Thinking About Baitfish and Trout

 I've noticed a general lack of baitfish knowledge among fly anglers in southern New England, and I think it stems from a lack of interest in small fish themselves. This isn't true of everyone, obviously, there are some guys that have a very extensive knowledge of baitfish and how to imitate them. However, rather than being interested in the fish communities present in the trout streams they fish, a lot of fly casters seem to focus on the fish species trout are known to eat. Perhaps the best example is sculpins. Trout love sculpins, right? 

Slimy sculpin

Sculpins are rare in Connecticut. We only have two freshwater sculpin species, native slimy sculpins which are present in a mere handful of notable trout streams, and invasive knobfin sculpin which as of this date are only found in one watershed. Yet I see people fishing large sculpin imitations all over rivers that just flat out don't have sculpins, to trout that have never seen a sculpin or anything like a sculpin. Of course fish are not that smart, so you can still catch a trout on a sculpin even if it has never seen one, but it takes a lot less time for fish to stop reacting positively to a streamer if they see a lot of it but never see the real fish it imitates. 

Moreover, a lot of the flies being used to imitate sculpins are way, way bigger than the vast majority of sculpins found in the water they are being fished. Three inches is a gigantic, rare slimy sculpin in CT. I have never seen one. I only know of one place that routinely produces 2 inchers. Everywhere else they pretty much max out at just a bit over and inch... very small. Think about that when you are pawing through your streamer box. The best sculpin pattern in there probably isn't even a sculpin pattern. A good sculpin pattern for CT, one that actually imitates the fish itself, is going to be tan or light olive, a little bit mottled, slimmer than most commercially available sculpin patterns, and a bit less than 2 inches long. Flies that I like are Domenick Swentosky's Bunny Bullet and Rich Garfield's Sirloin. 

Bluntnose minnow

Notropis sp.

Other than sculpins trout anglers seem to flounder around trying to identify common trout forage. The years of hearing fisherman call fallfish, juvenile suckers, and common shiners "chubs" have made this incredibly clear to me. I believe being able to identify fish is one of the most important skills an angler can have, yet most anglers are shockingly bad at identifying fish. I have my own struggles, but I at least put in an effort. The photo above this paragraph says "Notropis sp." because that's as narrowly as I could identify that fish with the photos I took of it. Notropis are a notoriously difficult genus to identify, and that fish was caught in an area with a few different species. In CT though we have only one species, spottail shiner, and trout do eat them. It is very helpful to know what they are, where they live, and what they look like for some trout fisheries around here.  I consider them a baitfish of notable importance to trout fisherman. In Southern New England there are really not too many species of small stream dwelling fish, so it doesn't take much to learn about each one. 

The species that are of particular importance to trout anglers are the aforementioned slimy sculpin and spottail shiner, as well as tessellated darter, creek chub, fallfish, bluntnose minnow, cutlips minnow, common shiner, white sucker, blacknose dace, longnose dace, alewife, banded killifish, and brook trout. Knowing the range extent, behavior, habitat preference, and what flies imitate these fish will put you a step above the rest. The range and habitat will dictate where you fish their imitations, the behavior will dictate the action and weight of the fly and how your present it. Species like tessellated darter hug the bottom and move along as their name suggests, by darting about with pauses in between. Alewives swim continuously suspended off the bottom in schools and are found in some large lakes or in rivers with access to saltwater. 

This beautiful winter wild brown took a streamer in a crystal clear, mirror surface run on a bluebird day. If you match the forage, it becomes easier to fool difficult trout in less than ideal streamer conditions.

Unfortunately, streamer fishing seems to draw some amount of thoughtlessness. Perhaps that's because it appeals to a more restless sort of angler than other methodologies; the sort of angler that would rather flog the water all day with a massive fly than sit and look at a piece of water for a while and think about the best approach. There's also a contingency of anglers that throw on a streamer as an after thought. The trout aren't rising, nymphing is slow, I'll just throw on a big woolly bugger. That's no more likely to be successful than the previous example.

There are a lot of very good streamer anglers out there too, pushing the limits of both action and imitation. What inspired me to write this post was a cumulative effect of conversations with other anglers and reading some other writings. This certainly isn't all original thought, though I've tried to add my own twist to it. I can give a huge amount of credit to Joe Goodspeed, Domenick Swentosky, Blane Chocklett and others for making me think about this stuff at all. When I started streamer fishing I was chucking Headbanger sculpins and Zoo Cougars in rivers that, well, don't have any sculpins... and Double Decievers in rivers that don't have any broad-bodied baitfish. When I think about it now I realize just how silly that was. It isn't at all surprising that it rarely produced any notable fish. Over time I started to pay attention to the action of my flies, and that was an important step. It wasn't until more recently that I actually started matching my flies to the forage present in each stream I fish, even though I've been mircofishing and studying small freshwater fishes for quite a few years now and knew full well what was present. 

If you ever want help identifying baitfish, always feel free to send pictures and ask. I'll also be setting up an online class either late in the month of February or in early March about common Connecticut trout stream baitfish. I also happily run on long tangents about this sort of thing in the field with clients, so if you want to learn more book a trip and I can really show it to you in practice. There are also tons of other great resources and guides if you don't live in Connecticut or Rhode Island, all it takes is a little bit of digging. 

 

Brood X: Fly Fishing the Magic Cicadas

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. I truly would not be able to keep this going without you wonderful folks!

 Our story begins in the cold, damp, soil of a forest in the Mid Atlantic. In this soil stirs an alien creature with big eyes, monstrous looking legs, and a thick abdomen. He has been in this dirt for most of his life, but that is about to end. Something draws this little alien creature upward, right to the surface, where he then climbs up the nearest tree trunk. He then leaves his subterranean shell in favor of a perhaps even more alien, winged form. This little black, orange, and red bug then flies up into the tree canopy and begins to... scream. He screams as loud as he can. In time he is joined by thousands, then millions of his own brethren, creating a deafening chorus. 

These little creatures are periodical cicadas (also known as magic cicadas), and they do this every 17 years. They are not all the same species. Three different cicada species make up Brood X, which emerged to breed, lay eggs, and then die this spring throughout large parts of the Mid Atlantic and Midwest. The event is a special one that would be interesting even if the bugs didn't end up creating some very unique fishing. Towards the end of the show I made my way south, seeking the cicadas and everything else occurring in the wake of their chaotic emergence. I'd been fascinated by periodical cicadas long before I'd ever picked up a fly rod, and this was to be a very exciting trip for one totally obsessed nature nerd.

I made it a substantial distance into Maryland before I encountered the first periodical cicadas. Near the town of Thurmont I began to see cicadas flying around. I stopped and found a bunch of dead ones in a parking lot. It was a cold morning, a lot chillier than the cicadas seemed to prefer, so I wasn't yet hearing their trademark singing.

I wandered around for a while before I found both a huge number of cicadas and fish actively feeding on them. I was on a river I'd fished years ago but a part of it I hadn't visited back then. There was a substantial clay bank with overhanging trees creating shade at a bend. The current was lazy and the surface slick. Fish were sporadically rising to cicadas drifting down the river. 

Some of the bugs struggled, flailing on the surface and buzzing in an agonizing sort of way. Some just succumbed and floated unmoving. Not every cicada was eaten by a fish, but there wasn't much pattern to the feeding. Sometimes a flailing bug was the target, sometimes a still one. At times cicadas floated through unmolested for five minutes, maybe more. At other points not a single one made it past the catfish and bass that were in there. 

Catching these fish wasn't as easy as I would have liked. Precise drifts and long casts in tight quarters were necessary. Hooking the catfish also took some experience I didn't yet have- how often can you find channel cats free-rising for insects to practice on? It certainly isn't their most common feeding behavior. I missed many, but caught plenty as well. Catfish on dry flies... this was exactly the sort of thing I'd made the drive for. 

The smallmouth present in the spot weren't quite as gung-ho about the cicadas as the catfish, which may have been because the were smaller and were already about to pop; they were so full of bugs they all looked like little footballs. 

After seemingly depleting that source of active fish, I decided to explore a small tributary nearby to see if it might harbor some species I'd not yet caught. Just up from the mouth was a chub mound occupied by a pair of average sized river chubs, a species I'd first caught last summer in western Pennsylvania. I didn't have real micro fishing gear with me, so wasn't equipped to catch the dace and darters that were around the mound. 

I continued upstream hoping to encounter some mounds with other species, or perhaps fish schooled in a deep pool. I found both. In fact, a lot of fish were on mounds in this little creek. Most were river chubs, with a few super colorful common shiners mixed in. I was having a hard time catching anything but did eventually get a fairly run-of-the-mill small river chub. Since that isn't a species we have in Connecticut, it was cool to catch one again. 

All the while, the cicadas were screaming in the tree canopy. It was loud and constant, and would soon follow me even when there were no cicadas singing around me. 

I eventually found another chub mound loaded with fish and began working it. I caught a small river chub, then the largest and most unusual looking fish in the school took my nymph. A gnarly looking male of whose identity I wasn't sure of at the time came to hand. I now know it was a Central stoneroller, a quite trick species to catch on hook and line let alone on the fly, and a new species for me. My 180th life list fish was a totally unexpected one!

Lifelist fish #180, Central stoneroller, Campostoma anomalum. Rank: Species

With a satisfying and surprise lifer out of the way, I continued on my quest for fish chowing on periodical cicadas. Now I was looking for carp. It would prove to be a very rewarding challenge. 

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.

A Creek Chub Anomaly

 Though creek chubs are considered native to Connecticut, their distribution within the state is patchy. The area within close proximity of my home is a bit of a hole in the patchwork distribution, but I get surprised every now and then. Five years ago I caught a large creek chub in a brook trout stream I frequent, only 5 miles from my house. It sticks in memory because it was not only the first creek chub I'd caught in that stream, but in that entire watershed. And it remained the only one I'd caught out of that watershed until very recently. 

It was a bright not-yet-spring-but-getting-there type of day. I was further down the watershed than I'd been when I caught that one-off creek chub, looking for brook trout. The stream is one that had an abrupt rebound when the state stopped stocking it. Retired DEEP biologist Neil Hagstrom had expressed interest in the stream, and I confirmed his suspicions: I'd caught no wild salmonids of any kind before stocking ceased, but three years later the native char had taken hold again. It is now being stocked again, and frankly that's just stupid. I didn't catch a single fish there on this visit. 

It wasn't until I walked up a tiny, unnamed tributary that I even saw a fish. In a quiet culvert pool, a dozen or so small minnows darted about, feeding in the gravel and detritus. I could tell they were Semotulis, but I couldn't tell if they were atromaculatus (creek chub) or, more likely, corporalis (fallfish). Fallfish are far more abundant in the watershed though not numerous in the tiny tributaries. They did appear to have a distinct lateral line, but so do small fallfish. I assumed they'd eat my nymph and give me a real chance to see them up close, and luckily they did. I could tell before I even got the first to hand that it was indeed a creek chub.

I ended up catching four more, ascending in size. Given the amount of time I've fished this area and how thoroughly, this was a big deal to me. It isn't a frequent occurrence for me, these days, to find a species that I don't expect to so close to home.

To most this would seem entirely uninteresting. Of course even anglers that have fished for 30 years often could care less to know the difference between a creek chub and a fallfish, both often lumped in as the same fish. To me, though, this was such a surprising and exciting find. Anything at all that increases my understanding of local waterways is welcomed knowledge and until this point I'd just assumed there weren't creek chubs in that area. Now that I know they are present I'd like to see if there is any abundance to that population outside of the little culvert pool. And of course I want to catch a really big one, though this isn't the place to do it. 

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. 

Edited by Cheyenne Terrien

Allegheny Micros (Western Pennsylvania Pt. 2)

 I stood on a huge boulder looking out over the Allegheny River. The water was strikingly clear, but also held that classic blue-green color that I see all over in Pennsylvania, but rarely ever here in Connecticut. It comes from the sedimentary geology. Limestone, sandstone, shale... that's what makes up much of Pennsylvania's bedrock. In Connecticut, we have schist, gneiss, granite, traprock, and brownstone. Different rock, different minerals, different colored water. 

Swimming in this water were fishes I may well have seen as a child, but I was looking at them now with new eyes. I knew at least loosely what I was looking at. Moxostoma, Notropis, Semotilus, Micropterus... latin names came to mind, not simply "suckers" or "minnows" or "bass". I didn't know the exact species of every fish I was looking at, but I was equipped to find out, and that was just so damned exciting.

I'd lived in this place a nature-curious kid until I was 8, now at 23 I was here with the same excitement, joy, and curiosity, but with new eyes and new tools and a lot more experience. So I hopped down with fly rod in hand, ready to tackle whatever the Allegheny was going to throw my way. At the moment, targeting micros seemed the best way to learn what was in these waters. I could see redhorse, quillback, and gigantic smallmouth, but those fish were extremely unwilling. The smaller cyprinids were ready to attack, but still difficult to hook and then keep hooked. Inevitably, the first was a Cyprinella which are a royal pain to identify. Unfortunately, careful examination showed it to be a spotfin shiner, the only Cyprinella I've caught yet. 

Cyprinella spiloptera

The next fish was something very clearly new. It was a chub, one I didn't recognize. Noah got one as well. Some research on my phone resulted in the determination that these were river chubs. My 166th life list fish and my first lifer from these waters of my childhood.

Nocomis micropogon, river chub. Lifelist fish #166, Rank: Species 

A short time later I caught one of the many small Notropis in front of me. I wasn't certain, but I thought it was an emerald shiner. Fellow multispecies angler Tim Aldridge later confirmed suspicions I'd gotten after a little research, this was actually a silver shiner. My 167th lifer. 

Notropis photogenis, silver shiner. Lifelist fish #167. 

After seemingly exhausting our options at this spot at this time of day, we moved again. This time, we stopped at a spot I did remember a little bit. It was a small tributary of the Allegheny that flowed under a bike trail my mother often took me too. Again, this was a place I'd never fished. And again, I was quickly gratified with a species I have no doubt I'd seen as a kid, but knew very little about until recently. As it turns out, Northern hogsuckers are quite abundant in Western Pennsylvania, and we'd see them all over the Allegheny and other watersheds. My first was a juvenile that took a tanago midge after methodically presenting it to each fish in the school repeatedly. Some attacked the split shot, most either did nothing or spooked, but this one did eat the tanago. And what a beautiful little lifer this was! I'd love to catch a large adult so this certainly won't be the last time I target northern hogsuckers. 

Hypentelium nigricans, Northern hogsucker. Lifelist fish #168

In a short time the Allegheny had served up three new species, two were fish I'd noted, seen prior, researched a little, and knew I wanted to catch. One (the silver shiner) was a fish I new basically nothing about then but know a little about now. And look at all three new species and the spotfin shiner together... what a beautifully diverse little group! These are all fish that would be lumped under the heading "bait" by the hoards of online idiots, which remains the most annoying and stupid comment on posts asking for fish identification help. But to Noah, Jake and I, the diversity of these fishes makes them worthy of our time and respect. Fish are fascinating at any size or stage of life. Ironically we also happened to be in a part of the country were the understanding of fish diversity is especially lacking, and it shows in the fact that I, as a nature obsessed kid, new nothing of any of these species at all when I was living there. Nobody around could tell me exactly what I was looking at. Little did I know just how diverse these waters actually are. 

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.

Memories (Western Pennsylvania Pt. 1)

We were going to Ohio. We had a fool proof plan to get on loads of new species around Cincinnati, with a local friend, Jake, as our guide and a good few days at our disposal. Then Covid, or more accurately Connecticut's policies regarding Covid, threw a monkey wrench in the gears. I double checked state listings while we were en-route and Ohio had been added to the list of CT's travel advisory states. I couldn't justify quarantining for 14 days upon returning home. I had things to do. As did Noah. The trip came to a screeching halt outside of DuBois, Pennsylvania as we tried to figure out what to do now.

If there's one thing that Noah and I are good at it's on the fly adjustments. In no time, we had a plan B. Jake started to get ready to drive out to meet us, and we changed our destination to the town I was born in and where I lived until I was eight years old: Franklin, Pennsylvania. 

For me, this trip had suddenly turned into a homecoming, an exploration of water I could be living near had my life followed just a slightly different course, waters I spent my early childhood around, but none of which I fished, or at least remember fishing. The middle Allegheny watershed also happens to be some of the most fish-diverse freshwater in the country, so although we wouldn't have a local guide that knew the ins and outs of the fishery as Jake knows his area, lifers were assured for all three of us. But for the first few hours it was up to Noah and I to do some scouting before Jake got there.

We drove through the bucolic upland areas of northwestern PA before steadily dropping in elevation, following the watercourse of a small tributary of the Allegheny. When it made a more abrupt drop in elevation, the road turned to dirt and we followed it to a pull off. Though I'd been here many times before I didn't quite recognize it. It was the same place but time had altered my memory. We then walked down a trail that was steeper than I remembered, past an old stone furnace that was smaller than I remembered, to as stream that was narrower than I remembered. There, I flipped slab rocks that were smaller and lighter than I remembered and found fewer and smaller salamanders under than than I remembered. That, I'm confident, was the only thing that really had changed. My memory of the quantity of sleek black salamanders that would dart out from under those stones is so vivid. Is it coincidental that my most vivid memories from early childhood are of amphibians, reptiles, fish, and insects? I think not.

Northern dusky salamander (I think?)

One thing I knew was that I'd never fished this place, but we were about to. At a glance it looked almost completely lifeless. It wasn't exactly brimming with minnows and dace like some streams, and it took some really close inspection before fish revealed themselves. Actually it took Noah one cast with a jig for a brown trout to come flying out from under a big sandstone slab. It didn't connect but now we knew they were there. And eventually we found a large hole with some chubs in it as well. Unfortunately, they weren't a new species, but the creek chubs we'd caught plenty of other places before.

Semotilus atromaculatus

As Noah continued to fish a tungsten ice jig, which revealed that not only were there trout in this stream but a few quite large ones, I decided to hone my focus on the shallow tailouts, the sort of water darters and sculpins love.

It took some legitimate patience but eventually I found some sculpins. They were tiny, and if I could catch one it would be in the running for the smallest fish I'd ever caught. It took extremely minute adjustments, but I managed to get two to eat a tanago midge and caught the second. It looked tome to be a slimy sculpin, a species I'd already caught in CT. This may indeed be the smallest fish I've caught on hook and line at much less than an inch in length. Absurd though it may seem to many of you, I'm very proud of this. 

Noah then finally connected with one of the wild browns he'd been dueling with. I rushed up to see it and I'm glad I did. I can't believe, all those years ago, I'd had no idea there were fish like this in this little creek. 

We headed back up the trail, not un-pleased as we'd just found a spot Jake would likely get this lifer brown trout in. I was just in a very strangest mindset at that time. This was the first time in my life I was going back somewhere that had been such a big part of my life after such a long time away. It was surreal. I was looking forward to seeing more of the places I remembered, but was also oddly apprehensive. 

 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.