Shadows Over White Sand

I hadn't even re-rigged from my morning's smallmouth trip with the same rod when I saw the first striper slide into view, fifty feet distant and west bound. I had the right sort of leader on though, and I'd have no time to swap out my fly, an olive and yellow Complex Twist Bugger for a more appropriate fly. I lead the fish by fifteen feet on a 30 ft cast and gave the fly a single bump as he got within five feet of it. The fish turned and, with no hesitation, sucked in the fly. Startled by that aggressive response I totally botched it and he popped off after a couple seconds. 

It was mid July and the flats fishing for stripers in southern New England had been mediocre most of the season, at least when I was out. This hadn't been a well planned day, I just went because I could, and I very nearly didn't go at all... and yet I suddenly had a feeling this might just be something spectacular. The sun was high, the water was clear, and there were striped bass hunting over white sand... this was a fine time.

The next bass to cross my path was every bit as willing to chase down and eat the bugger. This time though, I hit her right and it was off to the races. A mid 20 inch range bass hooked in shallow water really goes. I always forget that... its often a long time between one 26 inch flats bass and the next.

Though sand flats provide wonderful fishing for stripers over white sand they're hardly the only place that happens. One of the most exiting places to sight fish bass in my opinion are ocean front beaches. And, though the fish can still be incredibly picky, they're more predictable without knowing the subtleties of flats structure. On a white sand beach were you can find striped bass to sight fish, they'll be traveling the most obvious line, right up and down the beach lip, following the contours. I'm generally observant enough to figure out the lanes of travel on a flat to stake up in the right places, but the beach is wonderfully easy... to read, not necessarily to fish. On this day the flats fish were more willing than the beach fish. I got one though... on the bugger again! It was a smaller fish, but the rewards of catching bass sight fishing in both the surf and on the flat in the same day, to me, are a huge.

Back on the flat, I tied on a real fly and did some exploratory wading to no avail. Though I'd been fishing this area since 2016 there's still gaps and blurred bits on my mental map. Also, things change. This exploration was time consuming and didn't lead to caught fish but I'm glad I did it. I found some important features to take note of. But I also wanted to end the day on a fish. And I did. I saw a pair coming, led them well, gave the fly a little strippy strip, and the bigger of the two committed with a wonderfully visual eat. This one tore off like a bat out of hell, very nearly getting into the backing. What a great fish.What a great fishery. What an absolute pleasure it is to get to do the things I've been able to over the last four years or so. Shadows over white sand haunt my dreams.

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. 

The Year the Sand Eels Returned

Sand lances or sand eels, were a staple baitfish in Long Island Sound for many years. By the time I was regularly fishing for striped bass, they were rare enough that it took three years before I encountered bass feeding on them and it wasn't until this year that I actually had to fish imitations of them to deceive fish very specifically keyed on sand eels. This year has been an odd one in Long Island Sound, not like any other year I've fished, and it seemed for a while to be the year the sand eels returned.

One grey morning in late June I stepped onto the sand of one of my favorite flats and looked out over The Sound, unable to see the horizon as the glass calm water blended with the foggy grey sky. When a handful of sand eels spooked out of the bottom of a shallow pool, I knew this would be a good morning. I'd never seen as much as a single one here in the past.

As I walked further still, I saw something else peeking its head out of the sand, a fish of catchable size, and clearly a species I'd never caught. I had a bonefish fly on, and though it wasn't really small enough I had nothing better. I dropped it in front of the fish and it left the sand and ate aggressively. It was much too large to fit in the mystery fish's mouth, but I still managed to hook it and bring it to hand... not that there was much fight on the 10wt.

It would be a little while before I identified this fish. Leo Sheng identified it, actually.

Life List Fish #165, Striped cusk-eel. Ophidion marginatum. Rank: species.

 I hadn't even gotten my ankles wet and I'd seen some sand eels and caught a new species. When I did get out into the water it was quickly apparent that there were large schools of sand eels and that both striped bass and sea robbins were feeding on them. I tied on a simple, slim, Surf Candy style fly and waited to see a wake, pop, boil, or tail.
The first fish I caught was a sea robin. This was no surprise, they are pushovers.

It took me a little while to realize that, though I was only in a foot and a half of water, the stripers were behind me. The were working the bar edges, rooting out sand eels. Though I wanted to look out into deeper water, I was going to need to turn around to catch these bass.

They were very finicky, as most stripers feeding in just inches of water are. I was getting more follows than I was committed takes. In fact I wasn't really getting any takes at all, until I started to let the fly fall and slowed my retrieve. The I managed to pick up a few fish. They were small, but it isn't just about size... it's about the conditions. I don't care what size the fish are, stripers working extremely shallow water, feeding selectively, and demanding a precise presentation is extremely engaging fishing.

After a while the visible bass activity dissipated, so I tied on a Gurgler and attempted to get a topwater sea robin... it didn't take long. Mission success. I left happy.

That was the last time I saw sand eels there so far this year. I kept seeing them in other areas until water temperature climbed too high.
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. 

I'm In! A Late Spring Early Summer Striper Retrospective

Alright, I'll say it. This spring and summer has sucked overall in Long Island Sound for sizable striped bass. I mean, there are pockets of fish to be found, and there are some big fish getting caught, but that's just what the whole fishery is now... mediocre overall but good enough in small pockets that people fishing there that are too enclosed in their own bubbles are making it sound like nothing is wrong with the fishery.

Flats fishing has sucked.
Places that have consistently produced good action in years past have been remarkably inconsistent so far this year. Fish uncharacteristically showed up in then left areas where they'd typically be at everyday with good conditions, even through the summer doldrums. Nunzio and I went out on my birthday with a great tide, great wind, the right barometric pressure, and a high sun, and found diddly on the flats. We got our reprieve at a bridge and got a few fish each at the start of the flood, but even that bite wasn't as good as it typically would be that time of year.

The reefs have been decent but sporadic. There are some bigger fish here and there but a lot of really small ones too. The written reports I've seen don't seem to be very realistic based on what I've heard from other anglers, and how I've done out there, but I've come to expect that anyway. Mark and Myron invited me out the day after a pretty good bite, and we had some action, but the fish were clearly responding to pressure. They were very boat shy.

I won't go much into detail on the one bite that is shining bright in Connecticut right now, because, well, it's best if people don't know. Suffice to say, when we got on it it was good enough to convince Rick and I we ought to come back the next morning in the rain looking for more. I didn't really capitalize on the better opportunities that I did get, which is frustrating when such chances are clearly few and far between, but put up decent numbers. I've been most impressed by the number of extremely small bass around. I don't want to catch any more of them, but there sure are a bunch.

Most recently, Mark and I went looking for a topwater big bass bite to do bait-and-switch on, and we didn't find it. But I suspect that fell much more to timing than anything else, we'd not fished that area that early before and didn't really know what to expect. We did find fish, but not the size we wanted or in the place we had intended to focus on. The waning daylight hours were a treat though, featuring one of the best sunsets I've ever seen and a spectacular fireball streaking across a long stretch of sky. 

After Mark and I had secured everything on the boat and started walking down the dock at the end of our outing, I did something  that pretty well symbolized the present striped bass situation. I, while looking right where I was going, walked right off the edge of the dock into the piss warm, muddy water. My words, upon realizing what I'd just done, were simply "I'm in!".

Towards the edge we continue to walk, looking at all the signs as we go.
Striped bass are not in trouble as a species. But the quality of the fishery is. I hate to sound divisive but if you can't see the problems here, you don't deserve to take part. Seriously. It shouldn't be as hard as it is to come by 30-40 inch striped bass. A productive striper fishery should be loaded with fish of those size. If you feel like you are catching a whole bunch of those size fish and bigger, good for you. You are lucky. You are also in a tiny bubble where those fish are abundant. And they won't be abundant forever. You too will soon be complaining about how bad the fishing is. Fisheries managers are currently taking some steps in the right direction. It is time to step up and light a fire under their butts and make sure every possible advantage is given to striped bass, the fish they eat, and the habitat they require.

If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Also, consider supporting me on Patreon (link at the top of the bar to the right of your screen, on web version). Every little bit is appreciated! Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, john, and Christopher, for supporting this blog.

Florida: Redfish

If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Also, consider supporting me on Patreon (link at the top of the bar to the right of your screen, on web version). Every little bit is appreciated! 

Thanks for joining the adventure, and tight lines.

Redfish is very near the top of the list of species I want to catch most. They are a fish built very much to fit my style. They are handsome fish with variation in coloration. They feed in shallow water very frequently, where they can be sight fished. They are aggressive predators, taking a variety of streamers and topwater flies. They tend to live in beautiful places. 

And they are not easy to catch. 

That last one has become pretty clear to me. I got a handful of shots at redfish in 2017. I did not catch one. On Noah and my second trip, it was a top priority for me. I really, really wanted to get a redfish. Probably more than I want to get a tarpon. 

We had narrowed our focus to an area on the east side of the Gasparilla Sound. Sea grass was the key. We had to find areas where it was abundant. The area we were in was a good place to look, whereas many other flats in Florida have had huge reductions in the amount of bottom vegetation. Where the sea grass isn't, life is sparse. Where the sea grass is, life is abundant and concentrated. The loss of sea grass and the other life that relies on it can be traced directly to human activity.

Getting to our launch place just after dawn, I was confident we were in the right place. A huge school of mullet came into view as a patch of nervous water 50 yards long and 15 yards wide. They moved by in a long train as we geared up, jumping and splashing and rippling the surface, moving north. 

We went the direction they came from. We found grass. We found mullet. We found some stingrays. Then we found what we looking for. In the low light of the new day, a tail brushed the placid surface, signifying the presence of a feeding redfish. It was a beautiful spite.
And that's right where things went downhill.
In retrospect, this morning was the best chance I had at getting my first red. We saw the most tailing reds, we saw the most redfish in general, and there were the most good shot opportunities. And the half hour after we saw the first tail was the best window all day.

I blew it. I blew it hard. I made poor shots, I made bad drifts, I wasn't patient enough. I got interest from maybe 3 reds in that window. From then on, finding tailing fish was very, very difficult, and we found that targeting the cruising fish in that crystal clear was very tricky indeed. When you can see the fish coming from 90 feet away and you have a pretty good cast, you'd think it wouldn't be hard to convince one to eat. The fish that didn't spook from seeing the line in the air spooked from it and the fly hitting the water, and if they didn't spook from that they gave the fly and leader an extremely wide berth, so wide I knew they weren't even seeing it clearly. Then they'd probably spook from seeing me or the kayak.

What made this all the more frustrating was that some of these reds were just enormous, big enough to blow my expectations. There were plenty of 20 to 30 inch reds around, but I saw a few that were over 40 without a shadow of a doubt. So massive were these fish that I was shaking severely upon seeing them cruising down the white sand strips, though not enough to stop me from making what I thought were good casts. When the fish showed their disapproval and ran away, leaving huge boils and clouds of sand behind, I had to sit down to catch my breath.

There were snook around too, and they were even more snobbish. They were all laid up relatively close to. but not under, the mangroves, and generally near a creek mouth or around a point. These fish were impossible, at least with artificials and probably with live bait too. They were extraordinarily skittish and could see and feel you coming from a long, long, long way out. After a point I just stopped trying for them. There were plenty of more willing fish in the river. I might as well just admire these ones from afar and not bother them.

But my inability to get a redfish was bothering me. Hugely. After that first day we came back every morning. I never got another decent shot. I didn't catch anything there. Not even a sailfin or hardhead catfish, or one of the few big jacks or pompano we'd occasionally see close to the reds.

My inability to get a redfish stands out to me as the most frustrating part of my angling career thus far. Those fish haunt my dreams like no other. Believe me when I say that this post has been a painful one to write. I want to forget every one of the blunders I made targeting these fish, and every time I thought I had nailed it and the fish dissented. And because it will be a long while before I am in red drum territory again, those memories are going torture me for a while.
 It didn't ruin my experience completely, the flat we fished there was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. But I can't get those damned fish out of my mind.

I think, sometimes, you can want to catch a certain fish too much.

Marsh Scup, Channel Flatties, and Flats Edge Birds

Noah and I put in some hours yesterday fishing for a variety of saltwater species with a variety of tactics, him on his new SUP and me in my kayak, which I indeed do stand in when the water is flat enough. Initially we searched for stripers on the flats. They really weren't there in good numbers, unsurprisingly given the time of year, temperatures, and tide timing, but there were some see robins in targetable numbers with a few cruising stripers and tailing tautog in between. Tag teaming sea robins is one of my favorite summer tactics. We found groups and individual robins working the edge of the flat. If I was in a position to present the fly I would right away. If not I pointed them out to Noah and got myself into position. Getting doubles, or even triples if you are fishing with two other people is pretty easy when working groups of marauding robins, is easy with coordinated effort. When one angler hooks up the other robins tend to follow the hooked one, and with precise casts and carefully timed fights and releases it can be possible to hook every one of a group, which could be as much as eight.

We fished a short channel edge behind the flat too, I missed a couple stripers, Noah got one then caught a short fluke on a fluke. To that end he had already gotten sea robin, striper, bluefish, and summer flounder. It was shaping to be a real "who's who" of CT inshore water kind of day. Our next move took us to pleasure boater city, which really annoyed me. Mucked up water, no larger stripers around, and the annoyance of having to keep one eye open for either drunken idiots or just sober stupid idiots became to theme of the day. Living in the heavily populated land that is Southern New England you learn quickly that there are a lot of people around with large, dangerous, fast moving things that should never have been entrusted with large, dangerous, fast moving things. We fished the backwaters, where the boat traffic was still startlingly frequent, and we found marsh porgies. 

It is, I think, quite unlikely that marsh porgies would be a thing were it not for the massive effect that man has had of the shoreline. The two places Noah and I found these scup featured deeper water specifically due to man made structure. In all likelihood these deep holes would never have existed in that kind of marsh water without manmade structure. In this case, bridges. Bridges draw fish like streetlights draw insects in the night. 

I was a little surprised, honestly, that we encountered porgies there. Even when I find them in inshore water it typically isn't that far in. But they were there and for a few hours we caught them on sandworms and some on the fly, and were we more equipped we probably would have had a damned good meal afterwards. Which reminds me...

At one of the launches we used on this day Noah and I found a pile of discarded fish carcasses. Not unusual and not a bad thin in my opinion either as it feeds the ecosystem from which those fish were taken rather than the garbage dump. But in this case, it appeared the only meat that had been taken was from the only keeper sized sea bass there and a short fluke. The short seabass had been filleted and everything discarded and the scup hadn't even been filleted. Anyone who does this kind of thing has a special place in hell waiting for them. If you are going to use the resource you damned well better respect it. CT, as far as I have researched, has no wanton waste laws regarding fish, only migratory birds. That needs to change. 

Noah's last fish of the day was also the second and final fluke of the day, once again in a channel but a much more subtle one.

Though it can be much more difficult to have consistent daylight striper action this time of year there is a lot of action to be had with a fly rod inshore. Sometimes it takes thinking outside the box, sometimes "cheating", but it is all fun and well worthwhile. 

Tail Up, Mouth Open, Crab Gone

It really isn't hard to see why striped bass are so captivating. They are a very handsome fish, with their scales painted silver, blue, purple, green, white, and black. They lend themselves well to easy handling, with their sandpaper teeth and firm jaw, only a gill plate and a few fin spike to be concerned about. They are one of the most versatile of any saltwater or freshwater fish. They could be virtually anywhere in saltwater or fresh between the St. Johns River in Florida and the Gulf of St. Lawrence and places North that doesn't have an impassable barrier, and has a tolerable water temperature and quality. They could be in a shallow flat, a deep rocky ledge, a strong rip, a tiny creek, a salt pond, a river, a sandy beach, a rocky jetty, a grassy marsh. They are a challenging fish to target, especially in these times of declined population. Catching big striped bass takes skill, knowledge, versatility, and time. More so if you are intent on only doing so with a fly rod.

Right now is flats time in CT, LI, and RI. There are other things going on, obviously, right now you really could catch a striper in most habitats they frequent and using many different methods, but when big stripers are on the flats, to me, that's the ultimate. That's where I'm going to concentrate my effort. 

Juvenile sundial.

And right now I'm on a crab bite. I haven't caught any big fish yet, but when you hook an 8lb striper in a foot of water it acts big. On Thursday I had one fish take me into the backing in an attempt to leave the flat completely. I thought it was going to be the big one. Instead, this was the guilty party:

All of the fish we've been catching have been fat, healthy, and carrying a few sea lice. It seems like most of the fish that are in now just got here recently. They are nearly perfect specimens, though a few pounds and inches short of what I really want to be finding. 

In the morning on Thursday Noah and I were lucky enough to find a few fish tailing. I got probably the best take I've ever had on a crab. I saw a fish swirl, mad a cast ahead of it, watched it push up on the fly, pause, push again, then tail up and eat. I missed that fish, but it didn't really matter. It was a beautiful thing to watch. 

My hope is that while I'm away from the salt this weekend some big fish will push up and they'll be there to target during the week. The bite has been good. Really good. But I'm hunting for something more.