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.

Brood X: Big Trout Cicada Chaos

 I almost didn't even try. My familiarity with the extent and distribution of Brood X as well as my complete lack of experience fishing the trout waters of Western Maryland added up to a big uncertainty. But my second day looking for carp and cats was slow... I got shots of rising carp and I caught some smallmouth, and the photos from that day will at least end up on my Patreon page, but the fishing was brutally frustrating. So on my final day, and at the very end, I headed the opposite direction from home. I'd heard good things from Western Maryland, and I hoped I'd find both cicadas and wild trout feeding on them. 

I went through a couple of areas on the highway on my way west where I was splattering enough cicadas to worry about my windshield. Then, when I got off the main drag onto some lovely winding back roads I left my windows open. Often enough, I passed through an area where the bugs were deafening. I was starting to get pretty confident when I found myself parked next to a gorgeous stretch of pocket water with loads of cicadas around. Maybe it would happen after all! 

An hour later I was starting to have my doubts. The water was gorgeous and there were plenty of the periodical cicadas around, but I just wasn't getting reactions. That was precisely when a 16 inch brown torpedoed my fly and made me a believer. I missed him, but at least I knew it could work.

Not that long later, I got the first of a pair of football shaped stocker rainbows to hand on the Cicada. They certainly weren't what I was looking for but at least lifted my spirits.

I quickened my pace, sensing that the sun was on its way down. Rounding the next bend I took a spill, whacking my hand as well as my knee and shin on rocks. I got up feeling that sense that I'd be very sore in the morning, and that the river now owed me something. That is never a good thing to feel. If you feel owed a fish, you will not get it. 

That came back to bite me a short time later when an 18 inch wild brown came up and smoked my big foam cicada. I set the hook pretty well, I though. The fish tore downstream before doing some serious, powerful, deep digs. Then it just came off, leaving me standing there, slumped and dejected. There was another angler just downstream, so I opted to leave that stretch and go elsewhere. So began a short time of driving semi-aimlessly, wasting daylight, wishing I'd gotten there earlier. 

Finally I settled on an entirely different and much larger river. There I struggled to find fishy water for a little while. When I did, I missed the first fish that ate then broke of the next. Both were browns and clearly very nice ones. I was really starting to hurt now, both physically and mentally. 

But the day is always darkest right before the dawn. In this case, it was darkest for me right before the sun set. Then a football shaped male brown took my cicada, fought like a demon, and actually let me touch and photograph it. Yup, he wasn't the biggest, but I felt I'd actually earned that one. And he was gorgeous. 

Then, just 30 feet away, another good fish ate. I stuck her and like her smaller male friend she fought like an absolute psycho. This one was particularly nice. Again, not huge, but impressive in stature. It was pretty clear how full of cicadas these trout were. 

That was that, mostly. I did catch a tiny wild rainbow towards the end but those two browns, caught in quick succession, were the beginning and end of my Brood X trout success. I was happy with that. I'd gotten a couple fantastic fish from water I didn't know at all with very minimal research. All I had was prior experience in similar fisheries to go off of. Until you really know the fish in your neighborhood, you can't expect to know how to catch the same fish anywhere else they exist. 

I started heading home that night. My periodical cicada pilgrimage had ended. It was a hell of an experience. Not long after I'd return home, these bugs would finish their breeding and die. The woods would be quiet again, but the eggs of the next generation would be hidden away in dark places. I hope to encounter I get to encounter the next generation when the emerge in 17 years. I don't know where I'll be though, so I'm glad I got to experience it this time. But for now, our story ends in a cold river in Western Maryland, where a beaten and bruised angler stood smiling, looking at a sunset and woods full of cicadas that had gone quiet for the night.

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!

Brood X: Catching Carp on Dry Flies

 I've caught carp on the surface before. Plenty, actually. I've had days where I got half a dozen or more carp on dry flies. However, it always required chumming them up with bread and that just felt cheap. I wanted a more natural scenario, and ideally I wanted fish eating insects, though I'd happily take berries as well. 

Brood X just so happens to emerge around some of the best carp waters on the East Coast. Carp have a known affinity for cicadas. The huge periodical emergence and the millions of big, juicy bugs plopping into ponds and rivers are going to get some carp looking up. It was one of the things I was most excited about as I made my way south. After a catfish filled morning, I began to look for something a bit bigger.

It took hours. I walked, I waded, I drove. I gave myself horrendous leg and foot cramps. I saw some cool things on the way, thankfully. I watched a Northern water snake foraging(?) for the cicadas. I watched it swim out, grab a cicada, then swim back to the river's edge where it finished consuming the bug. It then repeated the process twice more. I'm not sure this behavior has been documented in this species, though snakes are known to take advantage of the cicada emergence. You may have seen wildly titled articles about "extra copperheads" eating the cicadas- there were dozens of them popping up a few months ago -that was bull. Copperheads modify their behavior very slightly during the cicada emergence but people living within their range aren't likely to see any more than they otherwise would. I never saw one, though I looked in some viable habitat. Later in the afternoon, I saw a beautiful garter snake swimming across the river and headed it off. She had a big food bolus (the lump caused by a food item wider than the snake's own body) that was very much cicada proportioned. I got a couple shots before leaving her to her business.

Not long after that, I found what I'd been searching all day for. A school of seven carp were in a back eddy, sucking down every cicada in their path.

I frantically made my way to the gravel mound you can see in the bottom right of those two photos. Breathing heavily, I tried to calm down and collect myself to be ready for a shot. Fish were cycling through the eddy, going against the current, picking of cicadas as they went. I gave myself a few minutes before easing into position. I waited for a fish coming down the bank. One came. I made a cast. When the fish, a sizable mirror, got to the fly, he nosed it but did not take. Stay calm, Rowan.

I quietly removed my fly and waited for the next fish to come down the bank. This time it was a better common. I made my cast. The fish deviated off course to eat a natural, then turned back and came to my fly. It rose. I waited. It opened its mouth. I waited. It sucked in the fly. I waited. It turned... I set the hook. And so ended all chances I'd get another shot in that back eddy that day. This fish lost its mind when I set the hook, thrashing violently and then tearing off on a blistering run. Every other fish there spooked. I needed to land this one. The fight was long and hair raising. At one point I thought I might have to swim out to get the fly line off of a huge submerged rock, but luck was on my. Big river carp fight harder than most fish, and getting this one to hand on my 5wt TFO was a task and a half. I did it though, I got the fish. It had a big bulging gut full of cicadas and was fantastically proportioned. This was the fish I'd made the trip for. 

I'd come a long way from another of the best carp areas in the country to get the very same fish eating something different. It was worth the trip. Fly fishing is about the experiences, and it doesn't take catching a tone of hue fish to make a great experience. Set the stage with a remarkable and rare biological phenomena, add in some fickle fish of a few different species, and put them in an interesting and beautiful environment and I'm a very happy man. There's more cicada mania to come, as I headed West to colder waters with different species. 

With a satisfying and surprise lifer out of the way, I continued on my quest for fish chowing on periodical cicadas. Now I was looking for carp. It would prove to be a very rewarding challenge. 

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!

Brood X: Fly Fishing the Magic Cicadas

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!

 Our story begins in the cold, damp, soil of a forest in the Mid Atlantic. In this soil stirs an alien creature with big eyes, monstrous looking legs, and a thick abdomen. He has been in this dirt for most of his life, but that is about to end. Something draws this little alien creature upward, right to the surface, where he then climbs up the nearest tree trunk. He then leaves his subterranean shell in favor of a perhaps even more alien, winged form. This little black, orange, and red bug then flies up into the tree canopy and begins to... scream. He screams as loud as he can. In time he is joined by thousands, then millions of his own brethren, creating a deafening chorus. 

These little creatures are periodical cicadas (also known as magic cicadas), and they do this every 17 years. They are not all the same species. Three different cicada species make up Brood X, which emerged to breed, lay eggs, and then die this spring throughout large parts of the Mid Atlantic and Midwest. The event is a special one that would be interesting even if the bugs didn't end up creating some very unique fishing. Towards the end of the show I made my way south, seeking the cicadas and everything else occurring in the wake of their chaotic emergence. I'd been fascinated by periodical cicadas long before I'd ever picked up a fly rod, and this was to be a very exciting trip for one totally obsessed nature nerd.

I made it a substantial distance into Maryland before I encountered the first periodical cicadas. Near the town of Thurmont I began to see cicadas flying around. I stopped and found a bunch of dead ones in a parking lot. It was a cold morning, a lot chillier than the cicadas seemed to prefer, so I wasn't yet hearing their trademark singing.

I wandered around for a while before I found both a huge number of cicadas and fish actively feeding on them. I was on a river I'd fished years ago but a part of it I hadn't visited back then. There was a substantial clay bank with overhanging trees creating shade at a bend. The current was lazy and the surface slick. Fish were sporadically rising to cicadas drifting down the river. 

Some of the bugs struggled, flailing on the surface and buzzing in an agonizing sort of way. Some just succumbed and floated unmoving. Not every cicada was eaten by a fish, but there wasn't much pattern to the feeding. Sometimes a flailing bug was the target, sometimes a still one. At times cicadas floated through unmolested for five minutes, maybe more. At other points not a single one made it past the catfish and bass that were in there. 

Catching these fish wasn't as easy as I would have liked. Precise drifts and long casts in tight quarters were necessary. Hooking the catfish also took some experience I didn't yet have- how often can you find channel cats free-rising for insects to practice on? It certainly isn't their most common feeding behavior. I missed many, but caught plenty as well. Catfish on dry flies... this was exactly the sort of thing I'd made the drive for. 

The smallmouth present in the spot weren't quite as gung-ho about the cicadas as the catfish, which may have been because the were smaller and were already about to pop; they were so full of bugs they all looked like little footballs. 

After seemingly depleting that source of active fish, I decided to explore a small tributary nearby to see if it might harbor some species I'd not yet caught. Just up from the mouth was a chub mound occupied by a pair of average sized river chubs, a species I'd first caught last summer in western Pennsylvania. I didn't have real micro fishing gear with me, so wasn't equipped to catch the dace and darters that were around the mound. 

I continued upstream hoping to encounter some mounds with other species, or perhaps fish schooled in a deep pool. I found both. In fact, a lot of fish were on mounds in this little creek. Most were river chubs, with a few super colorful common shiners mixed in. I was having a hard time catching anything but did eventually get a fairly run-of-the-mill small river chub. Since that isn't a species we have in Connecticut, it was cool to catch one again. 

All the while, the cicadas were screaming in the tree canopy. It was loud and constant, and would soon follow me even when there were no cicadas singing around me. 

I eventually found another chub mound loaded with fish and began working it. I caught a small river chub, then the largest and most unusual looking fish in the school took my nymph. A gnarly looking male of whose identity I wasn't sure of at the time came to hand. I now know it was a Central stoneroller, a quite trick species to catch on hook and line let alone on the fly, and a new species for me. My 180th life list fish was a totally unexpected one!

Lifelist fish #180, Central stoneroller, Campostoma anomalum. Rank: Species

With a satisfying and surprise lifer out of the way, I continued on my quest for fish chowing on periodical cicadas. Now I was looking for carp. It would prove to be a very rewarding challenge. 

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.