity to watch most fish take our offering, that is if we were facing the right direction. Gills flared, mouth wide open, fly gone... it doesn't get old. The lighting made for some beautiful photos too.

 

Photo Courtesy Ian Scott Devlin

We got our fill there and moved onto the next spot. Same scene transpiring in front of a different backdrop. This spot would prove to be what I'd hoped for Noah all this fall. See, Noah's personal best striped bass is rather small, and whereas my comfort zone in looking for big striped bass revolves around seeking out big fish specifically, because I've done it successfully especially considering the state of the fishery, putting up two fish hovering just below or at the 20lb mark and one likely over 30 on the fly with precious little experience having not caught a striper more than 10 inches in length until August of 2016. But Noah's much more confident and happy weeding through tons and tons of smaller fish to find one of the larger ones mixed in. That certainly isn't an invalid strategy for breaking his PB, though it definitely isn't the way to catch a really big fish if that's the goal.

We'd each gotten a few fish out of this blitz already when I turned around to see Noah's rod bent double and drag screaming. Soon he had his biggest striper at the boat. 

Shortly thereafter action slowed with slack tide approaching, and we moved on again to where, as Ian put it "the biggest biomass was". That was the truth. 

Ian stuck a pretty good one here, with an adult menhaden adult the gullet and at least one more in the belly, yet still ready to eat an EP baby bunker fly.

His fish had a few followers. Noah and I each hooked one, and the result was a triple header with each fish being from a different year class. We saw a decent range of sizes this day,  all chunky and healthy. It's going to be a lot of fun fly fishing around here if most of these fish make it to maturity. But with the near complete lack of the previously abundant 2011 year class now, it's a bit of a crap shoot.  

Students from three classes we'd all like to see graduate above slot after their respective senior years.

After a little while we again scooted west and found yet another batch of blitzing fish to bother. I was starting to get in an experimental mood and fished a large Slammer hoping to weed out something big, spurred of by Ian's gluttonous fish with the adult bunker in it's throat. I got a few to eat the big fly, two times resulting in visually spectacular boat-side strikes, but it wasn't really working the way I'd hoped. When we moved again, I decided it was time for a Gurgler on the 5wt. With the bass pushing up only a dark shallow mud flat, that proved to be a good move.

 Shallow water, visual eats, and fun battles on the 5wt with low to mid 20" saltwater predators is one of the things I love most in fishing. It was an absolute blast and I stuck with that the rest of the day though I could have caught more and possibly bigger with a different tactic. It was just flat out fun.

Photo Courtesy Ian Scott Devlin

Photo Courtesy Ian Scott Devlin

Eventually we'd basically run out of Long Island Sound, so we turned around and started back east. We hadn't run out of fish though.

Alas the autumn evening light though does not last, and soon we were back at the launch. From 7:00am to 5:00pm we'd fished, and seen a lot in that time. Noah and I saw new water to us, very different water, and lots of it. We'd found and fished blitzes from the start of the day right up until the end. We'd caught a lot of beautiful healthy fish. I got to spend the whole day with two people I care about, fishing, laughing, enjoying some very cool natural phenomena in a beautiful part of the country. Yup, November 11th 2019 was one for the books.

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, john, Elizabeth, Chris, Brandon, and Christopher, for supporting this blog on Patreon.