Needlefish, Blue Runners, and Squid on the Fly

 Launching my kayak on one of the last legitimately hot days of the year, I expected to get into a variety of fish species and possibly some very unusual ones. What I was really looking for were Spanish Mackerel, and despite the fact that I found some of those pretty immediately, I couldn't catch the damn things. What I could catch were loads of blue runners. Blue runners are a fairly frequent late summer and fall visitor to Connecticut waters, though seemingly every year I seem to see a little bit of the same thing on social media... folks very surprised to see these fish around these parts. It's kind of funny how little fisherman actually know about fish, particularly fish they wouldn't fish for. Of course, I fish for everything, so I make it a priority to know as much as I can about as many fish as possible, and I knew blue runners regularly make there way inshore from the gulf stream each year when the water temperatures peak.

Mixed in with the blue runners, I got quite a few Atlantic needlefish. Needlefish are cool animals. I like strangely shaped fish, and needlefish certainly fit the bill. If you think pickerel are long and narrow, well... needlefish are aptly named.

Needlefish are also one of the small handful of fish I've caught that actively try to bite you when you catch one, so be mindful. They have lots and lots of teeth, and 'needle' applies just as well to those as it does to their needle jaw construction.

After a while the sun seemed to shut off the surface activity and I switched to bottom fishing with a sink tip and a Clouser Minnow.  The conditions weren't ideal for kayak bottom fishing with a fly rod because there wasn't a breath of of wind. I rely on having a drift for this sort of fishing, because if gives me a lot more time with my fly down in the zone. Without a drift it was a fan casting game, which can work but isn't the most methodical way to cover water when fishing for scup, seabass, or fluke. It did work though and I was able to get some scup to bring home and eat. The most interesting result, though was completely unexpected. I kept having very strange takes. Initially I just thought I was catching bits of weed, because that's all it felt like. The fly kept coming up clean though. Finally, as I brought the fly up from the depths, I saw the culprit. It wasn't a fish at all, actually. It was a cephalopod. I'd wanted to catch a squid on the fly for a long time, and suddenly I was being presented the opportunity. 

The problem I had was trying to stick the thing with a single heavy gauge hook. If you've seen anything designed for squidding you understand the issue. You need  multitude of fine, needle-sharp hook points to reliably hook squid. Luckily this odd little creature seemed very determined to eat my Clouser and I eventually got the hook in it. 

Getting to hold this utterly bizarre and shockingly intelligent critter for a few moments was the highlight of the day. I watched it rapidly changing color, manipulating its arms, and looking around at an alien world. Cephalopods are absurd animals, and it's remarkable to me that they will actually take an artificial lure given how intelligent they are. Maybe it's just a curiosity response? There's no way they still don't think a fly or lure is a real fish when they grab hold of it, their sensory system is much too complex. I have no idea, honestly. Squid are an endlessly intriguing animal. Though I certainly didn't get anymore that day, I intend to in the future. And it'll be with a fly rod, and some very odd and unique flies.

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.

Hammering Channel Catfish on the Fly (And a Few Quality Carp)

 Channel catfish are a species I've caught only sporadically over the years. My first on the fly was tiny, under a bridge just down the street from my house. It was less impressive than bullheads I've caught in the same stream, and a fairly underwhelming lifer- though I wasn't life-listing at the time yet, really. The next channel catfish I caught on the long rod was far more impressive, but also very close to home. I was kayak fishing my local lake. It was late in the day, and I was meandering back towards where the kayak was being stowed at that time, trolling for perch as I went. I'd just caught a white perch and cast back out, but fiddled around a bit before starting to paddle again. When I did and I came tight, I really came tight. There was a serious fish on, what I thought was probably a pretty typical carp. It ended up being a roughly ten pound channel catfish. 

Since then I've caught the species sporadically, both by accident and intentionally. The closest I came to really successfully targeting channel catfish was a night trip last summer that produced just one quite nice fish. This year it has been something I was especially interested in, as I've drifted away from crowded trout streams and away from schoolie striper fishing as much as I once did. I've fished for white suckers more than ever, had loads of time and success on common carp, and I've been thinking about catfish. I'd seen some in an area I'd targeted them before and I had a handful of casts at some unwilling ones, but I wasn't finding what I wanted. Then, on a before work trip a week ago, I hit the mother load. Fishing for catfish was what I hoped for that morning, but what I expected was some smallmouth and maybe bowfin or pike. I was rolling in the kayak, spending most of my time standing and spotting fish. I flubbed a decent shot at a group of carp in a very unexpected spot, a place I'd never seen any before, then spooked more as I poled my way around. I saw no bowfin and no pike, but eventually I did see rather a lot of channel catfish. They were lining the bottom of a very deep hole with a few commons mixed in. I disturbed everything there a little bit, so I backed off and gave it a moment. I came back with a Polar Bugger tied on and low expectations. The fact that my first cast- completely blind, mind you -produced a very high quality common carp was encouraging.

Given how much more opportunistic catfish tend to be, I figured I was pretty much assured to pull some out of that water if even the carp were willing to suck up that big Bugger. A short time later that proved true, though the fish I got wasn't especially impressive.

I then got a second nice common before the flood gates opened, and the catfish bite of my dreams materialized. I needed but one fly and my trusty TFO 5wt, and nothing more. The presentation was a simple slow crawl. The takes were obvious, the hook set a simple strip and lift, and most of the time the fly was in the very corner of each fish's mouth. They weren't huge catfish, but over the next two hours I caught a whopping 26 and a few were in fact pretty good sized individuals. 

Frankly it seemed nuts, and I began to wonder if I'd just been missing this bite in this spot ever season or if this was atypical. There are always catfish in the general area throughout the summer, I see them and occasionally catch them, but this was clearly different. 

Anyone that has caught enough channel catfish knows they pull pretty hard. They tire out before a carp would, but I do think the dig harder and they do sometimes go for pretty good runs. By fish 15 my arm was already pretty tired, but I could see fish rolling the next hole down and I just couldn't stand to leave, not yet. 

I was already very tired out when far and away the largest of the day at my fly. When I set the hook it put an awful bend in the 5 wt, and for a spell I just couldn't peel this one off bottom. When I got it up I proclaimed "hooaaah yeah, that's the one I've been looking for" in the gravelly tone of a fisherman that fully expected what he'd hooked but was still impressed... perhaps as much with himself as the fish. Some days I feel like a pretty damn good angler and this was one of those days. Other days I just flat out suck. There's fortunately enough of the latter to keep me from being an absolute ego-maniac, but in this moment I was pretty chuffed with what I'd just managed to make happen.

There's really one simple thing that makes catching catfish on the fly possible, and one thing only... being able to get flies in front of catfish. They aren't picky, but they also usually won't move to a fly as far as a bass would. There needs to be a lot of them around to have a good chance at consistently putting flies in front of them, and I'd finally found a whole lot of them in a confined and easily fished location. It was a pretty spectacular discover, and one I intend to turn into a pattern. It would be really nice to be able to have bites like this with relative consistency. It'll certainly be logged, and I'll be back there when time allows to see if they've stuck around. 

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.

Evening Scupfest

 More and more often, porgies are switching from a frequent plan B to a regular plan A when I go to the salt. If not the primary target themselves, at least one of them. Catching porgies is fun, and even more fun is catching porgies on the fly. I love figuring out how to consistently get a species on the fly, especially one that isn't as regularly targeted with flies. That said it really shouldn't have taken me as long as it did to learn how to best get scup. It's really very simple. I'm still honing things in though, as converting take too hookups and hookups to boated fish is proving the most difficult.

A warm day last week presented a good opportunity. I found some time, loaded up the kayak, and made my way to the sound. My paddle out put me right past a school of schoolie stripers breaking on very tiny peanut bunker. I took a couple casts at them, but left hurriedly. I was after a different fish. I would be fishing 12 to 18 feet of water with a sink tip and size 6 Clousers for something a bit less popular.

Of course there's more to scup than just dropping a fly to the bottom. Fish don't hold just everywhere and anywhere. Sometimes it almost seems like that, but it isn't true. Certain contours and structure hold fish, more fish, or bigger fish. I'll leave it up to you to figure out the complexities of that if you decide to fly fish for porgies. That's the fun part. The presentation is simple, almost a cross between nymphing and swinging a wet fly. The takes feel like little thump, often rapid fire. They usually come thick and fast when I'm fishing the right water.

It was a beautiful evening to be out on the water, though the smoke blowing in from the west was a part of that and quite unfortunate. The sunset reflecting off of the iridescent flanks of the porgies was gorgeous though. They really are a very pretty fish. 

With very few inshore blues in recent years and generally sporadic striper fishing, it's definitely worth looking to other fish species. Hopefully they won't ever need to be everyone's plan A, but for now I'm having blast with porgies. 

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.

Bowfin Ecstasy

 After an extended run of extremely frustrating bowfin excursions, I felt I needed to change my location a bit. I knew somewhere I could almost certainly get bowfin. I also knew my chances of getting a really colored up male there were on the slim side because I never had before and they always seem to show up at this place right after the spawn. The males drop the bright green pretty quickly, it seems. I also encounter far more females at this location. That's not a bad thing because they are always bigger and I would very much like to break the 12 pound mark soon. I've seen them, I know they exist here... I just need to get a fly in front of one. 

The day was bright and hot, and the tide conditions were excellent. I put my kayak in under a high sun an paddled to the flats that usually hold fish. It hardly took any time at all to find a pair of bowfin, a large female and a slightly smaller male, hunting in about 8 inches of water. The larger fish smoked Drew Price's Mr. Bow-regard and so began the bowfin day I'd been hoping to have for well over a month.

For the rest of the day it was pretty consistent action. I got about a dozen shots. Six fish committed, and I got four of them to hand. Three were big females and the fourth was a pretty nice male that wasn't completely lacking color. It was a gorgeous fish, actually, they all were. Just not the crazy emerald green 'fin I was hoping to find this spring. 

I wouldn't call this an ugly fish... would you? It was gorgeous.

I can't get enough of these strange prehistoric monsters. Every encounter feels like meeting some sort of small dinosaur. They're gnarly fish, hitting and fighting with a force that would knock a black bass out cold. To me, bowfin are the original American sport fish... largemouth bass don't even hold a candle. 

Of course there are noteworthy aspects of any day on the water outside of the fish themselves, and on this occasion the turtles were a nice addition. I hand caught a few that were in shallow enough water, including a tiny common snapping turtle and a lovely musk turtle.

Of course I've always been enamored with turtles as I have been all reptiles. If only I'd known about bowfin when I was five years old... 

There is something vaguely reptilian about these air breathing fish. They seem just steps away from leaving the water entirely. I can't wait to do battle with them again soon. 

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. 

Bowfin Agony

 Bowfin are not always easy to catch. They're often pegged as being a dumb, overly aggressive fish. While it is certainly much easier to approach a bowfin in a small watercraft, that does not mean they are easy. I spent an exceptional amount of my available fishing time this spring looking for bowfin and not finding them or finding very few and getting my butt handed to me by them. 

I wanted an early season male bowfin in spawning colors. Bowfin have perhaps the most unique spawning colors of any fish in CT. They turn green. Not vaguely green, not olive, not light green... male bowfin turn a deep emerald green, mostly on their fins and stomach. I've caught one bowfin that had some nice green coloration, but never a fully lit-up one. It is something I badly want to have photos of. Unfortunately this might not be my year for it. May went by without any bowfin for me, and as June trickles along they just get less and less colorful. I had one shot that didn't pan out. It was a moderately warm day and cloudier than I would have liked. I'd hiked my kayak into a backwater that a friend had been absolutely slamming bowfin at just days prior. I got the first one I saw to eat, and he was a stunner: the most green, most reticulated, most brilliant bowfin I'd ever seen. And I lost him. I couldn't get an eat from any other bowfin I saw that day (and I didn't see many). The handful of football shaped largemouth and small small pike I caught were not a good consolation. 

My next bowfin hunt started out hot and sunny- nearly ideal -and ended cloudy and rainy, with some gnarly cloud to ground lightning barrages in between. I only saw two bowfin and I didn't really get a shot at either one. I fished two different water bodies and got one good carp at each... no predator fish at all.

These long kayak outings without a bowfin to hand were starting to get obnoxious. I was burning gas, hauling my kayak in and out of nasty bodies of water, and just not accomplishing what I'd set out to. It's pretty hard not to get discouraged. Soon though, my agony would be swept away. 

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, Geof, Luke, and Noah for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version. 

Edited by Cheyenne Terrien

Big River Bluegills

 Right now, big bluegills are setting up to spawn around here. Many are already on beds, and more are being build daily. For someone that likes to catch trophy size specimens of any and all species- like myself -this is the time to look for big bluegills. I love trophy bluegills. A sunfish in excess of 9 inches is an absolute blast on a 5wt fly rod, and bluegills in particular fight spectacularly well. Probably my favorite place to fish for big 'gills is the Connecticut River and its backwaters. The average size is really good and the fish are abundant as well. I know private waters with some truly huge bluegills, and I've often considered sneaking into them to get some. But when it comes to big public water bluegills in CT, there's little better than the big river. 

Last week I devoted some special effort to a particularly productive bank. Its one of those places I know I can count on each year, there are always beds for about a month solid and the fish are always trophy sized. The methods I use aren't complex, but my casts do typically need to be on point. Before the fish are all on beds, they are usually relating to specific logs. Not every dead-fall along the bank holds fish, but two or three are usually piled with them. Small streamers are my weapon of choice. The action is almost always hot and heavy. 

You may be scoffing right now. There is still this perception that bluegills are for children, and I've even seen kids turn their noses up after being indoctrinated in the trout and bass centric world of American freshwater fishing. I say bullshit, bluegills are awesome, and these big bull males pull harder pound for pound than any largemouth bass. 

Given the relative abundance of these fish and the fact that they are in fact an introduced species, harvesting some is not a bad idea. They do taste quite good, and though they are slightly less easy to clean than crappie or perch you can still get a lot of meat off of one. Just leave the big 9 inch plus specimens to preserve the trophy fish genetics. 

I'll be targeting giant bluegills sporadically through the coming weeks, both specifically and while out looking for other species. Hopefully I'll be able to encounter a few super schools of huge bull bluegills that pull like miniature permit and jump like... well, nothing else really jumps like a bluegill, really. 

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. 

Another Big Carp While Looking For Bowfin

 Last week I again went out looking for bowfin, and just like the prior trip they didn't seem to have moved into the shallows yet. I spent hours slowly paddling around the flats and weed beds hoping to see that tell-tale long, undulating shape, but all I saw was more carp. This time most of them were sunning themselves, and fish like that are difficult but not impossible to catch. I did get one to make a move for my fly and I'm sure it would have eaten had I not drifted pretty much right over it. 

Right around where I hooked the rod breaking fish I wrote about last week though, I found another big trailer. I had on a mop fly, and was using my 5 wt. I made my cast, the fish stopped tailing, and I made a slow strip that came to an abrupt halt when steel found lip. I lifted the rod and the fight was on. This time, the rod didn't snap. However this fish performed a far more dramatic display of speed and power than the other one had. It's initial run was blistering, the first run into the backing I've had in quite a while. I got to shore as quickly as I could, but had a lot of work still as the fish made a second longer but slower run. Then there was that typical carp give and take before I got my hands on the fish and basically bear hugged it into submission. At an estimated 24 pounds, it was another high caliber specimen. Clearly there's something special in the water here.

Evidently I ought to be specifically targeting carp while I wait for the bowfin to start spawning. More likely, as soon as I switch gears to carp it'll be the bowfin that steal the show. 

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.