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.

Puddle Shiners and Rock-flipping Sculpins (Western PA Pt. 7)

 Our finale full day in Pennsylvania was upon us and Noah, Jake and I wanted to end the trip on a high note. With lower pressure, cloud cover, and showers in the morning forecast we hoped our luck with the bigger predators might improve. Add to it, my grandfather would be joining us on the water for the first bit of the day, it seemed nothing could be better. At first we may be in luck, as the redhorse, drum, and carp were much more active. One thing I forgot to count on is how bad I sometimes am at hooking bottom feeding roughfish, especially suckers and carp. I have days where I just whiff take after take and this was one of them. I whiffed a few carp. I whiffed a nice drum. Then I reefed the set on a huge redhorse and my leader snapped with a sickening whip-crack. It's a good thing I can nymph channel catfish, apparently, because I got a few of them. They weren't big but I'll take any cat on the fly any time, and indicator nymphing them was new to me. 

Jake ended up getting himself one smallmouth redhorse on a worm, but as the morning wore on it seemed we might not get the big fish we were hoping to. We all aught fish at least, and for my money, Some of Noah's were the funniest. There was a puddle on the walkway above the tunnel, where fisherman stand and soak bait in the deep, roiling dam discharge below. They'd clearly been discarding their minnows in that puddle as it was full of them. 

He got one golden shiner, and I think a spottail shiner too. That these fish were surviving effectively in the puddle demonstrates the problems with discarding live bait. A heavy rain could so easily provide these fish a way into the river, and these weren't all native species. Fisherman are not conscious enough about such things, a tiny cyprinid species could wreck havoc on some important native species and the habitat they need.  

As it began to seem our options at this spot were exhausted, we decided to move along. My grandfather headed out and Noah, Jake and I went to the next spot. It was a small freestone stream suggested to us by my grandfather, where we stood a reasonable shot at Jake getting his lifer rainbow trout, as well as catching good catfish bait for that night in the form of big creek chubs. We filled the bait quota but found no trout, but the odd bass instead.

As we were fishing downstream, a family hopped in just below us and continued on down. Not wanting to fish water that had just been fished, we turned back upstream and headed back towards the cars. Noah rushed ahead as Jake and I lollygagged and fished our way up. We ended up finding a pool with some good darter and sculpin habitat, and started micro fishing it. I flipped some rocks and found that some large mottled sculpins were residing under them. It didn't take long for both Jake and I to catch one, and when Noah wondered where the hell we were and came back down he had little trouble getting them to eat either. At the time, this was a lifer for me, but sine then I'e learned that the tiny sculpin I got further up in the Allegheny watershed was a mottled too. 

Lifelist fish #176, Mottled sculpin, Cottus bairdii. Rank: Species

Sculpins are awesome, I really do adore them. They are beautiful little fish and very charismatic. And honestly, any fish that has the gall to still eat after you've essentially lifted up the roof of his house in order to find him is pretty cool. 

Jake then diverted attention to darters and it payed off, he got a lovely fan tail, a lifer for him.

Fantail darter, Etheostoma flabellare

Then we all caught bluntnose minnows, which were lifers for Noah and I.

Lifelist fish #177. Bluntnose minnow, Pimephales notatus. Rank: species.

With lifers now under our belts, at least we felt some goals had been met and we decided to change spots again and seek bigger fish yet again. 

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.

Mosquito Lagoon Redfish

Do you ever feel like bad weather follow you? This is Noah and my third annual Florida adventure and it started in probably the least hospitable weather we'd ever experienced there. It was pretty cold when we left Connecticut, and it was snowing on us when we crossed from West Virginia into Virginia, then through bits and spurts of the rest of our time in that state. It was crazy convective lines, not exactly squalls, almost like low topped summer evening showers but with snow. The orientation of the updraft, the shape of the cloud base, and the rain foot snow foot looked almost like very small, high based cold core supercells at times. This is mostly fishing blog so I don't expect everyone reading this to get exactly what I'm saying, but you if you get it, you get why I was glued to the window every time we passed one of these micro convective systems and why it was probably a good thing it wasn't me behind the wheel... I might have tried to chase them if it were up to me.

Cumulus tower with flanking line (not visible), dark lowered base, anvil blowing downstream, and core of light to moderate snow precip.

In North Carolina it was mildly warmer. Lower in both elevation and latitude, the convection was still going but precipitation was making it to the ground in liquid form. Dark clouds over Lake Norman preceded a rainbow over Charlotte. 

We got some sleep in Georgia and by the time we rolled into our first launching point in Florida, on the Mosquito Lagoon, the temperature was barely kissing 45 degrees and the wind was blowing. I'd fished more comfortable weather in CT in the weeks prior, and here I was launching a kayak in North Florida on a cold windy morning.

Luckily, redfish like cold fronts.

Red drum, Sciaenops ocellatus, have been a long standing nemesis of mine. I've watched people around me catch them, I've made casts at completely unwilling monsters, and I've watched them feeding in the surf on a trip when I didn't have any fishing gear at all. I've wanted a red drum more than I've wanted a bonefish and about as much as I've wanted a tarpon or a permit. Bonefish seemed like my kind of fish, a beautiful species of varied habits that can be very difficult to catch an attains great sizes, but they remained at arm's length for years. Mosquito Lagoon, though a drastically changed and diminished fishery, was poised to break my redfish curse this day.

In retrospect, it is amazing how little time it took. We worked some very lifeless banks and then up into a little creek. I spooked out the first significant fish, a flounder, then nothing for a while. I was feeling less then confident. Then I saw it. Coppery sheen, spotted tail, wide bullish head. The first redfish I'd seen in more then a year left in a cloud of mud along with a couple others. I held off and hot a cast parallel up the bank hoping there were more I couldn't see. Another fish spooking off distracted me momentarily and I looked back up to see a large swirl on my fly. I panicked, trout set into nothing, the fish didn't even have me fly. I recast into the boil, made one strip, and had one of the most visually stunning eats I've ever had. I'm feeling butterflies in my stomach thinking about it right now. I strip set hard and the battle commenced. It wasn't long, the fish wasn't big, but I was impressed by its tenacity. The feeling that came over me when I got that fish... I hope you all have something in your life that makes you feel this way. It's an inexplicable excitement I get any time I watch a big thunderstorm, find an uncommon snake species, or catch a special fish. It's probably at it's most heightened when I catch a fish like that red. Though unremarkable as an individual of its species, I had long wanted to hold any redfish, and here I finally was with one in my hands.

The high, though, like any drug, left me wanting more. I couldn't leave it at that, I needed to catch another redfish, then preferably a few more after that and at least one much bigger one. A combination of wind and rusty kayak handling and 10wt accuracy from a winter of doing precisely not that sort of fishing put me at a disadvantage and I couldn't make magic happen again. Noah, who has already caught redfish, managed another drum species off the same bank I pulled my red: a beautiful spotted trout.

Cynoscion nebulosus

Unfortunately, though we'd found a pocket of good fishing, the Mosquito Lagoon is a shadow of its former self. The quality of fishing there has diminished just as water quality has deteriorated and healthy grass beds have decreased in size and number. Clean water is not only a concern with trout in freshwater rivers. Human activity has had an unspeakable negative impact on the habitats, food sources, and stocks of some of the most prized saltwater game species. Don't forget these fish and the places they live. Losing them isn't worth the short term gains causing their demise. Groups like Bullsugar are fighting the good fight for Florida's valuable ecosystems. Are you willing to let these places become lifeless voids without standing up and fighting back?

I will be back to the Mosquito Lagoon. When? I don't know. It might be better than it is now. But I'm not that optimistic. Redfish though, are going to continue taking me to places I'd not have gone where they not there. Though I've only caught one, I'm a redfish addict. I already was before I ever set that hook. 

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, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, and Franky for supporting this blog on Patreon.