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.

Late Season Jack Crevalles and Blue Runners in CT

 I particularly enjoy catching wandering pelagic and semi pelagic species in Connecticut waters. Each year a lot of fish that are ubiquitous in southern waters end up in Long Island Sound, and though they are often smaller than those I could catch elsewhere it is cool to encounter these species close to home. After all, they can often be caught in relative proximity to species we are much more used to seeing around here. Catching a crevalle jack and a striped bass within a half hour of each other is perfectly possible at some times of year in Connecticut and Rhode Island. November is one of those times, and perhaps the easiest time to make it happen at will. The warm water species get concentrated in, well, warm water as the environment around them cools off. Noah and I visited one of these concentrated warm water environments a little while ago. There were indeed loads and loads of jacks and blue runners present, and they were very willing and these species generally are. 

Though small in stature, these fish actually fight stupid hard. They're built for chasing down prey and swimming like hell away from predators. In the pelagic world, the predators really haul ass, so it pays to be really fast if you need to run away from those critters. That translates to a pretty sweet bend in the rod when you hook these guys. I was lucky to get the largest crevalle I've caught locally, and in heavy current that fish gave a phenomenal fight- even with a bit of its tail being missing.

The blue runners actually pull a bit harder, and we got some nice little football shaped runners that made our drags sing. 

I ended up keeping one of the blue runners; I pan fried it with olive oil and a little salt and pepper, the flavor and texture were fantastic. I'll certainly be eating more of these little buggers going forward. I haven't tried a crevalle yet, in part because I've seen videos of them being cleaned. It seems if they're of any size at all, they're loaded with parasites. Of course these are Florida-caught ones we're talking about, and I don't know if that would be true of the ones we get in CT. I should try and see at some point. 

The fishing was very fast paced. At times blitzes broke out and there were dozens of fish breaking around us. Mixed in were a few of the expected bluefish, but they were far outnumbered by the jacks and blue runners. It would have been particularly nice to encounter some other species mixed in, perhaps lesser amber jacks or banded rudderfish. Banded rudders are notable common in Connecticut some years but this wasn't one of them.

Eventually a flock of gulls to our east drew our attention, and we went off to get the sort of fish anglers actually expect to get in CT in November: the sort with stripey sides and an affinity for peanut bunker.

It's kind of cool when worlds collide. Of course, there was historically a strong Gulf Coast striped bass population. The extirpation of that population was driven by human action, no surprise. Were it not for that course of events it would be possible not only to catch jacks and stripers on the gulf coast but to catch a particularly large jack and good sized stripers in the same day. That certainly isn't a likely scenario any more. It's a cool oddity to be able to catch great numbers of both fish in Connecticut, but the jack schools Noah and I encountered were present as a result of humans altering the environment. Sure, jack crevalles and blue runners have naturally made it into CT waters for years, but they wouldn't linger into November were it not for artificially warm water. So, in essence, this is a novelty fishery. 

That doesn't stop it from being pretty damn fun 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.

Catching Ladyfish and Jacks in Connecticut

 Over the last few years I've encountered a number of generally considered southern species that find their way into Connecticut waters in late summer and early fall as ocean temperatures peak. I've caught blue runners, banded rudderfish, and Spanish mackerel, and seen cobia and mangrove snappers. This year was an exceptional one for such vagrants locally: abundant cownose rays and Spanish macks in the western sound, frigate mackerel in RI and and even Eastern CT, and plenty of other anomalies. I lucked out with one frigate mackerel and saw some banded rudderfish but didn't really get in on the action until October, when the cooling temperatures lead the less tolerant fish to either leave or seek what warm water they could find. It was a day like many other October days, except instead of finding stripers blitzing Noah and I found jacks and ladyfish along with uncountable Atlantic needlefish and the odd Spanish mackerel.

At first it was all needlefish. There were hundreds if not thousands of them. Any cast got followed by a squadron of these odd shaped monsters, all snapping at any lure or fly we ripped past them. They'd even blast a spook. It was nuts.

Strongylura marina

Then came the ladyfish. I'd caught my first ladyfish a few years ago in Florida, where they are a year-round resident and often considered irritating, sometimes even trash fish. Of course I quickly fell in love with these acrobatic silvery fish. Catching them locally is something I've long known was possible and has been a goal of mine, I was very pleased to see it come to fruition. Soon ladyfish were making their way into the little Lone Star Skiff with regularity, including at least one that jumped into the boat still green. Noah and I were having a hysterical time catching these high flying fish, in greater numbers than we ever got in Florida. We'd never really gotten to savor the experience there, so it was exceptionally unique to catch enough locally to really get a good feel for it... and these fish are seriously fun. There's nothing in New England waters that fights quite the same. Bluefish and hickory shad don't jump as much or as high, and landlocked salmon don't zip away quite so fast, though they're probably the closest in fighting style.

Noah with the first large one.

If you look at the tail on a ladyfish, it's not dissimilar from that of some of the fastest running saltwater species like bonefish and milkfish. It's not surprising that they fight as hard as they do. It is a little surprising that people don't enjoy catching them more. Sure, they are aggressive and easily duped; and yes their maxillary has a sandpaper texture and can snarl too light a leader, but damn is it a riot when they take off. 

It wasn't long before we became aware of another southerner in our midst when the aquatic equivalent of a swarm of bees followed my fly in... a school of tiny crevalle jacks, and one of them did find steel.

Caranx hippos. On a Woolly Bugger. In CT. 

Yet another member of the Caranx genus turned up just a few casts later, the blue runner. Unlike ladyfish and crevalle jacks this is a species I'd caught locally, and New England is actually where I got my lifer. 

Caranx crysos, blue runner, this one took a gurgler.

The slay fest continued as fish suddenly began to blitz. There were clearly bluefish and ladyfish there but I also saw some scombrid like slashes and jumps. Though I managed to maintain my season long skunking of  larger scombridae and only piked up a few bluefish, Noah managed a nice Spanish mackerel. By now it really felt like we were actually fishing in Florida.

When the blitzes subsided we resumed the ladyfish and jack beat-down along the rocky shoreline. For someone who likes variety, getting these species mixed in with more locally and seasonally ubiquitous ones like needlefish and bluefish was awesome. We were doubling up on ladyfish constantly and laughing hysterically for hours. It was just visually spectacular uncomplicated fun. 

I've been playing around a lot with flies tied on lead and tungsten jigs this year. Their applications for trout, bass and panfish were already well explored but they definitely have application in the salt too.

As darkness fell we weren't sure what would happen, whether the bite would slow or stop, or change at all. It actually improved because the needlefish seemed to stop feeding, and because they are so difficult to hook we were getting a higher percentage of fish hooked and boated once the needlefish stopped biting. They were still so balled up though that I was regularly foul hooking them. I received a few bites from needlefish, they are unpleasant to say the least. I'll lump needlefish in with bluefish, mangrove snapper, and skates as fish that seem to very intentionally try to bite you, and needlefish are very good at it. 

As darkness fell I hooked the biggest of the ladyfish I'd gotten. The initial run was so hard and fast I thought it must be a Spanish mackerel, but when it came up that silver slender form was a nice surprise. This was one of my favorite fish fights this year, actually. And there have been some memorable ones.

The night proceeded with loads more ladyfish and one especially memorable visitation from a huge predator. We left genuinely shaken, but so excited we came back the next day for more.

Those two evenings will surely remain some of my most memorable saltwater days in the northeast. 

I love what I get to do.  

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

Snapper, Puffers, and Snook in Small Canals

What do you do in Florida when it's cold and windy and you aren't in a good trout and redfish spot?

Snook and tarpon aren't fans of the cold. The area we'd elected to spend our first week is an area we'd chosen specifically for it's tarpon and snook potential. Left with wind that made fishing even moderately open water next to impossible and cold that meant fish there probably wouldn't eat anyway, we were left with limited options. The bass freshwater fishing was pretty mediocre in places we'd fished the prior year, when low water had concentrated large numbers of fish in small, isolated pockets. Now the wetlands were flooded and most of the fish were tucked away, spread out in the grass. The best viable option close to camp seemed to be residential saltwater canals, where we could get away from the wind and potentially find some pockets of sheltering snook while also getting shots at new species.

The canal we spent much of our time in alternated between natural mangrove banks and houses with docks, also a seawall or two. There were a few healthy oyster beds here and there which was great to see, and there were fish hanging out around them. I'd rigged my five weight with a size 12 BHHESH, not a bad small shrimp imitation, for these sorts of fish. Small mangrove snappers as it turns out are quite fun on a 5wt. Pound for pound, they've got even wild brown trout beat in the hit and run department. They'd come out and absolutely slam the fly, then dig like hell and sometimes even jump a bit if they were in very shallow water.

Lutjanus griseus

The only predator species that seemed to be working the abundant the abundant school of extremely small baitfish were small crevalle jack.. What species the bait was I have no clue, but the jack eating them were puny. In the main river, we saw big jacks blasting adult mullet. That was spectacular to behold. Loud, fast,and violent are applicable descriptors. I want one of those jacks. THAT would be a blast.

Caranx hippos

What I most wanted, other then for some sign of large predators getting frenzied enough to catch, was a puffer to show up on my nymph. And eventually one did! A checkered puffer, lifer #145.

Sphoeroides testudineus

 Later a frillfin goby found the same fly, the first goby I'd caught in more than a year. I'd caught this species before but I knew crested gobies, a species I hadn't caught, weren't at all unlikely to be in the same area. I hoped one of them would show itself. Gobies are adorable little monsters, popping out from their holes to make quick attacks at intruders and potential food then darting back inside. Often it's a one and done proposition with them. Hook them briefly an lose them, they don't seem likely to come back for seconds.

Bathygobius soporator

The next day, spurred on by warmer weather, somewhat manageable wind, and the crazy big jack blowups we'd seen the day prior, we returned to the same area. The wind was still pretty bad, but the mangrove snappers were, if anything, even more fired up.

Then, it happened. Noah FINALLY caught a snook and got it to hand for long enough to photograph it. I've personally watched him catch a snook larger the most non-Floridian fisherman I know have ever caught, but that was a disaster. I was battling a pelican that had flown into my line while Noah's big snook flopped off his board. He lunged trying to grab it and sliced a chunk out of the tip of his finger on it sharp gill plate. So, unfortunately, Noah can't say his first photographed snook was that monster... but you know what? We love the little ones. Tiny or big, snook remain one of my favorite species of fish to present a fly to. Give me a choice between catching a brown trout or a snook... I'm choosing snook, no further questions.

I blew it with snook that morning. I spooked some big ones and I broke off a small one. Even a small snook can rasp through light mono very quickly, I'm primarily using 30lb fluoro for all my snook fishing. I wasn't using fluoro for the one I broke off, of course. I didn't get a snook that day. That was fine though, the next would prove to be fruitful. More snappers and puffers though? I'll take them. There's nothing like the sort of fishing I was doing in CT. It was a lot of fun on my 5wt.

Though the forecast didn't look to be getting any better in term of wind for days and days and day, Noah and I both had some tricks under our sleeves. I may not be a local, this may have only been my fourth trip fishing in Florida ever, but Noah and I been known to accomplish things with exceptionally limited time and first hand experience before and this trip was not going to be an exception. When you live and breath fish and fishing, it doesn't matter where you go. Patterns reveal themselves and so do paths to success.

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.

Florida: The Mullet for Whom the Bell Tolls

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Thanks for joining the adventure, and tight lines.

Have you ever seen a 30 pound jack crevalle lock onto, chase down, and destroy a 14 inch mullet? It is remarkable to watch, and perhaps just as remarkable to hear. Slightly less remarkable in sight but more so in sound is when a 20 pound snook decides it wants one of those big mullet. 

Noah and I had experienced the winter snook fishing in the wilds on the west coast, now we were going to get a taste of east coast snook. There are far fewer really wild spots left to fish for snook in East Florida. The Banana River and Mosquito Lagoon are about the last remaining water of that kind, and their integrity has decreased in the past years of poor water management. But further south remain a number of clean water snook strongholds where the environment has very much been shaped by human intervention. Instead of laydowns, cut banks, creek mouths, and deep natural channels, a lot of what we would be fishing was docks, sea walls, mangroves trimmed like hedges, and other man made or man influenced structure. We would come to find out, though, that this made the fishing no less spectacular. 

We paddled down the same river we had fished the week before, intending to reach the point where it opened up into an area loaded with docks and seawalls. As we went, I was amazed by the amount of big horse mullet around. Long daisy chains of finning and splashing mullet filled the river channel. It took mere moments of being in the open cove to hear and see predator fish just slamming those mullet. I had on a clouser. In retrospect, not an ideal fly for he giant jacks and snook that were around, but I was still hoping to pull a new species of some sort out and a small fly gave me a better chance, I thought. A few casts to the seawall and I was on. It was a crevalle jack. A small one, but my personal best. The only other crevalle jack I've caught was no bigger than your average bluegill. This one was a little bigger and gave a good tussle, but I want a huge one. Especially after the things I saw on this trip. 

Caranx hippos

 A little further down the wall I spotted something large approaching me. A little bit of a fin protruded above the surface. It got my heart rate going, I'm not going to lie. I've never been on the water with large sharks before, and we knew there were bulls around. As it approached though and I got a good look at it, I was somewhat taken aback to see that it was actually a massive spotted eagle ray, on the order of a couple hundred pound. I then noticed it was swimming in the direction of my fly. Then I noticed that my line was moving. I had gone and gotten myself in a little bit of a pickle. I tightened up and that ray took off at a rather disturbingly fast pace, pivoting my kayak around as though I had tied up to a submarine. I just buttoned down and hoped the line would break. Instead, the fish just started towing me... not in a good way. It pulled me with such speed and force that my bow end started to dip. With just an inch or two to go before the front tip of my kayak was on very much the wrong side of the surface of the water, my hook bent out. That was close.

I switched to a pink and white Clouser and continued on, picking up a couple ladyfish.

Elops saurus

As I paddled out toward the even more open part of the river I was periodically hearing jacks and snook just slamming mullet against seawalls up and down. Sometimes it was pretty clear that I was hearing and seeing them from as much as a third of a mile away. Isn't that just incredible? But then I got an even more up close view of the action. I paddled into a school of very tightly packed, very nervous mullet. A big jack came flying into the edge of the school, first targeting the stragglers. It slashed right, then left, sending spray high in the air and making a hellacious amount of noise. Then it charged right into the school, sending the mullet running in the only direction they could: out and up. This was when I really wished I had had my camera out. The mullet sprayed just like peanut bunker, but these were foot long fish. In a few seconds they were coming at me, then literally bouncing off the kayak. I inhaled at that moment and could I swear I smelled mullet fear. This was one of the most stunning displays of the predator prey interaction I have ever seen. It makes my really want to get back to Florida for the mullet run to see this on an even more grand scale.

Shortly after that I came into some much clearer water and decided to start targeting barracuda. I knew this area was loaded, but I wasn't completely sure how I should be targeting them. I decided to just rip a deceiver with an extremely fast two hand retrieve. It just wasn't working, though I didn't know yet if it was just me doing something wrong or if there weren't any cuda there. I did see sheephead, a couple black drum, some big mojarra, and snook... so I switched to half heartedly trying to get each of those. The tactics for each differ, so just throwing the same fly and leader at all of them was pretty pointless and I caught nothing. I pointed Noah towards the snook. He had changed to a big spook. He got a hit relatively quickly in fairly shallow water. Then another not much further along, which in retrospect I think was a small cuda. Why? Because when we slide along a sweet looking mangrove line on the other side of the river, this happened:





It was pretty cool to watch, and gave me hope, so I kept throwing small stuff. I also fished some really tiny things because there were a variety of smaller fish around, including at least two pufferfish species, some snappers, and others. I only caught mangrove snapper, unfortunately.

Eventually, seeing more huge jacks just unloading on adult mullet, I broke down finally and tied on a huge howitzer game change. From there, things went very much downhill. Noah found a ton of big snook hanging on one particular dock. He missed one... right around the time a pelican flew into my line, got hooked, and utterly refused to let my help it. The damn bird thrashed its wings, clapped its beak, and gave me the stink eye for five minutes while I tried to unhook it. I tried the known method of grabbing his beak to restrain him. That sucker just wouldn't let me do it. Eventually, it was either flip the kayak, get bit a bunch of times, or cut the line and leave the bird with a huge fly stuck in it. I chose the third option. Honestly, screw you pelican. That was your own doing. To make things more fun, while this was going on Noah hooked into a snook every bit as big as the one I had gotten on New Year's Day. After a short battle in which he definitely did not let the fish tire out enough, he got it on the board where it thrashed hard and threw the hooks. In a panic he tried to grab the fish, which only ended with a serious cut from the snook's gill plate and no snook to photograph. We had gotten done with my nightmare and went over to the same dock, where it didn't take me long to hook into a good snook that I leadered but did not touch. Really, that's where our outing there ended. Noah got a few more missed blowups, I caught a couple small mangrove snapper. Nothing special. We left for some inlet hopping, but we were definitely coming back the next morning.

I decided  not to screw around. This was going to be our last good chance to get some snook on this trip, so I decided to make the best of it and just target snook and jacks. I stuck with big hollow fleyes and it payed off. I found the pattern fast. The snook sat at either two locations: where a dock met a seawall, or a corner on a seawall.

Centropomis undecimalis

That little thing protruding from the surface and the wake is being made by a 150lbe eagle ray.

 I'm not going to lie, I was feeling pretty good about myself on this morning. It certainly wasn't as though I could do no wrong. I did miss a few fish, I made a few poor casts, I came in too hot on a few docks. But this was a fishery I had less than 6 hours of experience on and I was holding my own pretty well. I know of a few people who fish this particular area quite a lot, and I've seen what they catch. I was doing well. I was catching snook. I had gotten better at predicting where they would be. I had gotten better at convincing them to eat. I had gotten better at hooking them. I had gotten really good at fighting them.

I think I've got snook pretty well figured out. I know I have a bit left to learn, I've not yet caught them from the beach and I haven't sight fished to layed up snook. But I think it wouldn't take long to decipher the ins and outs of both. One of the biggest things I took away from this trip was how well I can do when dropped into a new fishery if I'm confident and fish with purpose and intent. I was in a fishery that was almost completely new to me and I was comfortable. I knew that when I watched a big jack come along the wall chasing a mullet, then fling that mullet up so high it was a foot above the level of the lawn atop the wall and catch it on the way down. I was able to just watch and experience it. I was fully content. No need to make a panicked, mediocre cast.

 I wasn't a fish out of water here. But that mullet was, briefly. It was for him that the bell tolled.

mullet school

West Indian manatee, Trichechus manatus