Cow Calling

 Kevin Callahan wanted his boga grip back. As he eased his Maverick Master Angler out of the launch and got on plane, the breeze, clouds, and chop lead me to believe that would be a long shot. But maybe the fish would bite. Large striped bass like it sloppy. Really, I think the boga retrieval was just an excuse. I think Kevin and I both felt like we were in with a really good shot at some gigantic bass. The ride wasn't as quick as the slick night we'd made this same run about a week prior, and though some fish were had that night and even more were seen, this felt a bit different. There was a feel to the weather. The changing barometric pressure and the color of the water spoke volumes. We spent probably 20 minutes looking for the gripper after arriving at the spot, but the sheet of vegetation on the bottom did volumes more to conceal it than even the chop and clouds could. That was a lost cause. 

Kevin moved us into a rocky area and began slinging a large topwater plug known as the Doc. If you aren't aware of the Musky Mania Doc and you striper fish in the northeast, you live under a rock. Nowadays its really unusual to see a boat leaving the launch for a day of striper fishing that doesn't already have a doc hanging off at least one of the rods. The lure shortened the learning curve for a lot of anglers to catch big bass both on the plug itself and on the fly. In fact, the first use of it in the Northeast striper fishery is as a teasing lure, with Joe LeClair being one of the first to employ it around Block Island. Not long after, Ian Devlin and Mark Sedotti brought in to Western Long Island Sound, and from there it started being used with hooks to actually catch the fish when it became clear that in some scenarios it was great for drawing strikes from big bass but not as good for teasing. Now there are multiple knock-offs of it specifically advertised to striper anglers. Some even cast better than the original, which has a shape and weight distribution that makes it hard to get the lure to consistently fly true. I was fishing a simple derivation of Mark Sedotti's synthetic slammer. This one had two little foam baffles and lead wrapped on the shank but no keel. It was 10" long and all off-white. Not only was it ideal if a teasing scenario set itself up, but also a fantastic generalistic big striper fly. 

After a little inaction around a school of tinker mackerel that were flicking and boiling, we pushed further into the structure seeking resident fish just holding. Confirmation of life came in the form of an almighty wallop on Kevin's lure. Stripers often hit the plug repetitively, sometimes popping it up into the air with their head, sometimes even slinging it with their tail. But sometimes they also just hammer it and get it cleanly in their craw on the first go, which is what Kevin's first fish of the day did. We knew ahead of time exactly what sort of fish were in this spot, so it was no surprise it was a 40 incher. In fact, we were hoping for something quite a bit larger. What came around was a bit more than we bargained for. The first fish to eat the fly took on a blind cast fairly near the boat and from was a clone of Kevin's. Not a giant, but very nice on the fly. That fish started to act a little weird partway through the fight though. All of a sudden, the water erupted in one of the most spectacular displays of predation I've seen in person as not only one but two brown sharks each attacked my hooked fish, one from the head, the other from the tail. They churned the water to a froth, tails thrashing as they made the striper a lot less mobile in a real hurry. One of the two followed as I stripped what was now half of a striper towards the boat, making another last attempt to get what was left pretty much boat-side. Incredibly, Callahan was rolling video through the whole event. 

Screen captures from video, courtesy Kevin Callahan

This is a scene that is playing out more and more frequently in Connecticut in recent years as brown sharks rebound and expand in range. It is an interesting new dynamic. I personally don't feel that its a bad thing, just something we'll need to adjust to. Unfortunately, be-it bulls and hammerheads at Bahia Honda, seals at Monomoy, or many other situations where a predator species has rebounded and is eating fish off of angler's lines, most are unwilling and uninterested in adjusting or understanding, and instead are inclined to just be angry about it and I expect the same to happen with sharks in Long Island Sound in the coming years. 

Kevin and I didn't lose another fish directly to the sharks that day, at least that we knew of. And that was a relief because we were about to tie into some beasts, fish that would wow just about any fly angler. In fact the next couple of hours were such pandemonium that the memory is like a fractal, with bits and pisses missing and blurry, others sharp as a tac, and much of it out of order. The first fish I boated intact was about 46 inches and ate the fly a bit behind Kevin's plug while multiple others were on it. Unlike the fish that got sharked, this one and many of the others  chose, smartly, to run into the shallows rather than out into deeper water. The result was some spectacular mid-fight thrashing and even, for Kevin, 30 plus pound fish going airborne on the hookup. Keeping them out of the structure was a chore but far from impossible, as I put the screws to them with my 11wt Echo Musky Rod. 

Photo courtesy Kevin Callahan

The next hookup was a much, much larger fish that was one of a simultaneous double up right at the boat. In the mayhem I didn't really get a good hook set. I was more is shock than disappointment when the fish when it came off and I turned to Kevin and asked "You see the size of that mother f*****?"

It couldn't have been more than ten minutes later that Kevin and I doubled up again, this time at a substantial distance from the boat. I knew the fish was quite large and the fight was a long one, but I didn't quite grasp the enormity of it until I had the thing much closer to the boat, at which point it became very clear that this was my largest fly rod striped bass. I hoisted her over the rail, grunting under the strain of her mass, and Callahan fired off a few quick photos. I remember looking at the size of her lower lip as I carefully got her back in the water, mindful that there could very well be an even large fish with much sharper eating implements nearby. I was pleased that she kicked off very strongly and aimed in to the shallows again, away from potential danger. 

Getting a bass of this caliber isn't terribly uncommon in certain areas with the current state of the fishery. Frankly, at time its just easy. But getting two giants locally without beating up numerous 30 inch class fish in the process is a lot less common, especially in clear, clean, and very shallow water. This was, to put it lightly, a pretty sick bite, and one we hope we'll be able to replicate again in coming seasons. 

On the way back in we stopped at a rip line that usually holds a lot of life and had smaller fish ravenously chasing the plugs and flies in and eating with reckless abandon. It was a lot of fun to watch, and a reminder that there are so many facets to this fishery we have on our doorstep. Many of those things are taken for granted, even by me. With yet another poor recruitment year in the Chesapeake behind us, recreational anglers under severe disillusions that everything is fine because the fishing is incredible where they are right now, and head boat captains pounding their fists and yelling to be allowed to kill as many of these fish as they want at meetings, I worry for the future of my favorite species to cast flies at. I'm not even fully sure stricter regulations will stop a complete crash of the most important spawning ground on the coast, but I sure do know it wouldn't hurt. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, Oliver, oddity on Display, and Sammy for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.

Crease Fly Stripers (Photo Essay)

 November, 2022. Angler: Mark Alpert

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, Oliver, oddity on Display, and Sammy for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version

False Albacore Fly Woes: Lizardfish

 My third day targeting tunny I had limited time. I had a short window to fish before I needed to go to work. Fish were present- both bonito and tunny -right upon my arrival. The were feeding in very slick water, often a recipe for picky eaters. I felt I got a few shots the should have been seen but I'm not sure. 

I was fishing with a gartside gurgler. This often isn't pegged as a tunny or bonito fly but these fish love lures that skitter on the surface, so a fly that skitters on top is a logical choice. I've had days where a gurgler really saved me from skunking. Notably, back in 2017 when the tunny were actually numerous and widespread, one of my best days saw numerous tunny in slicked out conditions very willing to eat gurglers but not much else. 

Unfortunately this time my tricks didn't work, at leas not for tunny. What I did get, interestingly enough, was a new species. On one retrieve my fly came in with what initially seemed like weeds on it. Upon closer inspection it was actually a fish! Specifically, and inshore lizardfish. This is a species I've expected in Florida for years now, where they are abundant and at times considered a pest. Instead I'd caught my lifer on a gurgler in 10 feet of water in Connecticut... very strange. 

Lifelist fish #184, Inshore lizardfish, Synodus foetens. Rank: Species

Lizardfish aren't completely unfamiliar fish in the Northeast. They're known to occur in the same are I was fishing most years, though 2021 has certainly seen a relative abundance. Though aggressive lizardfish hunt from the bottom of the water column, as evidenced by their head structure and eye position. They are ambush predators that attack prey from below, concealed against a mud or sand bottom. Adults reach lengths over a foot, with females generally being larger than males. A lizardfish's mouth is full of small teeth, and I imagine being bitten by one would be a little unpleasant. They are  very cool little fish honestly and I wouldn't mind catching more of them.

I've ended up encountering lizardfish repeatedly this season, and that has been quite interesting. But for the third day I had to be content with a couple of them and simply watching the tunny and bonito slip by, unwilling to eat what I was presenting. It was starting to feel like I'd forgotten how to catch these fish, though it was still only the beginning. 

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.

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

A Blitz Before Christmas

 December isn't really a blitz month in Connecticut. There were times when it wouldn't have been unreasonable to expect substantial striper blitzes in these parts but in recent years they've been present but exceptionally rare. Not non-existent but not at all easily found. So when Noah and I pulled up to a spot to fish for holdover bass moving into their winter holes and saw fish busting and birds diving in the backwater... on December 10th... we got excited. 

Though the blitz itself was unreachable since we were on foot, we quickly found ourselves a pile of fish in a key bottleneck. Noah and I were using typical winter striper strategies, a jig and plastic for him, a pair of Clousers for me. Hits came just about every cast, and after I doubled the second time and broke off one fish, I opted to shed one fly. Catching them two at a time was just overkill. 

One of the fish I caught was a rather unique individual. The left flank had the typical array of stripes but the right side was a muddled mess. On occasion, I've had people try to tell me that these are hybrids because the presence of broken lines is often used to distinguish wiper or sunshine bass -striped bass/white bass hybrids- from landlocked stripers in the same lakes. This makes no sense as white bass don't exist in these waters for stripers to hybridize with. We do have white perch, but the only documented cases of hybridization between stripers and white perch were under controlled lab and hatchery conditions. They likely have never occurred in the wild. These muddled up striper patterns on East Coast fish are instead indicative of healed injuries or genetic anomalies. 

Side A

Side B

At some point, Noah had to head back to the van to grab something and I stayed in place continuing to catch fish. Suddenly a school of silversides rolled off the flat into the bottleneck and the water in front of me filled up with boiling stripers. Frantically I changed to a gurgler, thinking this was surely my best chance at a December topwater striped bass. The blitz came and went without a hookup. I had several swirls but nothing more committed. I wish, as I sometimes do, that I'd spent more time with camera in hand. 

Though I didn't get what I'd have liked out of the December 10th blitz photographically, it was an exciting thing to be present for. It makes me yearn for the days of big Atlantic herring runs, rainbow smelt, and whiting, when winter saltwater fishing was actually good. December 10th isn't even winter, but it isn't far from it. I experimented a bit with winter saltwater fishing last year, and I intend to again this year. Not just stripers -white perch, tomcod, hake, and cod too. I know there's more out there to be found, I just need to be really diligent and persistent. 

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

Big Striped Bass, And What It Takes

I stood in my mud caked boots looking at Noah's Lone Star skiff high and dry and seemingly stuck, wondering how we'd get it out. We'd just caught a few hours of sleep on a small uninhabited island after a slow evening bite, keeping ourselves in game for the morning. It was false dawn and with about 15 feet of mud between the stern of the boat and the water, I wasn't sure we were still in game.

My angling success is mostly a result of determination, brute force, and thinking out as many details as I can. But that doesn't mean I'm immune to getting into silly and avoidable situations. This was one such occasion. I'd not bothered to look at the tide at all and we were now faced with one of those moments when fishing doesn't seem that fun. We turned the boat and forced it bit by bit back into the water, getting very muddy in the process. And it wasn't too bright yet either. Of course, it didn't matter, in terms of bites the morning would be even slower than the evening had been.

Catching larger striped bass is, to me, a game of fewer bites. Noah, whose largest bass is shorter in inches than mine is heavy in pounds, feels differently, and prefers to catch as many as he can in hopes of catching a larger fish than his 33 inch personal best. This is a minor point of contention and certainly where he and I differ most as fisherman. It's rare that we end up out looking specifically for big stripers together, and it doesn't help that I've made these sort of marathon trips work and he hasn't. My confidence remains high as long as there's some signs of life around, and we had that. So I cast a big lobster buoy popper all evening and all morning, till my hands were raw and stripping so much had worn a grove in my right pointer finger and made my left arm was sore. I know what it takes, and I'm willing to do what it takes... because I've made it pay off a couple times. And those times felt so good that I'd trade almost every bass I've caught under 26 inches for a handful over 40. Big striped bass on the fly is a hard thing to do and only getting harder. Though every striped bass is special and should be treated as such, big ones are really, really special. They don't come easy and they don't come often. And when the do come you'd best be ready.

I wasn't looking at my fly when she came, but I was ready. About 30 feet off the bow the popper got blasted and I strip set into a big animal. She sloshed, righted herself, and bore off with determination. It was clear what I had, she certainly wasn't huge but she was one of the largest bass I'd buried a fly in. I didn't give her an inch I didn't have to and she was at the boat quick... likely just over 20 pounds, this bass was more than worth the price of admission.

I don't like how infrequently I'm able to get after these fish. I've wanted for years to have a whole season to just chase striped bass from Jersey to Maine and back, this certainly isn't the year and it feels like I'll never get to do that. But I have to for my own sake. It's one of those things that I don't want to do but need to do. It'll kill me, that trip. But I'll be happy most of the time. There's something broken deep inside me that's even happy while falling on my knees in the mud trying to push a small aluminum skiff back into the water, getting beat to hell by waves, bitten by no-see-ums, or waking up in a sweaty car seat smelling like death and still tired. I love what it takes to make these things work... that's where the story is. I look back on my fishing career and it's not a string of grip-and-grins with great fish, it's a long twisting road of misadventures, pain, terror, silly jokes, strange encounters, and very rarely, moments of unadulterated ecstasy. I wouldn't wish some of it on my worst enemy, but I'd also not want to live a life without it. 

“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, “Wow what a ride!”― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

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. 

Tamiami Tarpon

Like some sort of inanimate object come to life, a carved chunk of chrome or ice, a tarpon's head breached the surface. He was only a little one, one of the many silver princes that use the Everglades as their nursery before they grow large enough to join the cyclical migration. The tarpon, Megalops atlanticus, has the power to captivate anglers at any and all stages of it's life cycle. It's beauty, like a wildly oversized shiner, prone to going airborne in spectacular fashion, has a profound effect. I don't like to play favorites, and I routinely find the popularity of some fish overblown. Not so with tarpon... that an almost inedible fish managed to rapidly gain such a devoted following shows just how earned it was. They are the inshore sport fish, the ultimate, the worthiest of the praise they've so often been given. There is nothing disappointing about tarpon. Not one thing. Even these little jewels I was watching gulp air in the fading light of an Everglades spring eve made my heart beat a little bit faster and my breath become shallow.

When you've been fly fishing for different species as much as I have, you know how random a lifer can find it's way to you or how much time and effort builds up to it. Tarpon will forever be an outlier for me. I'd struggled many times to even get a look from one, had hooked and lost a couple and missed others incidentally, but that didn't feel like a buildup. My first tarpon ever came a mere handful of missed takes into our evening session. Though there was tenseness (there always is when I'm after a species I've wanted for years) I also had this sensation that this time it was going to happen, without question. I've never had that before, and it was a strange feeling. But when I finally connected and that little baby silver prince went airborne, I smiled and new I was about to hold my first ever tarpon. That feeling can't really be earned; these fish, even little, have an exceptional knack for parting ways with a fly. But somehow I just knew. And there I was, smiling down at one of the very few popular game fish that I actually considered one of my most wanted lifers. Caught on a gurgler at sunset in an Everglades backwater... to quote Jose Wejebe, referring to baby tarpon in his own way, "Nice, happy goodness". This little fish had no idea what it meant to me.

Atlantic tarpon, Megalops atlanticus. Life list fish #163. Rank: species.

Then, as if Florida wanted to give us exactly what we wanted on our final fishing evening, Noah and I started getting hit by tarpon left and right. He got his lifer shortly after I did then we both proceeded to miss, hook, lose and land a bunch more while darkness settled in and the mosquitoes started to take the stage. Topwater blasts left right and center. Silver princes going airborne. It was worth the wait to experience proper good juvenile tarpon fishing.

Like the small snook we'd been catching all day, I was deeply aware that these little tarpon were the fish of the future. In a day and age where my hope for the future is beat down left and right, these fish give me a glimmer of optimism. In 40 years who knows what the world will look like. I can't conceive of anything less than apocalyptic. Yet, just maybe, one of the very tarpon we released will make it's annual migration as a big adult, and maybe I'll be there to meet it.

A lot of people have called species like American shad "poor man's tarpon" or called tarpon giant shiners. I've grown to hate these sort of analogies with time. Each fish species is distinct, distinct enough to warrant a different a different last name, and though we fisherman may try to describe different species by alluding to others, it falls short. Having now caught tarpon, shad, and a variety of shiner species... tarpon are tarpon, shad are shad, and shiners are shiners. You have to catch each one to really get it. Tarpon had their hooks in me before I ever had a hook in one, and I'll be back after these fish that simply cannot disappoint.

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.