Small Ponds in the Summer

 Walking the edge of a small body of water on a warm July morning brings forth a sense of nostalgia in me that many other fly fishers are probably just as familiar with. Many of us cut our teeth on small farm and park ponds, casting foam beetles and ants at bluegills, crappie, and largemouth bass. It's simple fishing, very simple. There isn't anything difficult about it at all. It's just fun- fly fishing in its most basic form.

Though this used to make up the bulk of my warm-water fishing and I still do a lot of it, it has changed from being all I could do because I was limited to waters within walking and biking distance from home to something I do when my time is too limited. Such was the case last week, on a day I had to run around to a couple tackle shops to re-stock necessities. I had very little time between finishing those tasks and the day simply becoming too hot to fish, so I made a quick stop at a pond on the way home. The pond was one I used to walk to from where my Dad lived at the time. It has always been loaded with bluegills and crappie. It also has one large koi and a few pretty big bass. However this time I was just interested in getting a few panfish before the interior of my 4Runner was hotter than the surface of the sun. I fished a muddler, which is of course a tremendously effective fly for many purposes. With a dozen fish to hand I was soon satisfied and ready to head home. 

Of course, small ponds like this often hold a few very large, educated fish. I once caught a 6 pound largemouth out of this particular pond, and of course there's that big old koi. Aside from convenience and nostalgia there is still plenty of reasons to fish places like this. But I'll happily take a few bluegills and crappie and be perfectly satisfied too. 

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

Giant Spring Crappie

 One of my favorite species to target is black crappie. I particularly like catching really big black crappie, larger than 14 inches. Spring and Fall are definitely the best times to try to get those slabs, and for my money Spring is the more likely of the two to produce true giants. On bigger water where I have shore access and know big crappies are present, I focus on the northern end- especially wherever muddy bottom is present -and I fish the hour after sunset. Big, egg laden female crappies and smaller males concentrate themselves in these areas prior to spawning and feed most heavily late in the day. 

I've put a fair bit of time into giant crappies this spring. I wouldn't say I've been wildly successful, but I've certainly caught quite a few good fish. Most evenings only produced a few crappies but when each of them is well over a foot long, well, that's not too shabby. 

The trickiest thing about catching big crappies on the fly after finding a place that has them is detecting strikes. Sometimes they slam flies aggressively, but more often than not the take isn't that obvious. Usually I perform something like a Leisenring Lift when crappie fishing, because the sag of the line allows me to see when a fish has interrupted my fly. When I can't see the line the same presentation still works because the rod tip is moving continuously. When a fish takes I usually feel sudden light tension, set the hook low to the side and usually the game is one. Of course these are crappie, so the game usually doesn't last that long. I had a couple giant crappie this spring perform uncharacteristically hard fights. One jumped like a smallmouth, another performed a blistering run in shallow water. Clearly they can't all be said to come in like a wet sock. 

With about dozen big crappies to hand close to home, I soon started to get curious about some other areas. Big panfish fever had set in. I want big everything. Bluegills, pumpkinseeds, redbreast sunfish, perch, rock bass, golden shiners... this spring m focus has been and will continue to be focusing on getting trophy specimens of each species I target. 

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. 

Just One Slab: Ice Fishing Big Crappie

One notably unpleasant day in February, Rick invited me for a run up to Massachusetts to fish a well known crappie and perch hot spot. A gusting Northwest wind would prevent comfort out in the open, so it was a really good thing Rick had both shelter and a portable heater. We set out, brimming with confidence and some idea of what to expect since Rick had just fished the spot a few days prior. 

Trophy panfish seems like an oxymoron to some fishermen. I’ve met a few folks that turn up their noses to bluegill, crappie and perch entirely. This runs contrary to my own opinions of those species. Panfish, large ones in particular, are something I borderline obsess over. That’s why it’s fun to fish with Rick, he will never shy away from a good panfish bite. Having ice fished for them all over the northeast for many years, he also has far more experience than I and I value the knowledge I’ve been able to pick up from him. Still, neither of us is good enough to catch every time we go out though, still. And that’s part of what keeps panfishing exciting. It isn’t as simple as just going out and jigging on a body of water that holds the species. 

On this day we never fully got a grasp on the bite. There were fish under us sporadically throughout the afternoon and evening and we were able to get bites sometimes. However, they were not, for the most part, the sort of bites we were looking for. Most of the fish caught were small sunfish, perch, and spottail shiners. After spending a while at the first set of holes we moved over just a short distance. Immediately we had marks under us and promptly each caught a crappie. Mine was a slab. It wasn’t as big as we were really hoping for at 12 inches and change, but it had shoulders and was certainly a good fish. 

We thought it was on, but we didn’t get another crappie all evening. From right around sunset on we even had loads of big marks beneath us, a huge school of fish. We could sporadically get them to follow but they seemed to have no interest at all in eating anything we tried to feed them. We can’t be sure what species these were since we didn’t catch one, but it certainly was befuddling. This is exactly what keeps fishing engaging for anglers like Rick and I: we want to either figure out how to catch these fish or figure out how to know when it isn’t possible. One fish, a pretty good one, made the trip, but it was those that we could see on the flasher but failed to fool that made me want to figure this spot out. 

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, and Luke 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. 

Spillway Multispecies Fishing

 Spillway holes in Connecticut are sporadically productive. It seems that throughout the Midwest, most spillways hold fish well through the winter, but in New England only a small percentage do. It has taken me quite a few years to find some that do hold bass, panfish, suckers, and shiners year round. To make things more complex, some of the spillways only appear to hold fish some years, regardless of conditions. I wish I could say visiting any spillway hole that isn’t frozen is a sure bet for some fish, but that’s definitely not the case in Connecticut. Fortunately I have a couple ringers, and when I’m not in the mood for holdover stripers, trout, or ice fishing, they are there to save my sanity. 

The thought process behind looking for fish in spillway holes in the winter is pretty simple. When the water temperature drops in smaller streams and rivers, the deepest, slowest pools offer the best refuge for warm-water species. Spillway holes are often deep and slow and some have slack or near slack water as well. The thermocline of the lake or pond above also plays a role if the dam isn’t exclusively releasing surface water. In the winter, the water at the bottom of the lake is typically warmer. In essence, the best winter spillways are micro-tailwaters. I know one such micro tailwater in Connecticut and a few top spill dams that hold panfish, bass, and golden shiners at least most winters. 

Noah and I visited one such spillway on a mild day in mid January and found plenty of fish there but didn’t catch much. A few days later I went back on my own. I was in the mood to catch anything that wasn’t a trout, but I was particularly hopeful to get at least one nice golden shiner. I would fish a very small indicator and a size 14 Walt’s Worm. Like a float n’ fly in the late fall or early spring on a pond or the jigging through the ice, an indicator and tiny nymph is subtle enough not to disturb the fish and slow enough they don’t have to move much to eat. The indicator is key, the fly needs to suspend. There is rarely enough current to dead drift a fly in the column without an indicator.

Initially it was sluggish. I could see some very small white suckers flashing but I wasn’t getting takes. It turns out many of the bluegills and crappies were all just jammed into a very small area of less than three square feet. As soon as I began casting to a specific part of the pool, it was a fish almost every cast. Bluegills dominated, though there were a couple very small crappies mixed in. 

I kept going beyond the point where the bite seemed to die hoping for just one golden shiner. I was still getting the occasional take but not many after fish 23. I crept up on number 30 with 7 more bluegills in half an hour. My 30th fish was a golden shiner! It seems 30 is a number of significance when it comes to panfishing in particular. This is something Noah noticed first. If you want to catch something unusual or bigger, one in 30 fish will be something atypical. Sure, it’s not a law, but it seems pretty darn consistent. 

With my golden shiner acquired I decided to head to another dam to see if it was fishing well at all. This one had been sporadic for me but at least usually holds trout. Sure enough, that’s all I caught -stocked trout. One was a tiger. I can’t seem to escape those buggers. A little bummed that there weren’t any wild fish of any kind willing to eat and losing my light anyway, I headed home. My spillway adventures are not done yet this winter 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, and Geof 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

Catch The Lake

 I am not a "numbers guy" particularly, when it comes to fishing. I routinely seek quality over quantity, be it in my trout fishing; often head hunting or streamer fishing rather than nymphing or fishing a dry dropper; or my striper fishing which especially in the spring revolves around forgoing the massive amounts of schoolies in favor of a shot at 35 inch fish or bigger. I'm ate up with Atlantic salmon and sea run brown trout... if that isn't a quality over quantity game I don't know what is. But that doesn't mean I don't also love to catch an excessive amount of fish sometimes. Conveniently, quantity is also occasionally the avenue to quality. One such occasion sets up on my home lake in the fall. It can still be very possible to catch big bass on the reefs, ledges, and points in the fall, but sometimes the best move is just to go where the biomass is. On this lake, finding the biomass means finding the white perch.

One day this fall Noah and I were having a hell of a bad time on our typical bass spots. After a bit we opted to start hitting areas we knew would be loaded with perch. It was a consolation option, we thought, forgetting that both of us have often caught larger fish; be it bass, walleye, or pickerel while on top of the white perch biomass. 

The first spot we fished didn't produce anything but white perch. After the first few we decided to start keeping. White perch are both delicious and, in CT's landlocked waters, a destructive invasive. While our native tidal anadromous populations are in sorry shape, our landlocked introduced white perch are excessively overpopulated. As such we had no qualms about killing a whole bunch, and soon decided to fill the boat. There is no limit on white perch in non-tidal water in CT, since they are introduced fish, easily overpopulate, and not considered a game species. So we were going to fill the boat. It wouldn't even put notable dent in this lake's numbers, as much as we wish we could. 

After running dry at the first location we wandered a bit before deciding to head over to a spot where Noah had found another pile of perch a week prior. They were still there and we started really hammering them. We were both fishing pretty simple, light presentations. I was running simple streamers tied on 1/32oz Eurotackle tungsten jigs, on two rods: one with an indicator, which I set down and dead sticked, and one that I actively cast and figure eight retrieved. Sometimes I was doubling up and fighting fish on both rods simultaneously. Noah was fishing jigs with strait tail soft plastics. We were really putting a beat down on these fish. It was a lot of fun. 

Then, suddenly, I hooked something that felt different and bigger. From the dark green water a monster black crappie rose up into view. Moments later, Noah hooked one of his own. Finding the biomass had just proven it's worth in locating trophy fish.

We continued the perch slay fest but it wasn't all that longer before I was into another quality fish, this time a smallmouth which put up a hell of a nail biting battle before we got it in the net. This was exactly the sort of fish we'd been hoping for this day. 

As the sun began to near the horizon, we made way to the boat ramp with a literal boat load of white perch, a few yellows, and two trophy crappies and one smallmouth released. In not long we'd be doing the dirty work of cleaning more than 100 white perch so they were freezer-ready. 

Sometimes finding big fish means forgoing small ones, but sometimes it pays to catch the lake looking for big fish... even if most of the lake is 8 inch white perch. There are often big fish wherever the biggest biomass is. 

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, and Franky for supporting this blog on Patreon

Bricks, Heroin, and Smallmouth Bass

There's something about urban fishing that I love. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, as I'd tell most people I love the wilderness, and being as far from other people as possible is a priority. Yet, I get a special sort of pleasure from pulling a brown trout out from behind a shopping cart, or sight casting a carp in a concrete lined canal. As such, I was perfectly comfortable walking the streets of a Massachusetts mill town with Noah and our other friend, also named Noah, fishing the sort of places where a fly rod is viewed by passers by as about as out of place as would be a man riding a camel.

We were looking for carp, but things were a little off and we weren't finding them with any regularity. We covered ground, searching those large cyprinids, but found some remarkably colored sunfishes instead.

Lepomis gibbosus

 The redbreast sunfish below is unquestionably one of the prettiest fish I have ever caught. Funny, the lowly sunfish family is responsible for some of the most visually stunning fish specimens I've laid eyes on. This natural painting was in striking contrast to the environment it was living in.

Lepomis auritus

Lepomis auritus x Lepomis macrochirus

Soon the pattern became clear, this was going to be a bass and panfish day, not a carp day. We followed an arm of the canal down to a river, and walked the walls down river looking for a way down onto the banks so we could fish what looked like some fantastic smallmouth water. Next to a homeless encampment, we found a way down. And indeed it was fantastic smallmouth water. 

Unexpectedly it was also good crappie water, some of the best I'd ever fished. We found a couple pockets of slab crappies, a few of them even worth measuring. For a little while I was on a roll, landing slab crappie after slab crappie, the biggest being a hair over 14 inches. They were fighting pretty hard for crappies too, and I've caught black crappies over 16 inches so I've got a bit of experience in the slab department. These were impressive fish. 

Though the bass we were catching weren't "slabs" really, they weren't bad in average size. I'm used to stream smallmouth averaging eight inches. We've got some good ones in some of the rivers near where I live, but often to get quantity you have to sacrifice quality and vice versa. This was more on par with the Housatonic summer smallmouth fishery, if not a little better. Stripping a woolly bugger or twitching a jig through shadow lines, pool tailouts, back eddies, and pockets produced strike after strike. My favorite catch wasn't even the biggest, it was a bass of about 11 inches in a hard to reach back eddy. I had to wade into risky territory to make my cast and hold the rod high to get any sort of a drift. And the drift I got wasn't long but it was long enough, my fly got hammered. The fish proceeded to dive straight into the fast water and bounce from rock to rock, forcing me to really work to land him. Anyone that fishes moving water smallmouth knows, these fish have heart. 

We worked our way back downstream to where we'd entered but continued to catch fish it that water we'd already covered. In fact we got into some of the fastest action right where we'd gotten down to the river, near the raccoon carcass and the heroi... er... "insulin" needles.

Like I said, there's something about urban fishing... I don't quite know what. Perhaps its the juxtaposition. Those stunning redbreast sunfish, giant crappies, and powerful smallmouth bass, living in the shadow of mills and homeless camps, next to heroin needles and shopping carts. It's interesting. And a little sketchy at times. But the luster, if you could call it that, has never diminished. I'm forever a grunge city fisherman as much as I am a wilderness angler.

There was a raccoon peeking out of there before I got the camera out.

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. 

Hopping Ponds and Loosing Giants

Early spring is an exciting time in the Northeast for fisherman who enjoy variety. Winter holds very little of that... if you want something different from December through mid March in the northeast you are probably going to have to drive a while for it. But as waters warm in April everything starts to eat and any given day there are too many choices... one can't be 10 places at once. But Noah and I sometimes try. Pond hopping is one of those joys of the early season that just doesn't get old. On April 15th (yes, I am just about exactly two months behind), the weather was perfect for hopping spot to spot and we went out seeking panfish to kill and bass and pickerel to release. Our target area was a vicinity I'd spent quite a bit of time in a few years back but hadn't fished that much since. A couple of the ponds aren't that out of the ordinary that I've been missing much but a few are very special.
The first has a miraculous tendency to produce bluegills on dry flies any day it isn't frozen over. I even got a couple on top one day when there was still some ice on the shaded southeast corner.

bluegill x pumpkinseed hybrid

It wasn't in finest form this day but it knocked the skunk of quickly and thoroughly. A morale boost, if you will, though we didn't really need one. The next pond is the one that interests me most as I'd seen and hooked  number of truly large bass in it. Pickerel had also always been abundant there, though of diminutive size. And unlike the first pond it wasn't restricted to catch and release so we'd be assured to leave with some meat.

As we walked the trail around the pond to one of the open areas, I hear Noah exclaim "snake!" from behind me. I dropped my rod and ran back. It was a common species, the most common species frankly, but it was a lovely Eastern garter and posed wonderfully for me, allowing me to get one of my favorite photos I've ever taken of the species.

Garter photographed and sent on his way, we began plying the waters. Bluegills and small pickerel were, predictably, the first fish we caught. They're the predominant species in this pond, closely followed by the ubiquitous and popular Micropterus salmoides. 

It wasn't long before the old green meanie decided to make an appearance. This was not the big one that I was casting at at the time though, she was at least three pounds. But I'd have to be satisfied with the little one though.

Noah, down the bank a ways, managed a near trophy caliber fish. I had never caught or seen a crappie in this pond and here was this beautiful foot long specimen with wonderful iridescent colors.

We decided to eat that fish.

We decided to head back to the van, fill a cooler with water, and then head out on kayaks to try to fill that cooler a little more thoroughly. One crappie does not a meal make. 

It ended up being a small pickerel slam fest, though I was catching bluegills consistently enough to start filling that cooler. I'd started the day with a white woolly bugger, and wasn't feeling any need to change that fly. It was catching fish. 

With the sheer number of pickerel I was catching, I started to wonder if my 6lb tippet would become a potential liability. I didn't expect to lose any large pickerel because of it because I didn't expect to find any large pickerel in this pond, but I didn't want to loose a fly to one of these little hammer handle sized fish.

After I got the release photo above and put my camera away, I picked up my rod to far more weight than should have been there. Thinking I may have forgotten to unhook that fish I'd just released I lifted the rod and looked down into the clear water... and saw a giant. Things suddenly got frantic. My white woolly bugger, dangling in the water while the kayak was drifting and I was busy dealing with a small pickerel, had been eaten by a 25-26 inch monster chain pickerel, a fish the likes of which Id not hooked in years, and I was now virtually guaranteed disappointment. There was no way that 6lb tippet would hold. The fish was fighting hard but staying close enough that I could see it, and eventually I could tell it was hooked in such away that the tippet wasn't in its teeth. Maybe I was in with a shot? No. That pickerel broke my tippet so damn easily on one long hard run. Had I had a net I'd have gotten her. She was up top and close to the kayak for a while. I was gutted. A pickerel of that size is equivalent to a 45 inch pike in my book. They are hard to come by, especially on the fly.

We made a few more drifts there with nothing special happening before moving to another area. We found very little life in a good crappie spot I'd fished before but managed to find some action at a pond I'd seen but never fished. There was a bit of flow coming down from the next pond up the system and some bass and panfish were gathered near that. I rounded out our take with another crappie, this one very dark and spawn-ready.

This was a pretty typical April day, the sort of fishing that was fly fishing for me for a long time. These are my roots, these freshwater ponds in the Northeast, and I won't ever outgrow them because I clearly still haven't figured everything out. I learned so much this one day. If I can't apply what I learned in the future, that's a failure on my part. That's what separates a fisherman from somebody that fishes sometimes. I don't ever want to fall into the latter. Always learn, always grow.
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.