Big White Perch & The Lifer Magic Phenomena

 When Noah and I first started fishing together, one of the first fish we began researching and attempting to find were big migratory white perch. The lake we both grew up fishing had an introduced and stunted white perch population, so I think the whole appeal was in catching the much larger native version of a species we'd been catching for years. We'd heard that they fought pretty hard and could exceed 15 inches in length. Noah actually caught some one day, in summer of 2016, while striper fishing. As soon as we specifically targeted them though, we suddenly couldn't find them to save our lives. We were plagued by bad conditions and often just horrible luck. Sometimes were were even told there were plenty right where we were fishing, but we always failed to catch any. 

White perch follow an anadromous lifestyle in their native range along the CT coastline. Some fish in the larger tidal systems, like the Connecticut River may, never actually enter salt or brackish water at all, but along the coast are scattered populations that have a significant saltwater based component to their lifestyle. I should note that white perch are not really a perch, though they're described as a perch-like fish. They belong to the genus Morone and family moronidae, the temperate basses. They are far more closely related to white bass and striped bass than they are any perch. They do often fill a similar niche and even school with yellow perch when the two are present in the same habitat, and as far as body and fin structure they aren't completely dissimilar, so the naming can be forgiven in my opinion. 

Throughout much of the year, many white perch are messing around in tidal salt and brackish water, while some of their brethren are up in freshwater. They aren't a perfectly migratory anadromous fish like herring or shad, and unlike striped bass, most of which enter the ocean and perform some manor of significant migration, it seems a fair percentage of white perch are content to knock around in fully fresh water for most of their lives. Others only seem to wander into freshwater to spawn, and these guys and gals are the biggest of the big. These are the white perch that might well attain 16 inches and weight several pounds. These were the white perch Noah and I wanted to catch, and we couldn't seem to. 

This brings up a somewhat interesting phenomena we've noticed as life listers. Since we dedicate such a significant amount of time to targeting completely new species, we're routinely aware of this odd and frequent occurrence. It often takes an exceptionally long time to catch the first of a species, sometimes even unnecessarily. Then, once that first one has been caught, we find it either easy, or just easier to catch that species, whether we're actually targeting them or not. At first glance you might think we learned some key piece of information in the process of catching the first one that resulted in the rapid increase in success, but that isn't it. And though Noah and I had already caught probably thousands of white perch, our process of catching salty ones exemplifies this perfectly. We didn't approach it without prior knowledge. We knew spots, whether we were told them or dug them up through thorough research, or even just happened to be fishing them and saw someone else catching big white perch there. And it isn't like white perch are a remotely technical fish. Moreover, we had already caught the species, we just hadn't successfully targeted the populations with a saltwater component to their life history. 

Then Noah caught one this past fall. I was with him when that happened, maybe you read the post. Then the funny thing happened. He proceeded to start catching white perch consistently out of the very places we'd been trying for years to find them at. Lifer magic, and this wasn't even a real lifer. I hoped at that point that my time was next, that after years of trying I'd finally have my trophy native white perch. I began searching for them in Rhode Island, in places I knew were known to produce. No luck. Then, while back closer to home in an old haunt targeting holdover stripers with Noah and Garth, it finally happened. I proceeded to catch a few more after that. The seal is broken now, so this should suddenly become much much easier. 

Lifer magic is certainly not an isolated phenomena. Fisherman tend to be a little superstitious, sometimes very superstitious. Most of the time, I'm not. Save for this one case.

And maybe a few others.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, Geof, Luke, Streamer Swinger, Noah, Justin, Sean, and Mark 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.

November Morones

 Noah and I headed out under dreary skies one November hoping to find some big striper blitzes. Some had been happening in the days before, and indeed that very morning in a different area. It had rained a lot the before, though, and that often puts striped bass into a lethargic mood sends the bait packing. We were still hopeful that a large biomass of stripers would be around, especially since there had been tremendous numbers in the days prior. Our first drift on a key mud flat produced a 28" bass for me, and multiple boils and hits for both of us including with some particularly good fish. That made me very hopeful. Subsequent drifts came up empty.

Morone saxatilis

After a few runs through water that should have been but wasn't giving up fish, we made our way into some backwaters to looks for what would likely be smaller but more willing fish. We set up at a choke point where lots of hickory shad were rolling. I picked up Noah's light setup while he continued to throw bigger plastics for stripers. At first I just used the jig he had tied on, then I switched out and actually tied a Clouser on. Noah had figured out that a lot of treamers that i'd left lying around his van  were perfectly cast-able on his light setups. I was interested to mess around with it in a situation where it would be particularly conducive. I also wanted to see if I'd have any interest in buying such a setup for clients who aren't interested in fly fishing, as ultralight tackle has a lot of crossover with fly gear and I'd like not to limit myself in terms of clientele. I caught a load of shad on both his jig and my Clouser, and they were a lot of fun on a light spinning rod. 

Alosa mediocris                            Morone saxatilis

Something then made me switch back to the fly rod though: a fish Noah caught, a fish he and I have been after together for years. Our mortal enemy, our biggest foe. Our most difficult adversary. A large brackish-water white perch. 

It took a big plastic, which just seemed ridiculous. The fish was 13.5" long and very hefty, a truly impressive specimen, and of course I immediately wanted to try to catch one of those.

Morone amaricana

I didn't. Noah didn't get another either. We ended that portion of the trip having had both Morone species present in CT on the boat though, and I certainly haven't experienced that before. Noah hadn't in a long time. It was pretty cool.

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.

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.

Spottail Shiners and White Perch Through The Ice

I like variety... if that wasn't already clear to those of you that have been reading my musings for a while. Size doesn't matter all that much. Though I love big fish, I love small fish too. I want need to catch both. Winter is generally lacking in species and size diversity in Connecticut, especially compared to spring and late summer into early fall. Mostly I'm catching brook trout, brown trout, bluegills, and yellow perch all winter. Sure, some of those might be trophy sized individuals, but after a time I want something different, even if it's tiny. It was for that reason that I wasn't at all disappointed when my friend Rick and I set up over likely crappie territory but instead started pulling spottail shiners up through the ice.

It was a cloudy day, we had a rising tide, and it seemed like really good conditions to get some large crappies. I don't think we ended up getting even one, but we had steady action from other species. The shiners came in waves. There'd be long lulls interrupted by flurries of constant nibbles. I'd started out with plastics but just wasn't sealing the deal with them so switched to spikes instead. That worked well. 

We tried moving around to see if we could get on top of a school of crappies. Our third pair of holes was the most interesting. Though they were only about two feet apart, I was reaching bottom about a foot before Rick. We were definitely on some sort of structure- what, exactly I wasn't sure. This was, unsurprisingly, the best hole of the day. Though it did produce lots of shiners and a couple bluegills, white perch were the headliners. I'd caught only a couple through the ice prior and I didn't get that many to add to that total. One of them, though, was pretty darn nice. Long, fat, and full of fight, it outclassed every other fish I'd caught that week by a wide margin. Big white perch fight really hard. I have quite the soft spot for them.

So, although this day didn't give up what Rick and I had hoped for it was a respite from what I'd been experiencing. Over the coming week or so I'd get a little bit more variety, and some bigger fish as well. For those of you who aren't that interested in the ice fishing posts, I'll mix in some more recent trout outing for, well, variety.

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

The Annual Perch Mega-School

 Every year in my home lake, hundreds if not thousands of perch congregate in the only two major feeder streams- right inside the mouths. Both white perch and yellow perch are represented, though this behavior seems to have a few different causes. First and foremost is the urge for fish to seek warmer and more oxygen rich water in the winter, especially in an oxygen deficient lake like this one. Secondly, this appears to be some sort of pre-spawn behavior. A lot of the male white perch I’ve caught during this schooling behavior expel milt. What it certainly isn’t is a feeding behavior; in fact most of the fish in the school largely ignore anything offered to them. Though the percentage of willing eaters is typically low, there are so many fish it doesn’t matter. It isn’t hard some days to catch more than 100 perch.

Massive perch schools aren’t uncommon in the Northeast in the winter, nor is catching loads of them in a short outing. But what makes this mega-school so unusual is its presence in an enclosed, shallow creek. You can see the perch schooled -sometimes certainly numbered in the thousands. The fish are packed as tightly as any menhaden school I’ve ever seen. Though certainly not natural, as the body of water isn’t natural and the white perch weren’t in the system even before it was dammed, it is pretty wild to observe.

It has also resulted in some interesting animal observations. I’ve seen mink taking advantage of the easy meal on a number of occasions. More unusually, Noah, his dad, and now I have seen mallard ducks eating, with some difficulty, smaller, live perch that they somehow manage to catch out of the school. Though mallards seem fairly benign and unlikely to predate animals any larger than aquatic insects, they’ve actually been documented hunting, killing, and eating small birds. This is something I’d never have known had observing mallards eating live perch not piqued my curiosity. This is one of the reasons I love fishing so much. Done with a curious eye, it is a path to many unusual and surprising truths. 

Another unusual phenomenon spurred on by these dense schools is mid-winter topwater bites. The perch schools are so densely packed that many of the fish are pushed to the surface. With just inches from the fish’s eyes to the surface of the water, they can’t help but notice a twitched dry fly. I catch some of these fish every year on dry flies. It makes for a fun little anomalous winter bite. 

Noah and I spent a lot of time over the years watching these winter perch mega-schools. Most other winter fish gatherings happen on a scale too big for easy observation. Having this small water situation right by our houses was like Noah and I being able to experiment with winter fish behavior in a lab. It’s been a very cool experience.

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

Catch The Lake

 I am not a "numbers guy" particularly, when it comes to fishing. I routinely seek quality over quantity, be it in my trout fishing; often head hunting or streamer fishing rather than nymphing or fishing a dry dropper; or my striper fishing which especially in the spring revolves around forgoing the massive amounts of schoolies in favor of a shot at 35 inch fish or bigger. I'm ate up with Atlantic salmon and sea run brown trout... if that isn't a quality over quantity game I don't know what is. But that doesn't mean I don't also love to catch an excessive amount of fish sometimes. Conveniently, quantity is also occasionally the avenue to quality. One such occasion sets up on my home lake in the fall. It can still be very possible to catch big bass on the reefs, ledges, and points in the fall, but sometimes the best move is just to go where the biomass is. On this lake, finding the biomass means finding the white perch.

One day this fall Noah and I were having a hell of a bad time on our typical bass spots. After a bit we opted to start hitting areas we knew would be loaded with perch. It was a consolation option, we thought, forgetting that both of us have often caught larger fish; be it bass, walleye, or pickerel while on top of the white perch biomass. 

The first spot we fished didn't produce anything but white perch. After the first few we decided to start keeping. White perch are both delicious and, in CT's landlocked waters, a destructive invasive. While our native tidal anadromous populations are in sorry shape, our landlocked introduced white perch are excessively overpopulated. As such we had no qualms about killing a whole bunch, and soon decided to fill the boat. There is no limit on white perch in non-tidal water in CT, since they are introduced fish, easily overpopulate, and not considered a game species. So we were going to fill the boat. It wouldn't even put notable dent in this lake's numbers, as much as we wish we could. 

After running dry at the first location we wandered a bit before deciding to head over to a spot where Noah had found another pile of perch a week prior. They were still there and we started really hammering them. We were both fishing pretty simple, light presentations. I was running simple streamers tied on 1/32oz Eurotackle tungsten jigs, on two rods: one with an indicator, which I set down and dead sticked, and one that I actively cast and figure eight retrieved. Sometimes I was doubling up and fighting fish on both rods simultaneously. Noah was fishing jigs with strait tail soft plastics. We were really putting a beat down on these fish. It was a lot of fun. 

Then, suddenly, I hooked something that felt different and bigger. From the dark green water a monster black crappie rose up into view. Moments later, Noah hooked one of his own. Finding the biomass had just proven it's worth in locating trophy fish.

We continued the perch slay fest but it wasn't all that longer before I was into another quality fish, this time a smallmouth which put up a hell of a nail biting battle before we got it in the net. This was exactly the sort of fish we'd been hoping for this day. 

As the sun began to near the horizon, we made way to the boat ramp with a literal boat load of white perch, a few yellows, and two trophy crappies and one smallmouth released. In not long we'd be doing the dirty work of cleaning more than 100 white perch so they were freezer-ready. 

Sometimes finding big fish means forgoing small ones, but sometimes it pays to catch the lake looking for big fish... even if most of the lake is 8 inch white perch. There are often big fish wherever the biggest biomass is. 

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, and Franky for supporting this blog on Patreon

You Put a Hex on Me

Hexegenia limbata. It might be the most well known Latin name for a bug among those that tempt trout with the fly in the Eastern United States. That's in part because, like some other species, it doesn't really have a wide spread name. There's "giant Michigan mayfly", and the hatches on Michigan's famous trout streams, which were tailor made for this silt and mud loving insect, are legendary. But they occur in far more places than Michigan. So most call these bugs Hexegenia, or just Hex for short.
Also owing to their fame is the gigantic size of these mayflies. When bunches of Hex duns drift on the surface, even fish of epic proportion take notice. Very few other hatches can draw even mostly piscivorous fish's attention like the hex, not in this part of the world. And though their fame lies in the places where both trout and Hexegenia habitat overlap, these bugs draw fish of all sorts to the surface, and most Hex habitat isn't trout habitat. These are after all a slow water, muddy bottom mayfly, and throughout much of their range that means they're in water too warm to hold trout year round. Id encountered Hexegenia in CT a handful of times over the years, and mostly it was a good hatch to catch smallmouth during. Then, one night in late July I stumbled upon an extremely heavy hex hatch in mixed-species water, bringing basically every fish to the surface. I had nothing remotely appropriate that first night and got totally skunked. But I became obsessed with this particular hatch and ended up fishing it night after night, into the first week of August. For about an hour and a half to two hours after sunset each evening the river literally boiled with fish feeding on giant mayflies. Bluegill, rock bass, white perch, yellow perch, largemouth and smallmouth bass, channel catfish, common carp, bullheads, walleye... everyone had joined the party. The sound was like no other... I've heard vastly more loud feeding frenzies, but never anything this loud and sustained and on an insect emergence. Unfortunately it was also such a blanket hatch that it was tricky fishing. It wasn't easy to target fish because they were cruising at random. There were so many bugs that it was also genuinely impossible at times to tell which was my fly. And of course the fish had a lot of targets to choose from. When I did catch fish, it was mostly white perch. This is something I wont complain about, catching white perch on dry flies is not a normal occurrence, and some of these were frankly huge.

On the third night I hit the hatch, I hooked a very large channel catfsh. It ate almost at my feet, and in the dim glow of the street I could see the whole fish. It may have been as big as 15lbs. And it was up and gulping these bugs. My heart was about beating out of my chest when I set the hook and it tore off. This was not a 5wt appropriate fish. When the line went slack and my fly came back with the hook point broken off, I almost cried. Unfortunately that was the only very large and unusual fish I got a chance at during this hatch, though I also had a near 30lb carp swim up and gulp a cluster of Hex right in front of me, and saw a giant walleye one night do the same.

Towards the end of the hatch, when it was actually a mix of duns and spinners, I figured out that fishing from the opposite bank I had been was wildly more effective. This may seem strange, it turned out having that one streetlight in front of me rather than behind me let me actually see my fly, and I now also had a better angle to the current and could feel when fish ate the fly submerged. Unfortunately I then only had one more night of heavy feeding on the giant mayflies. But that was at least good for the only bass and by far the largest white perch. And too me that was satisfaction enough. I do want to catch some of the more wild fish that I saw taking advantage during this hatch next year, but just being there each night to see one of the biggest combined fish and insect biomasses I'd ever been witness to was memorable.

There really is nothing quite like the Hex. Those giant ephemeral bugs, so large yet so weightless in my hand, drying and flapping their hands all over the surface of that river... with the pops, boils and splashes of hundreds upon hundreds of fish ringing through the night air. What a remarkable natural event.
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. 

Convergence '20: Death Throws

The gently undulating body of a dying sea lamprey brushed against my leg, as blind to the fact that I was a living organism as it was to the rest of its surroundings. Sea lamprey, like Pacific salmon, die after they spawn. They don't eat for months at a time during their trip into the freshwater streams of the northeast in which they build their nests and deposit and fertilize their eggs. By the time they're finished spawning, they are just about spent. Many rot alive, going completely blind and loosing more and more strength until they succumb, settle to the bottom, and return their nutrients to the river.

People hate lampreys. They don't look pleasant, their rings of teeth and suction cup like mouth strike fear in many. That their bodies are serpentine does not help; the prejudice against snakes and snake-like animals persists to this day. Fisherman accuse them of killing their favorite game species, swimmers fear that they'll bite them and suck their blood like giant leeches, but in reality, in the case of sea lamprey in their native range, these fears are based entirely in falsehoods. The reality is that sea lamprey are on of the most valuable and important species in our waters. Cut off the run of sea lamprey into freshwater rivers, and you cut off the nutrient delivery train. The lipid rich bodies of lampreys, alive or dead, feed, well, just about everything in the ecosystem. Pacific salmon follow an extremely similar life history and are also a huge sea-to-river nutrient carrying species. Salmon, though, are blessed with objectively beautiful physical characteristic. Salmon are highly regarded around the world, almost everyone that knows anything about them wants there to be more salmon and realizes how important they are. Lamprey, on the other hand....
I let this mottled, serpentine, rotting, animal brush by my bear leg and thought to myself how beautiful it was. This individual, in its final death throws, wasn't long from falling limp into the rocks to be ravaged by caddis and stonefly larvae, crayfish, minnow, and juvenile eels. It had likely successfully passed on it's genetic material to a new generation, which would live as tiny larvae in the bed of the river, grow large enough to head out to sea, grow large by feeding on the blood of large deep water fish species that they'd be too small to kill, before eventually carrying the nutrients they attained at sea back into this very stream, to start the cycle again.
I don't think I've ever heard or seen anyone else call a sea lamprey beautiful. Not once. But they are and they deserve to be recognized as such. I will shout it from the hilltops until the day I'm dead. These fish matter. We need them.

This is a beautiful animal. 

As I watched this amazing fish init's final death throws, I recognized that it symbolized the death throws of the herring and striper season in these waters as well. As the lamprey are about done spawning and the last few stragglers are in the river, the herring have all but disappeared and what bass are left have turned focus to other foods. The fishing might still be good, and can definitely be quite interesting. But the run is about to end. Any evening the fish could disappear. I wasn't even here for striped bass this night, but there they were, up shallow, feeding on who knows what. Darters, juvenile eels., golden stonefly nymphs, helgramites... the answer isn't clear as I couldn't and wouldn't stomach pump these fish to see. But they liked something buggy over something fishy.

This has been the story year after year. The herring disappear as the water warms and gets low. There's one last blast, a bug bite, small stripers, five weight fish in five weight water feeding on small food items. Then suddenly there's a full stop, the bass thin out and become unforgettable, and other species become the new focus in these waters. But those death throw days can be something special. This one was. The fish weren't big at all but on the five and 6 pound tippet, it hardly mattered. The larger ones ran hard and fast, like flats fish in equally clean cold water do. I caught many.

 Perhaps more exciting though was the number of white perch in the mix. Silly though this may seem, tidal water white perch are a nemesis of mine. Noah and I have put hours into the winter fishery unsuccessfully. But here they were, very suddenly, and it seemed like I might get a nice one any moment in the mix with the bass and the more typical sized perch. It happened at dusk. I had switched to a small gurgler by then which was drawing strikes but not getting many hookups. I was mostly okay with that, I'd given enough small stripers mouth piercings. But then it got blasted, I strip set, and the fish fought very much unlike the others had. It was a white perch of the caliber I'd been seeking for years. This was the fish of the night.

Though the herring run had ended and the very next night there wasn't a bass to be found in the same spots, this ended up being one of the most memorable nights of the whole run. It was a fitting end as it was a strong reminder of why it's worth going right up until the end and then some. I hate to miss something amazing. Even in the dying gasps of the herring run some remarkable events transpire.

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.