I've fiddled on and off with catching tautog on the fly over the years, sometimes with stronger focus, sometimes with very little. There was a time I really had my sights on catching a fly world record tog, but I've come to realize I just don't fish for them enough to aim so high. I've got to figure out how to catch any tautog consistently at all on the fly, regardless of size. This fall I really wanted to get out and target them a bunch, but I only went once. On that one trip though I do think I figured something out.
It was a slow day, bait guys weren't getting much with green crabs. I went out to the end of the jetty and dropped down a very small, pale crab pattern. Almost immediately I was on. A small but powerful wrasse had darted out and grabbed the crab on the fall. It wasn't the biggest tautog I've ever caught, but any tog on the fly is a nice tog.
As a proof of concept, a much larger tog stole the fly from me just a short time later. Annoyingly I didn't have any more little crabs. I'm realizing something I should have a lot sooner: smaller is better for tautog. They eat in an un-ideal way for getting hookups on artificial flies, nipping at and trying to break bits off their prey. Sometimes they are in the mood to chomp down a whole large meal, but when they aren't and I want to get the on flies, I should definitely just be using really small crabs. It makes sense. I like using small Asian shore crabs for tog when I do bait fish for them because I find I get far more and better hookups. The fish eat the hole crab at once rather than bites of it. I'm thinking, down the road, that tiny Merkins and small Flexo Crabs are going to end up being my mainstays. Hopefully I actually target these finicky little buggers a whole bunch next year rather than just once! Perhaps that's my New Year's Resolution: fish for tautog 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.
As most of you hopefully already know, I am a life-list angler. I target, document, and count the number of species, hybrids, and subspecies I catch, specifically on fly tackle. Because of that I spend a lot of time learning about and fishing for many different species of fish. This means I'm more adept at identifying and fishing for an extremely broad range of species than the average fly angler. This series will attempt to outline species identification, some life history, and methods for targeting with fly tackle. Maybe I'll get to every fish on my life list, but considering it is ever growing... it would take a while. Mostly, I hope this will get a few of you interested in going out and learning about or catching something new.
Tautog, Tautoga onitis, or blackfish, are becoming ever more popular a species to target in the saltwater here in the northeast every year. Part of that is because of the declining quality of striped bass fishing, and part of it is the length of time the season lasts. Well after the last little tunny has left and fluke fishing is over, when the last of the seasons migrating stripers are popping up here and there, the tautog bite is still going strong. But if you aren't from the Northeast, or you don't fish saltwater, you probably know nothing of this species. And, even if you do know a thing or two about tautog, you may not believe they can be caught on the fly.
Tautoga onitis
Tautog are a member of the remarkably diverse family Labridae, the wrasses. Wrasse come in a striking array of shapes, sizes, and colors, and aside from being diverse they are a notably intelligent group of fishes; more on that to come. Tautog are varied in coloration despite their commonly used nickname in the Northeast, blackfish. Tog can be mottled, brown and grey, white and black, with patches of bronze, copper, sometimes even teal or green. Juveniles are typically much more colorful than adults.
Large adults are sometimes called "white-chinners" because their lower jaw is often white in coloration, whereas smaller younger individuals are darker. Tautog are generally similar in appearance to another wrasse that inhabits the same areas and the same structure, the bergall or cunner. Tautog are more deep-bodied than cunners. Cunners have a pointed head, tautog have a round head. A large adult cunner is far smaller than even an average tautog. Both have rubbery skin, small scales, a spiny though not visibly so dorsal fin, and are very difficult to keep a hold of because of a thick but not especially unpleasant protective slime layer.
Tog can be found from South Carolina to Nova Scotia but are especially abundant from Virginia to Massachusetts. They inhabit a wide depth range from well over 100ft to just six inches of water. Migration in and out of shallow water depends on temperature, when the water is at its coldest tautog will be wintering offshore at the deepest extent of their range. As the water warms in the spring, tautog move inshore to spawn. The species shows strong preference for hard structure, be it rocky shorelines, reefs, bridge pilings, or wrecks; however they also occasionally can be found over shallow sand or mud flats. Tautog feed on a variety of crustaceans, clams, aquatic worms and sometimes other fish, but their affinity for crabs is well known. Equipped with big flat teeth and a strong jaw, they are perfectly adapted to cracking open the shells of crabs and sucking out the meat. Molar like teeth toward the back of their mouth can even crush up barnacles.
Tautog spawn during the spring in and around estuaries. I personally routinely see large adult tautog in the same places every spring, often holding to the exact same big boulders or bridge pilings each year leading up to the spawn. Some research suggests offshore spawning may occur to some extent, as well as drift of eggs and larvae from inshore waters. It seems the youngest life stages of tautog rely heavily on underwater vegetation for concealment until they reach sub-adult size and join the bergalls on the inshore rock piles. Eel grass is notably important. From NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-NE-118, Tautog (Tautoga onitis) Life History and Habitat Requirements, Frank W. Steimle and Patricia A. Shaheen: "In the Weweantic River Estuary (Massachusetts), the greatest abundances of eggs and larvae were collected over eelgrass (Zostera marina)-vegetated sites and near bottom (Stolgitis 1970)."
And:
Several studies reported that young tautog (less than 10 cm) prefer vegetated over unvegetated bottoms (Briggs and O’Connor 1971; Sogard et al. 1992; Dorf 1994; Dorf and Powell 1997). These preferred, vegetated habitats are reported to range from primarily eelgrass beds (Goode 1887; Grover 1982; Orth and Heck 1980; Heck et al. 1989; Sogard et al. 1992; Szedlmayer and Able 1996) or a mix of eelgrass and algal associates [i.e., sea lettuce (Ulva lactuca), Enteromorpha sp., and Polysiphonia] (Briggs and O’Connor 1971), to beds of mostly Ulva (Nichols and Breder 1926; Sogard and Able 1991).
Though like virtually all fish they grow quite rapidly as juveniles, tautog are actually a slowly maturing and slowly growing species. A tautog doesn't reach maturity until three or four years of age, with females taking on average longer than males. The incredible 28.83 pound all-tackle world record was estimated to be 22 years old and the species is estimated to live as long as 34 years or more.
Now, I've thrown in the seeds here and there, maybe you have noticed maybe you haven't... but the combination of the tautog's habitat, life history, and flavor have put them in a rough place as their popularity grows. Unfortunately, this isn't the sort of species that is popular entirely for its sporting qualities, and they do have that in spades. I mentioned earlier the intelligence of wrasse. Anyone that has spent time fishing for tautog can't deny their knack for making off with the bait without getting hooked. Tautog seem to be very inquisitive, and reacting to sounds and smells and coming in to inspect things closely. I've heard stories of spear fisherman scraping their spear on a rock to pique the interest of hiding tautog, whose curiosity then leads them into the shooter's sights. The fighting capabilities of tautog are equally impressive. They don't have long term stamina but their muscular body and big, broad tail give them all the power they need to rush back into their rocky lairs after being hooked. Set the hook on a tautog and you'd better be ready to give that fish all you've got. Unfortunately, what comes to mind most in association with tog is how good they taste. I am the last to say tautog aren't a good eating fish, they are absolutely delicious. I keep a couple most seasons, and enjoy every one. But our affinity for tautog as table fair, in combination with declining fisheries for other species like fluke and striped bass, the rising popularity of tog fishing, and their ecology is leading to declining numbers. The vegetated bottom young tog rely on for survival is being decimated up and down the coast, especially eel grass. And according to ASMFC, tautog are overfished and overfishing is occurring in Long Island Sound, New Jersey, and the NY Bight, and are overfished in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. It's important that we anglers start to see the value of tautog as more than just food. I'm not going to stop eating tautog just yet, and I'm not suggesting you need to either. But harvesting selectively is a good idea. Tautog don't migrate that much, your local population is pretty much your local population with a little bit of exchange between other populations. Keeping big, genetically strong tog in the gene pool is a good idea, so as much delicious meat in on that 10+ pounder, you should probably let that one swim and keep a smaller one instead. Consider going out and catching tautog just for fun sometimes with no intent to put meat in the box at all. They really are a lot of fun, great sport on light tackle... and with that let's delve into targeting them with the fly rod.
When I initially started targeting tautog on the fly I was told by quite a few people that I probably wouldn't catch any. It was difficult, and that wasn't surprising. Everybody was targeting this species with crabs on fish finder rigs and jigs, sometimes on sand worms in the spring, but hardly ever on artificials. I had to accept that, no matter how hot the bite was, I was going to have to settle for far fewer and smaller fish than I could catch on crabs. But, getting the chance to catch even one of these bulldogs on fly tackle was worth trading for the numbers.
I've found that it can be difficult to nail down a pattern to catch tautog on the fly, they are very moody and can be at times startlingly easy on artificials and at others very difficult despite taking a bait readily. Though tautog do feed on the flats, in CT they do so mostly in mid to late spring when it isn't legal to target them, so I primarily fish for them around man-made structure like jetties or bridges when the season is open. I also fish for them from boat or kayak over reefs, along breakwaters, or around islands. Crab flies like the Merkin and Simon's HoverCrab can catch a tog or two, and in situations where big tog can be sight cast to they might be the best choice. But I've caught most of my fly tautog on stonefly nymphs like Strolis' Shimmer Stone, and on simple small Clousers. Red over white, orange over white, and olive over yellow in sizes 2, 4, and 6 are my favorites, tied short. Less than an inch of hair beyond the bend of the hook is preferable as tautog are liable to nip the fly once very quickly and then never come back for a sniff again. I fish these flies on a 20 ft leader, 17ft of 20lb test Berkley Big Game to 3 feet of 16lb, either directly to the fly or to a small drop shot weight. Essentially, this is salt water mono-rig nymphing. Lob the fly or fly and weight around rocky structure and try to work it around boulders and into the holes where tautog might be residing. Sometimes I'll drop flies right into holes in jetties. When you feel a tick, set with a quick jerk in tandem with a strip. Set too hard though into a rock or an unyielding giant tog and you are liable to blow up your rod, so be careful setting the hook with this sort of vertical tight-lined presentation. If you get so lucky a to convince a tog to eat a fly and manage to set the hook, the next 15 seconds will determine whether or not you actually catch that tog. There's not much space between that angry fish and its rocky hiding spot, and it will try really, really hard to get back there. I don't own the perfect fly rod for this job yet but some of you may already have it. It's the unfortunately discontinued G. Loomis Short Stix 10/11, a beefy but also short lever that was designed with input from my friend Ian Devlin along with Mark Sedotti for entirely different purposes but may well accidentally also be the ideal tautog fly rod. I remember when I first held one in my hand a while back, knowing basically nothing about it, and my first thought was, "this would be great for tautog". That was when I was first starting to target the species and I was getting very frustrated with with conventional 9ft fly rods, I found them too long too be effective, and just not what I needed to set the hook into a tog then wrench it away from the structure. I've even gone down to 5/6wt glass rods just to get better vertical hooksets even though it meant I had less power to then land the fish because I was so tired of missing bites. I am confident any rod rated 8wt or above at a length of under 8 feet is preferable if you can get your hands on one. Not that many people are out looking for a dedicated tautog rod, but these short fly rods are incredibly versatile anyway so you can just add reefing tautog to the list of things they'd be great for.
Situationally it is possible to sight fish for tautog, and if you can see them that is ideal because you can judge their reaction to your presentation. Whether it's just to fish hanging around rocky structure or to tog tailing on the flats, sight fishing is one of the greatest learning opportunities you could be presented with. And you never know when it might happen, here's former fishing editor of Field & Stream, Joe Cermele, on the boat with Captain Eric Kerber of On a Mission Fishing Adventures, catching tautog on the fly at night on a lighted bridge:
Tautog on the fly is really one of those few remaining "final frontiers" in fly fishing in this part of the world. It is worth trying, especially since tautog and other bottom dwelling species often make themselves targets when other more traditional fly rod species don't. They've become one of my favorite fish to fish for. Being such a quirky, energetic, interesting looking species meant it didn't take much to earn them that.
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.
There's been a bit of a lull in my normal bass haunts, the bait that was there and the bass that were on it have moved on and the quite warm weather has kept the rest of the bait in the back. There have been tiny fish up in the bays, like really small ones, but that's not really what I'm after. I poke a few and then I'm done. So on a really slow bite this past Saturday, Noah and I read the writing on the wall, and, well, the wrasses were going to save our asses.
We collected crabs, an essential fa part of a tautog slam, and made our way to some rocky outcroppings that were sheltered enough that we could drift slowly enough to fish effectively without a drift sock or anchoring. We'd been out two days prior and had tried togging. Noah anchored and quickly lodged it too firmly to get it out. He had to cut the line. This and other experiences trying to anchor small sit-in kayaks have made me weary of it. I also just don't like the hassle. So I look for slow drifts. With a light north wind it didn't take long at all to find a slow drift over a pile of tautog. They were small but they were very willing. And at any size, these fish pull like crazy. I love them.
After about a half a dozen tog I set the hook into something behaving very differently. I had a suspicion what it would be, and that was soon validated. It was a big beautiful oyster toadfish. And yes, I did just use beautiful to describe this fish. Let you preconceptions go and look and the striped patterns of this fish's dorsal, pectoral, and caudal fins, and the cryptic pattern of its body. Also look at the skin texture and general shape of the fish. This is a creature that has evolved perfectly to survive in the niche it does. Imagine it in ambush at the base of a boulder covered in vegetation and algae. To me, that's beautiful. A fish living in it's nice and just being perfectly matched to it. Fish are so damn cool.
Tautog are often called ugly too. And of course I beg to differ. How is the fish below ugly?
Soon a southeasterly breeze kicked up and made our little hotspot inhospitable before we could get a big fish. No matter, I had a plan B and it turned out to be dynamite.
For about an hour before sunset until just a little after, we were on the best number of tautog I'd ever encountered, with a much better average size. Neither of us succeeded in landing a big white chinner, but I did come away with an encounter that left my jig bent and my nerves fried.
All this got my really in the mood to fish for these awesome little monsters, so expect to see more, hopefully some on the fly, and hopefully a few really large ones.
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, Chris, Brandon, and Christopher, for supporting this blog on Patreon.
Sometimes in salt, there just aren't surface feeds. Scratch that... most of the time there aren't surface feeds. If you go out and depend on seeing birds or breaking fish, or finding bass or blues casting around structure, you are likely to spend a lot of time that you could be catching fish, uh, not. If I'm not chasing down a blitz or actively casting to working bass, blues, albies, or bonito, I'm almost always vertical jigging, and if I'm vertical jigging I'm almost always catching something. I pull it off with a fly rod, relying on inordinate amounts of weight and tying flies on jigs, but I never turn my nose up at using bait, metals, or epoxy jigs on a spinning or conventional outfit either. It really surprises me to see how many people will just motor around hopelessly or sit around not fishing waiting for something to blow up, when they could easily be catching seabass, scup, fluke, or tautog, among other things.
He who sees the future.
A few weeks ago, after covering a bit of ground looking for fish active at the surface, Patrick Barone and I started drifting and vertical jigging a big bowl between a couple reefs. We both started out using jigs, and honestly I almost stuck to that for the rest of the day. We were absolutely slamming scup, BIG scup. Some of these fish were hefty enough to run drag on dogging runs back towards the bottom. I stuck with a crippled herring for a while, which is actually a pretty large metal to be jigging scup with but was working fine.
Eventually though I caved and broke out the 5wt, hoping with a two fly drop shot rig I might be able to get a double. I know for sue I had a pair on a few times, bit I just couldn't manage to get both up any of the times I got the chance. I also caught smaller fish overall.
We left them chewing there. It was the best scup fishing I'd experienced both in size and in numbers. And they were also mostly very dark, beautifully colored fish, with some cool variations and a few lighter fish mixed in.
Later that week, my good friend Kirk invited Noah and I out after bonito, primarily. We had bonito up in the early afternoon, but to say they were being obnoxious would be an understatement. Despite a couple hours worth of crazy surface feeds and each of our best efforts to catch one of those picky little bastards, we didn't get any.
Once again, vertical jigging was what made the day. Kirk got a couple of really nice black seabass, Noah and I both got plenty of young of the year seabass and average sized porgies, and I even got a tautog on an un-tipped pompano jig.
There were incredible clouds of silversides around that afternoon, and such biomass often draws attention from more than just the typical players. In this case, we were seeing schools of scup underneath the silversides. It as quite a thing to see, and for me the highlight of the day.
If I haven't already hammered the point home...
Why sit around waiting for a blitz that might not happen or burn a ton of gas looking for one when the ocean floor is practically paved with fish, some of which you probably haven't caught, which are readily hooked with quite simple and inexpensive rigs on spinning gear and a little bit of outside-the-box thinking with fly tackle. I could go in depth on my own approaches, rigging, presentation, and such, but honestly it's not that hard. Dive into the idea of trying to catch these fish and it will teach you more than I could possibly do in writing.
Until next time.
Fish for the love of fish.
Fish for the love of places fish live.
Fish for you.
If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Also, consider supporting me on Patreon (link at the top of the bar to the right of your screen, on web version). Every little bit is appreciated! Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, john, Elizabeth, and Christopher, for supporting this blog.
Over the last four days I've been bouncing around between sick and busy, not really an optimal situation. I didn't even fish at all on Saturday because my sinus infection was giving me vertigo... not fun. But on Sunday night Rick called and asked if I wanted to go out on his boat to target tautog,and maybe some albies if they were around. I hadn't done any bottom fishing for a while so that was an easy yes. I made sure I was ready to switch between dropping flies to the bottom and casting for bass or albies, which just meant I had two reels for the same rod rigged very differently. I'm still not willing to go in depth about my deep fly rig, but that isn't just because it's blurring the lines between what can and can't be considered fly fishing. There are just some things I've learned that I consider to be too hard earned and valuable to publicize.
So I was gear to the teeth when Rick and I got onto the windy and wavy Long Island Sound yesterday, ready for a broad variety of fish and methods. We very briefly gave some scattered pods of albies a look before anchoring and looking for tautog. I alternated between conventional and fly gear, covering all bases. I definitely caught more fish on the fly, most being black sea bass, but the biggest fish I got was a 19 inch tautog on the conventional rod that came home with me for dinner along with one porgy.
Rick caught an oyster toadfish, something I've been hoping to get on the fly for a while. They are not exactly a pretty fish.
The sea bass though, were savage. I could not keep those little buggers off the fly. I caught a ton of them ranging from 8 inches to about 14. They are beautiful fish and a lot of fun on the fly rod but I really was hoping to get some tautog. Even the live green crabs weren't bringing the tautog out that well though.
After a while fishing a couple spots hoping for tog the only keeper we put in the boat was my 19 incher. The tog were not playing nice and the albies were showing more and more, so we went to chase those funny fish.
I was the first to hook an albie, and it went rather poorly. I had the fish on for just a short time when it surged and managed to break off. Unfortunately it was my only real chance, but Rick made up for it by hooking and landing two really nice ones.
Every time I have a day like this here I have to take a moment to recognize how great the fishery we have is. Yes, it could and should be better, especially as far as striped bass go, but the diversity and quality of fishing that can be had in just one small area in Long Island Sound is exceptional.
