Convergence '21: Shad

 Once each spring, I make a run north to get on the American shad run. The American shad draw big striped bass, just as the river herring do, but I'm not after them for that reason. Unlike the herring, the shad are big and aggressive enough to be an excellent game species. Large American shad are hard fighting, often acrobatic chrome beauties that still have traces of that saltwater pull left in them even once they're 100 miles or more inland. And that's where I chase them, because if I'm honest the shad fishery in Massachusetts- at least for a fly rodder -is leaps and bounds better than what we have in Connecticut. 

Catching shad on a fly is simultaneously very simple and very complex. The flies and general fishing style are not complicated. I carry a bunch of very simple, colorful, flashy, weighted flies. Most of them use either a bead or dumbbell eyes, chenille, and flash... nothing more. The method is swinging. When it gets right down to it though, there's quite a bit of minutia involved. The fish can move a lot. They may change what color they want at the drop of a hat. Depth control and swing speed are incredibly key. Casting angle can make a huge difference. Well, it really isn't that simple is it? Some days it is, the shad go nuts and hit anything almost anywhere in the water column. But it's best to be prepared for it not to be that way. 

On my one trip this year, I was showing my friend Mark Alpert the ropes. Mark is a more than adept fly angler but had never caught a shad and this was his first time looking for them in Massachusetts. I knew what we'd likely be met with and was prepared for a decent day. The fishing played out very differently for each of us. 

Upon arrival, I was making constant little adjustments until I finally got a take. Depth, color, retrieve or lack thereof, position, etc. Eventually I finally started getting fish. They were in a seam right next to some pretty hard water and it was a pretty tight swing. By the time I'd called Mark and he'd gotten over to me, they were done there. 

After a spell we changed location entirely. Once there, it took me a while to dial things in. I was picking up fish, but not the way I wanted to (every cast), until I got my casting angler and swing honed just right. Then I had a steady pick that lasted a little while. Mark, fishing with a single hander, was compromised. I was able to lob a very long cast even with a steep slope right at my back. 

When that dried up, I wanted to return to the pool we'd started on. I felt that even if things picked up again where we were, Mark would have a better shot at the original pool. It was pretty immediately active upon our return, and I soon honed in on a color and swing speed that were working very well. That got me a good number of fish including a few beautiful big fresh roe shad, one of which was my personal best.

Eventually Mark was starting to get his presentation more tuned in as well and he was starting to get hits. Unfortunately, the bite slowed and then stopped completely, right before we had to leave anyway. I felt bad, but I knew it had nothing to do with his skill and encouraged him to make another trip. Mark got his first shad a few days later, as I expected he would. 

Shad are a perplexing and mysterious fish. They're a filter feeder at sea, so it is bizarre that they are so inclined to bite a fly so man miles inland. They've managed to survive through American industrialization, no minor miracle. Though they're far from my favorite fish, I think I'll always make that one trip a year. Maybe, if I get skunked, two. Catching a good shad bite is a pivotal part of experiencing the convergence of anadromous fish on inland rivers. It remains one of the greatest shows of life each spring.

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

Salter Brook Trout: What Is, What Was, And What Still Could Be. Pt. 2

 "Progress"

Human "progress" has been the largest driver of ecological and biodiversity changes on this planet for a long time. Consider the simple act of building a new road through a wooded area with, say, a few vernal pools, a permanent wetland, a couple high dry ledges, and a small coldwater stream. The process of building the road immediately disrupts the plant life and many animals using the land where the road is being constructed. A ledge is blasted out and that action destroys the only copperhead den on that parcel of land. Runoff from the road grade carries silt into the stream and chokes out spawning habitat for dace, fallfish, common shiners, and brook trout for at least a few seasons. When the road crossing is complete, it hasn't taken fish passage into account so only American eels can make safe passage into and through a small culvert. In the years after the road's completion, reptile and amphibian populations that needed to cross the highway to reach habitat necessary for their survival slowly get knocked back as roadkill claims individuals. Mammal and bird populations suffer similar declines for a variety of reasons. One seemingly simple and nondestructive act of human progress suddenly looks a lot more egregious when all of it's impacts are taken into account.

"Any development is going to have a negative effect," cautioned Wayne Castonguay, Executive Director of Ipswich River Watershed Association, in a phone conversation I had with him about Massachusetts water regulations. The Ipswich and its tributaries have already been assailed by water removal, and some of of the headwater streams literally run dry in August. Brook trout seem to have been extirpated from the area. With eDNA evidence to support this and only anecdotal evidence that they could still be present, hope is slim there for salters. What Wayne told me improved my outlook in one sense, as he assured me that Massachusetts actually has very good water management laws now, even in regards to withdrawals. Coldwater fisheries resources also get special protections. I was pleased to see, looking at the map on MassDEP, that Red Brook was indeed marked as a coldwater stream. Of course Massachusetts wasn't always so protective of groundwater, and even when regulations were changed in 1986 they at first didn't mandate regulation of already existing withdrawals. But the question is whether the regulations, good though they may be comparatively, are good enough that they'd prevent significant impacts to a small stream when a new large development goes in. More specifically, would these regulations save Red Brook, one of only three remaining healthy salter streams on or near Cape Cod? 

Photo Courtesy Geoff Klane

Though Wayne's information gave me more confidence in the water regulations than I'd had prior to talking to him, the fact that essentially any development is bad development remained my biggest takeaway. This leads us to the most visible issue facing salter brook trout in the Northeast currently. The Notos Group, a real estate and development partnership, initially proposed a multi-use gaming complex in Wareham in August, 2019. This didn't make its way onto my radar until a few months ago, and had already changed drastically by that time. Having scrapped the original proposal, Notos is still intent on rezoning land right on top of the aquifer that feeds the upper reaches of Red Brook. Even as presently zoned, development on this land could pose a problem to Red Brook and its salters, but the battle currently is all in stopping this re-zoning. 

I first talked about this re-zoning with Geoffrey Day, Executive Director of Sea Run Brook Trout Coalition back in mid March. Geof emphasized, "After 3.5 million dollars, tens of thousands of volunteer hours by Trout Unlimited, all the effort, all the land acquisition... all that work runs the risk of being reversed." The Trustees, Trout Unlimited, Sea Run Brook Trout Coalition, the Lyman family, and the state of Massachusetts have put so much into restoring Red Brook to a healthy state. It is a miraculous story, one of the few cases where a stream can truly be said to be nearly as good as it was more than a century ago. Catch rates documented by Theodore Lyman can be compared directly to data from the present. The thought of losing this... horrible. Geof stated, "The Notos Group have made no commitments about what they are going to build and when." 

Photo Courtesy Geoff Klane

The fear is that the land, precariously situated in a critical area of the Red Brook watershed where much of the springs feeding it originate, could soon be home to a heavy duty water using development, and that those ever important water use laws won't be enough to prevent severe de-watering during critical drought periods. This could at worst eliminate the brook trout rapidly and at best start a war of attrition that knocks back the population bit by bit and year by year. We just don't know what will happen, and in the case of a stream as special as Red Brook, taking a chance is unacceptable. 

Wetlands adjacent to the land set to be re-zoned. Photo Courtesy Geof Day.

Geof and I discussed the ways in which this re-zoning- or any development thereafter- could be stopped. Since brook trout, even rare salters, aren't afforded all that much protection as a species, about the only animal that would stall development would be a federally listed endangered species on the land. That seems highly unlikely, though the presence of the federally protected Plymouth red bellied cooter is at least possible. State listed species aren't as much of a silver bullet, but lend support towards protecting the land. The property (from my analysis as a self trained field herpetologist) can support Eastern hognose, Eastern box turtles, and Eastern spadefoot toads, all of which are species of special concern in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, none of these would outright stop development. The land being bought by a conservation organization would also, of course, prevent development. However the Notos Group has substantially more capital than the state or any independent conservation organization that would consider acquiring the land. 

Photo Courtesy Geoff Klane

Without any way to stop development through those avenues, we are left basically with two options: advocacy and convincing Notos that the land isn't worth re-zoning and developing. "We live in a pro-development paradigm..." said Geof, "we as anglers have a voice, and we need to amplify that voice." Red Brook, special as it is, has more supportive voices than most small brook trout streams. Groups like TU, NFC, and SRBTC have amplified those voices. However it is Wareham residents that are going to have the most say in the re-zoning proposal, which will be voted on this April 10th. It is really hard to convince residents of a depressed southern New England town that new development, which seems like it should stimulate the local economy, is a bad idea because it might hurt some little speckled fish. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, though. Fishing and conservation organizations throughout the Northeast have turned focus towards the matter. Trout Unlimited took commendable action, both in raising funds and organizing events in Wareham. TU President and CEO Chris Wood wrote an article on the issue, and Director of Volunteer Operations Jeff Yates helped organize two events that took place in Wareham to protest the re-zoning. Time will tell if these efforts have saved the stream. Its difficult but necessary to educate the voting public about the natural resources that could be put in danger by development. Every wild thing present in and around Red Brook has incalculable value, and to lose it would be deeply saddening. Red Brook is frankly the only reason I ever have or ever will spent a dime in Wareham. 

In the next post in this series, we will look at the economic angle and further dive into the complexities of public awareness and opinion. 

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

Salter Brook Trout: What Is, What Was, & What Could Still Be. Pt. 1

 Cape Cod

A quiet, meandering stream flows south of Mashpee, Massachusetts. It’s origins are Johns Pond and the wetlands near it, and it empties into Waquoit Bay. The stream meanders through woodlands that are protected as the Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge and Quashnet Woods State Reservation. Though the area is mostly suburban neighborhoods, and one sees road signs that say “Thickly Settled” in such parts of Massachusetts, this barrier of protected land provides refuge for the stream, called the Quashnet River. This is important, because the Quashnet is home to a very special fish. Wild, native brook trout swim these waters. 

Brook trout swim many streams in southern New England, but the brook trout of the Quashnet are special. This is because the river they are born in flows unimpeded into saltwater. There are no dams to prevent fish from coming and going, so some of these brook trout do. They leave the stream and enter the brackish and salt waters of Waquoit Bay at their leisure, undergoing a process like that of sea run brown trout or Atlantic salmon. But unlike those species, sea run brook trout aren’t regimented to a strict migratory schedule. Contrary to popular belief, they aren’t anadromous (fish that live in saltwater and run up freshwater rivers to spawn). They are simply wanderers, and enter saltwater sometimes for a variety of reasons including feeding and thermal refuge. These fish are commonly known as “salters.” 

On a bright and pleasant winter day, I drove from my partner’s apartment in Rhode Island to Cape Cod. The weather felt and looked nice but was not good for fishing. High pressure and wind are rarely ever a good thing. I ended up struggling all day despite looking for pickerel, holdover stripers, and white perch in a variety of spots. Around midday, I ended up at the Quashnet, frustrated and expecting very little. I fished my way downstream then up, carefully avoiding wading on gravel because fry had still likely not emerged from the redds. I missed one take way down in tidal water, but was struggling. It wasn’t until all hope had left me that a brook trout came out of a log jam to eat my gold Empie Shiner and brighten my spirits. It was a diminutive but colorful fish; a true miracle. Only three streams in the area still hold these fish, and if we aren’t very careful it could soon be only two. 

Crossing the canal bridge on my way back home, I looked over the land around Buttermilk Bay. I could see the community of Buzzards Bay, a town I’ve driven through many times. Out of my visibility was the town of Wareham and, to the north of Buzzards Bay, an important piece of land called the Lyman Reserve. Taking the name of the Lyman family, who owned the land through which a salter stream called Red Brook flows, donated the land to an organization called The Trustees of Reservations. They’d already deeded the land to Trout Unlimited for the express purpose of restoring the river's brook trout. Through the hard work of The Trustees, Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, Trout Unlimited, and Sea Run Brook Trout Coalition, habitat restoration and dam removal began to reap rewards. Brook trout numbers increased substantially and catch rates eventually reached historic levels not seen since the 1800’s (SRBTC). 

I’d gotten my first experience with sea run brook trout at Red Brook in 2017 with friend and guide Geoff Klane. I encountered a preposterously chrome, hefty brook trout in tidal water that refused to come to hand on that trip and had been returning ever since in hopes to meet that fish again. I’d not been successful, but the pull of the place was palpable. Red Brook is a trout stream after my own heart: free of non native fish species, low gradient and fickle, with a few truly large fish in it’s dark, hidden lies. I was broken up to learn that Red Brook may soon be in serious danger. 

Parcels of undeveloped land near the headwaters of Red Brook are currently the focus of a proposal by a development group, fishermen, conservationists, and residents alike. A relatively quiet battle is being fought and the future of Red Brook could be at stake. 

To be continued….

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

Winter Brook Trout on Cape Cod

Meandering lowland streams are the dominant type of river in Southeastern Massachusetts. The geology there wouldn't allow anything else: the hills are small and rolling. There are no mountains here. But there are brook trout. For most, images of mountain lakes and brawling freestones are conjured by the thought of brook trout. These coastal streams are nothing like that. What they are, though, is nutrient rich havens for some of the last sea run brook trout populations in New England. These vegetation-rich streams are often guarded by brush and bog and are difficult to fish. I've spent many days on brooks of a similar character in the Connecticut River Valley, so I feel pretty much at home on the char streams of Cape Cod. A few days after Christmas, my partner, Cheyenne, and I set out to explore the Cape. It would be my first visit in the winter. I was keen on seeing some of the streams I know out there in a different season.

After a lovely breakfast in Buzzards Bay, we made our way to one of the coastal small streams I've had the pleasure of getting to fish a few times. I wanted to stick to the tidal stretch, knowing full well this decreased my odds of encountering a brookie. If I did catch one the odds were much greater that it would be a true sea-run fish. Additionally, I'd be staying out of the water these fish use to spawn. Fry don't emerge from redds until February or March. The last thing I wanted to do was tromp on a well obscured redd and crush the developing future generation of brook trout in it. The importance of not wading on spawning habitat is not well observed. If you aren't willing to respect these fish by staying off the gravel they spawn in you should not be fishing these waters. 

Fishing for brook trout in a salt marsh is a surreal experience even when I'm not catching or seeing any fish. The gear I'm carrying, the fly on the end of my leader, and the way I'm fishing are no different than what I'd be doing on many Connecticut brook trout streams. But the sights and smells are not at all the same. The water rises and falls with the tide. The marsh mud produces an odor that gives me a sense of what I should be expecting. But striped bass nor fluke nor bluefish swim this marsh in any notable abundance in the month of December. Brook trout, however, wander in and out of this marsh year round. At least during the low end of the tide on the day I was there though, salters were scarce. I went without a touch. The hoar frost, however, was lovely on the dead, marsh grass.

There were other things to see, so we moved along. With the sun warming the ancient dunes and kettle ponds, we crested a hill and found ourselves next to another of the Cape's rivers. I'd fished this one with Noah in the summer and we each caught a beautiful brookie . I was a little more confident. One run produced nothing. The next also seemed lifeless. The glassy pool below called out to me. I wasn't in waders so I couldn't get into the best spot to fish it. I did have a casting window and a little bit of know-how on my side though. 

I changed to an unweighted Hornberg. I let fly the longest cast the brush would allow then began feeding line out to let the fly float downriver.  When it reached the tailout I twitched the rod tip aggressively and sunk the fly. I then retrieved it back up the pool. About halfway in, I saw a fish dart from under the brush-covered bank and smash that Hornberg. I set the hook and a gorgeous brookie began leaping around the pool. Back-lit by low winter sunlight, the jumping brookie was surrounded in golden droplets. It was a magical moment in time. I walked the fish upstream, keeping her in the water so Cheyenne could see her. It was a lovely fish. Whether this char had spent any time in saltwater I do not know, but any native freshwater fish from a place where humans have had as severe an impact as on Cape Cod is special. 

With that fish landed, I was satisfied. I need not catch any more. Later, we ran into Geoff Klane and a buddy of his who were also out after brook trout. I kept the rod packed away but it was good to chat with Geoff for a bit. Covid has made fishing with friends much more difficult these days so any socially distant interaction with my friends near the water makes me yearn for this virus to be over with so we can all enjoy each other's company again.

After saying goodbye to Geoff, Cheyenne and I headed to the dunes of the Outer Cape. It was cold out there, and we saw neither seals nor white sharks. A couple miles out I could see a huge flock of birds that appeared to be over a blitz. In December the options are few. It must have been bluefin tuna. Seeing life out there in the winter was an exciting surprise. On the bay side, a beautiful sunset lit up the sky. 

I really ought to spend more time on Cape Cod in the winter.

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, and Geof 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

It All Went Down in Buzzards Bay

 I could still hear the frantic calls of gulls and terns ringing in my ears as we hit the road home. It had been one of those events. Bait, predator fish, and birds all collided under the right conditions, and massive blitzes were scattered all over. We paddled till our bodies wouldn't let us, bent rods on bass and blues, a few of them large, and almost died in raging and turbulent currents. This was the stuff I live for. This was the goods. Everything broke and we lost our minds over the course of two days in Buzzards Bay.

 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.

Cape Cod Brook Trout

 Historically, coastal streams in the Northeast were rich with brook trout. These lower gradient, mud and gravel bottomed, vegetation filled spring fed streams provided a nutrient rich habitat that grew char faster than high gradient mountain streams ever could. Add to that access to saltwater, and anadromy can happen. When a salmonid has access to the ocean and the plethora of calorically dense bait fish it holds, they grow to exceptional proportions. The anadromous life style also makes brook trout take on a chrome coloration not often seen in their solely freshwater fluvial brethren.

Connecticut doesn't have any healthy sea run, or "salter" brook trout populations anymore. Neither does Rhode Island. Massachusetts though still has a few. On and early fall trip, Noah and I decided to pay a visit to one we'd never seen before. The wind was honkin' and we felt we had very little we could accomplish on the salt in kayaks, despite crazy daily bass and bluefish blitzes and the first little tunny of the year being around, but Cape Cod has some surprising freshwater gems and this was one of them. 

I got taken almost immediately by a sizable brook trout, on my third cast, but it ended up being Noah who struck first, with a tiny silvery brook trout that flopped back into the water before it was brought to hand. But he redeamed himself not long later with an absolute gem of a long, lean female wild brook trout. 

We Continued down stream toward the estuary, getting a few takes as we went, but never got to brackish water because the stream was just too difficult to navigate. On our way back up I made a cast into the pool where I'd had the first takes and my streamer got pounded. A studly brook trout began leaping as though it were a small salmon. Some, I was holding my favorite fish of the many I've ever caught out on Cape Cod. 

Has this particular brook trout spent time outside the sweet water stream we were standing in? Maybe, but we'll never know. I was chuffed though, as either way this was an extraordinary fish. 

We decided to hop on a trail that paralleled the river and meet it again upstream to work our way back down to the parking area. On the way, we met a fantastically colored eastern garter snakes, one with no defined strip down its back and an extremely pronounced checkering pattern. I spent a bit of time shooting photos of her, then we moved along. 

When we got back in the river, someone fishing upstream almost immediately intercepted us. Unfortunately this meant we'd be fishing back down through water that had already been fish, and though this doesn't always mean you can't catch anything, we sure didn't this time. 

Nonetheless I think we were both very pleased. Noah had caught his first two Cape Cod brook trout, and I'd caught my best Cape Cod fish of any species. 

 New England's coastal brook trout populations live on the brink. Restoration efforts by groups like Sea Run Brook Trout Coalition have successfully brought populations back to health, including in the stream Noah and I were fishing, but in  changing world these are a fish that could all too easily be lost. Water quality, warming ocean waters, climate change, dams, and development all put these historically, socially, and ecologically important fish at risk. There's a lot that can be done to preserve and protect them. But at bare minimum, please keep these fish, as well as the numerous other at-risk species, in mind when you vote in local, state and national elections. Any politician, regardless of party affiliation, that seeks to dismantle clean air and water regulations, or even simply refuses to push forward towards definite goals in conservation, is a festering sore that needs to be removed. 

 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.

Cape Cod Observations (Pt. 3)

 The morning light on the dunes was spectacular going into our second day of Cape Cod exploration. It's only unfortunate that it never back-lit the dorsal fin of a white shark for us.

As the dunes erode, sand from different strata slides down the face in streams and forms delta like deposits down slope. These vary in color depending where the sand came from in the dune itself. 

A favorite viewing spot featured high dunes overlooking seal colonies that didn't have a dry outer bar to take refuge on. We though that the fact that these seals had to be in the water might make them more likely targets.

We noticed a few of these spiders and their burrows at the top of the dunes. I fed this one some of the deer flies I swatted. 

One of our most interesting observations was the massive number of cicada killer wasps around. In this photo, there's one in the top left corner. It had been resting on one of the grass tufts. I never managed to get a good shot of one. The most interesting behavior we saw these wasps engaging in was chasing after swallows and kingbirds. We don't really know what this was about.

As with the previous day, we couldn't just spend the entire time on the dunes and beach looking for sharks. There was more of the Cape to see.

The white shark angler's tackle box.

Oil tanker leaving the east end of the Cape Cod Canal.

I pulled out the fly rod for the third and final time at the Cape Cod Canal when some sort of scombrid species began blitzing for a short time. They were probably Atlantic mackerel, though they looked a bit on the large side. I didn't catch one, so who knows. Those were our last minutes on Cape Cod, at least for that trip. We will see a white shark, though it certainly will take some tie and effort to do so fro the beach.

 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.