As December wore on I ended up with progressively less time and fewer good weather windows to make it down to the shoreline for mackerel and herring. My last trip happened under fairly uncomfortable conditions in terms of temperature in wind. At the first spot I tried I watched a couple guys very occasionally catching fish on the next pier over while I struggled to focus with frozen fingers and missed the only take I got. I moved, then moved again and finally settled in though the going seemed slow. At least it was slow in terms of the mackerel and herring. The cunners though? They were fired up. Wrasse have such ridiculous attitudes.
These buggers were taking a pretty sizable EP fiber baitfish imitation, and if my fly was near structure they were unavoidable. Even more ridiculously most of the ones I caught were far smaller than the ones shown here.
Entertaining those these cunners were I started to really hope something else would show up by the time I'd caught the 20th one. I'd have taken anything at all, and really hoped for a hake, tomcod, or herring as any of them would be new species.
Eventually the seemingly absent mackerel made a showing and I picked one up. This ended up being my last one in 2021 as I never made it back down, but hopefully in the coming weeks I'll manage to get to the salt and see either if they're still in the area or if something else has filled their void... please let it be herring.
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.
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.
Maine's old harbors can hold an abundance of fish, though in my experience they at time hide themselves very well. Despite absurdly clear water, bergalls, pollock, sculpins and mackerel often hide themselves quite well. Sometimes it takes dropping down a bait, lure, or fly to determine if there are in fact fish present. Then the shapes materialize from them depths and the excitement begins... sometimes. Noah and I struggled the first time we went to Maine. Finding fish turned out more trick than we'd anticipated. A few trips down the line though I've learned a bit and have started to get a bit better at consistently finding something to catch in Maine harbors.
A couple weeks ago I went to Maine with my field herping friend, Bruce, to look for snakes. We found plenty, enough so that by the end of the last day we were satisfied enough to spend hour last hour or so at the ferry dock seeing what swam these water in mid September. We'd already seen some mackerel surface feeds earlier that morning, and there were some on the surface just opposite the dock. What was present at the dock in abundance was large bergalls. It didn't take me long to catch a few of these.
These were moody bergalls though, and after a little while they became much more shy to the fly. Not being a snob has its perk and I had no qualms chunking up the next bergall I caught and using it as both chum and bait. This, unsurprisingly, resulted in a feeding frenzy that not only got the bergalls fired up but drew in some pollock and mackerel too. Soon I had what one might call a Maine Harbor slam, a few of each species on both bait and fly. I was using the 1wt, of course, and the fights were tremendous. It was a great way to round out a successful trip.
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.
Bergalls or cunners are a very common wrasse along the New England coastline. I've heard them called a number of inaccurate names. They are sometimes misidentified as baby tautog. On Cape Cod I once heard them called rock bass, by a tourist using crickets in the Cape Cod Canal... I kid you not. So, as wide spread as bergalls are they aren't the most well known fish in the world. They're generally small and uninteresting to most anglers.
I, of course, am not most anglers. Bergalls don't obsess me or anything like that, but I definitely enjoy catching wrasse and bergalls are often the most available wrasse species in the Northeast. It also seems that the further north you go the bigger they get, with Main and Massachusetts producing some of the largest I've seen. Somehow that's usually not what I encounter, but I still find some big enough to eat a fly.
On our way back towards home on the Maine trip, Cheyenne and I briefly stopped in Rockland. My hope was to perhaps catch a handful of mackerel there, but the water seemed a bit too warm and the tide too low. There were, of course, plenty of bergalls around.
Sometimes bergalls are pretty unwilling to eat an artificial fly. Their moods aren't predictable either, there's no sure fire way I've found to know if you'll be able convince them to take. You just have to find some, put flies in front of them, and hope they're interested. Small nymphs are my primary fl for these little guys and the 1wt glass rod is the perfect delivery system. This was the first time I'd gotten to use the one weight on bergalls and it was pretty darn fun!
This was a situation where sight fishing was necessary. I couldn't feel the takes at all, so being able to pick out my fly six or more feet down through a background of irregularly colored aquatic plants and rocks was imperative. It was not easy at all, but I managed to make it work. Of course the result was just tiny little wrasse, but if your tackle is well chosen there's no reason fish like this can't be fun. And some days you just have to accept that you are probably catching jetty cunners or nothing at all.
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.
Maybe this would more appropriately be called float fishing for reef fish, because for the most part that's exactly what it was. Whether indicator nymphing is fly fishing is neither here nor there, I contest that it is, but I was categorically not fly fishing.
After catching three remarkable new species at Boca Raton Inlet Park, Noah and I left to try a place nearby that we'd never fished before. Satisfied with how I'd already done, I wanted to just relax and catch a bunch of fish, so I decided to fish with bait the rest of the day. I tipped my fly with squid and affixed an indicator to my leader and promptly began catching a ton of fish. Noah followed suit and started using a float as well. It was wildly effective, didn't result in as many hangups, and produced variety of species.
Slippery dick, Halichoeres bivittatus
Pinfish, Lagodon rhomboides
Spottail pinfish, Diplodus holbrookii
Slippery dick, terminal phase.
I spent a lot of the time just sitting on the wall, relaxing, enjoying a kind of fishing not comparable to anything I've done in the northeast. In the back of my mind though was the distinct and very likely possibility that I could at any point hook a species that I'd never caught before. I don't keep a hook and line lifelist, I'm not particularly interested in trying to catch every species possible on hook and line. I am really only interested in catching as many species as possible on the fly. So any species I caught doing this would represent, essentially, a failure on my part to take advantage of a possible opportunity to catch a new species on the fly.
Inevitably, I caught a species I'd not before: a lane snapper, probably the prettiest snapper species in Florida. That was a disappointment. I would have loved to have caught this fish on the fly, and maybe I could have.
Lane snapper, Lutjanus synagris
I didn't change what I was doing though as I really wasn't that confident I'd be able to catch a lane snapper on the fly at this spot anyway. a short time later I caught a very cool looking scrawled cowfish. I was thankful I'd already caught one on the fly the same day.
Scrawled cowfish, Acanthostracion quadricornis
Mangrove snapper, Lutjanus griseus
About an hour later, another species I'd never caught before ate my squid. This time it was a grunt.
Smallmouth grunt, Haemulon chrysargyreum
With two species that would have been exciting editions to my life list caught on bait I started just fishing the fly under the indicator hoping to redeem myself, and I did catch fish on the fly... just tomtates and sergeant majors though. I left not really feeling frustrated, because what had transpired wasn't at all surprising. But I decided I'd like not to fish bit anymore that day. We headed back north but visited a place that Noah had found, a spot that definitely contained a lot of reef fish based on diving videos Noah had seen. Though it was now night, I kept with the indicator technique as I could still see it in the glare of the streetlights and it allowed me to keep the fly suspended on long drifts. I caught a new species on a small Clouser under the indicator almost immediately: a blue striped grunt. The the smallmouth grunt would remain one of only a tiny handful of fish species that I've caught but not caught on the fly, at least I'd add a fourth species of grunt to my life list. And it was a beautiful fish.
Blue striped grunt, Haemulon sciurus. Life list fish #154. Rank: Species
I then hooked and lost two fish on the same small clouser that fought in an incredibly strange fashion, completely unlike any fish I'd ever hooked before. They were both substantial, and the second broke off. In retrospect I think they could have been small morray eels but I'm not sure. The fight was closer to that of an eel than anything else I can think of. However I wasn't out of the count yet. Changing to a size 12 Hare's Ear, I then caught my lane snapper!
Lane snapper, Lutjanus synagris. Life list fish #155
I felt a bit redeemed by those two fish, and we'd be back at this same spot very soon to see what we could find there during the day. We had no idea what we were in for.
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.
After sleeping in and just being well tired most of the morning after fishing dock lights with Kirk, Noah and I eventually found the energy and headed out to fish Boca Raton inlet once again. I was ready to settle the score there and finally catch a damn parrotfish on the fly. But first, here's an obnoxious amount of sergeant majors:
Actually that's a pretty normal amount of sergeant majors. This seems to be more or less the rule at an inlet or reef in South Florida. The sergeant majors are ever present and ever annoying, but a little bit fun to catch on small dry flies. After all, how often do you get to say that you've caught a reef fish, a damselfish, on a dry fly? It is pretty cool, honestly.
Abudefduf saxatilis on a bread crumb dry fly.
After fooling with the sergeant majors and pinfish until I became sick of them once again, I buckled down and started on focusing on acquiring my parrotfish. There are a number of parrotfish species there, including queen parrotfish and stoplight parrotfish, and some were feeding off the rocks, which I figured would make them viable targets. I put flies in front of both cruising parrotfish and ones that were feeding and struggled to get a reaction. I eventually snagged some sargassum and dressed the hook with it and that's how I got my first take, which only lead to a break off. I'd almost considered counting any fish I caught on sargassum tied to a hook but quickly changed my mind about it. Sargassum isn't meat, nor is it a traditional bait, but it wasn't an imitation, it was exactly what once of the fish were eating. So, even though it was tied to the hook no differently than would be a feather, some hair, or and artificial product, it was still bait. I decided to keep trying to get one to eat an undressed fly. This was a serious chore made harder by a variety of variables. Though the water was very clear and I could see the fish, the ripping current and surface disturbance made sight fishing thee parrotfish tricky. I knew I'd pretty much have to set the hook the instant a parrotfish took, as my experiences fishing for these reef species told me they'd nip then react the fly without me feeling anything. It's very difficult to set on sight without being able to see the fly in the water. I'd have to read the fish's body language, and they were behaving in ways I'd not seen other fish behave. I tried sitting the fly still on the rocks near where they were feeding, and I could have, for all I know, had a few takes doing so, but I just didn't notice them. Eventually I got smart though, and as a parrotfish got close to where I thought my fly was, I dropped my rod tip about a foot and let the fly and splitshot roll down the rock. The fish turned completely around and quickly pursued, travelling about a foot then stopping. I set the hook, was on, and prayed that I hadn't just snagged the fish. Miracle of miracles, it had eaten the fly. I didn't know what species it was at the times, but it was a parrotfish so it was new by default.
Redtail/yellowtail parrotfish. Sparisoma rubripinne. Life list fish #151. Rank: species
That was the initial phase of the species. Parrotfish, like many wrasses, often have two color phases during their life, with variances overall that make it not immediately clear what they actually are. Not long after I caught my lifer, I caught another yellowtail on a piece of sargassum hooked on the fly that looked very different:
With one really cool lifer down I was a bit more excited than I had been much of the day prior. The presence of a few huge scrawled filefish served to hype me up even more. Though I got one of a pair to chase a fly a bunch of times I couldn't seem to get it to eat. Fear not, another oddball showed up. I was using another version of the orange chenille worm I'd caught the parrotfish on, but one with a small light pink marabou tail when I spotted a scrawled cowfish. I put the fly in front of it and it quickly showed interest.
Now, filefish, cowfish, boxfish, puffers, and other such odd shaped fish have sort of a... stupid quality. I love them, they're really cool, and they aren't actually stupid, but the way the swim and the way the approach and eat thing just makes them seem like idiots. If you've seen it you know what I'm talking about. They're the dumbest looking things, to the extent that I often can't help but laugh out loud watching them react to a fly especially. This little cowfish was no exception, it wandered on over and started sucking and chewing on the marabou tail of my fly, sort of blowing it in and out of its mouth. It was very goofy. It took me a number of tries to actually get the hook in him but I eventually did. The fly didn't stay in him long, but I had him over land when it popped out... disaster averted!
Scrawled cowfish. Acanthostracion quadricornis. Life list fish #152. Rank: species
Look at this fish! What a weirdo.
Now I had to long standing targets out of the way, and I relaxed a little bit. I was still excited but I wasn't nervous. I kept trying to catch new parrotfish and dropping a small white Walt's Worm into crevices hoping for a bluehead wrasse. A couple dusky damselfish found it instead.
Stegastes adustus
Then, from one of the crevices came something I'd not expected, something I'd never even heard of. It was clearly a puffer of some description, but as I held it in my hand I had no clue exactly what it was other than simply one of the coolest fish I'd ever caught. Later, I'd learn that it was a Caribbean sharpnose puffer, a species I'm certain very few have ever been privileged to catch on the fly. For me, this is what it's all about. Look at this freaky, beautiful little fish!
Caribbean sharpnose puffer, Canthigaster rostrata. Life list fish #153. Rank: species.
That's the last fish I caught on the fly in daylight that day, I spent the rest of my time fishing bait. It lead to a couple of frustrating captures. The next story in the Florida saga will about that frustration, and the redemption that followed. Stay tuned.
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.
If you go to South Florida and you want to catch reef fish, don't use a fly rod and flies. It's probably the stupidest thing you can do. I got fairly lucky in getting a number of species to eat on my first attempts more than a year ago, but I caught far fewer fish than if felt like I should have and I spent most of my time watching my flies sink through hoards of brightly colored fish that had little to no interest in it or would merely give it a tiny peck and then move on. I had a sneaking suspicion that, having gotten the easy species to fool with artificials out of the way on the first couple tries, I'd probably have a much harder go at it this time. But we rolled up to Boca Raton Inlet knowing full well we'd see a ton of odd and unique fish there, and I felt I had a few tricks up my sleeve.
I didn't, nothing changed.
I've made no progress in determining better ways to target these species on the fly, and I'm not sure there even is progress to be made. Maybe a little but not much. That said, collectively "reef fish" are a treasure trove of really cool new species and I find it really hard to ignore them. So, I beat my head against the wall for a while... then I tip the flies with bait for a while just to catch a bunch of fish quickly. Then I beat my head against the wall some more. And I do it for hours. And it hurts a little knowing at any moment, I could catch something really damn cool on bait that I haven't caught on the fly yet. Somehow, though my catch ratio on bait to on flies is something like 8/1, I'd managed to avoid such a catastrophe simply by not putting bait on species that I could see would be new and spending the majority of my time fishing un-tipped flies. This wouldn't work forever, as it turns out. Or, rather, when I got sick of not catching as many fish as I could be and started fishing bait exclusively, I caught some things I'd not caught yet. But that's a topic for another day. Every fish pictured in this post caught by myself was caught on an artificial fly. All you need to know is that trying to catch reef fish on artificial flies is a grind. I brought this frustration upon myself, you may say, so I have no right to complain. And you might be right.
Boca Raton Inlet is a known spot by lifelisters all over the country and the world. If you are heavily invested in the search for fish species you've never caught before and pay attention to what other people with the same obsession are doing, you've seen Boca Raton named and you've seen fish that were caught there on video or in photos. So I don't particularly mind naming it, because that's really what the place is best for and a bunch of lifelisters sporadically showing up trying to catch small unusual reef fish isn't really the sort of thing that ruins a place like this. There's really not much else that it is consistently good for.
My strategy, basically, was to put small pale nymphs or bread crumb flies in front of the smaller species, and things that looked like sargassum, algae, or chunks of meat in front of the larger species. I also fished some small brightly colored nymphs, and things with rubbery or foam element in their construction to give fish something to chew on. I even fished mop flies a bit. Considering how many fish were down there in the rocks, hovering under the buoys, and schooling along the wall, nothing really drew a lot of attention. It seemed pretty random. Every once in a while, very suddenly, a fish would take a fly. The sergeant majors and spottail pinfish though were very easy, those could be fooled relatively easily simply by chumming them into a frenzy and dropping a fly in the mix and I'd catch plenty otherwise anyway. They become very annoying very fast.
Abudefduf saxatilis
Diplodus holbrookii
Down in the rocks are probably the third easiest fish to catch on the fly in Boca Raton Inlet, the blennies. Fortunately for me, the first blenny to come topside on our first visit this trip wasn't a hairy blenny, the species I'd already caught, but a masquerader blenny, distinguished by a more ambiguous black oppercular spot lacking a complete white/blue ring around it.
Labrisomus conditus, masquerader blenny. Lifelit fish #146. Rank: Species
One of the diverse grouple of fish I was hoping to pick off a few new species from we grunts. There are a lot of grunts I've not yet caught. Of course, I've gotten the easier ones out of the way it seems and could only catch those.
French grunt, Haemulon flavolineatum
Sailor's grunt, Haemulon parra
Tomtate, Haemulon aurolineatum
Even when I thought I had a new grunt species, an odd looking small specimen with three distinct lateral bars and a black caudal spot, it turned out to simply be a juvenile sailor's grunt.
Haemulon parra, juvenile
Meanwhile, Noah was catching parrotfish, which I found very hard not to be jealous about.
Parrotfish are wrasse, and I was catching wrasse. Just not particularly cool wrasse. The most abundant species of wrasse in most of the south Florida inlets seems to be the aptly and humorously named slippery dick. I think they're cool looking fish, but they're so difficult to handle it makes it less fun to catch them.
Slippery dick, Halichoeres bivittatus
Eventually though, I managed a sea chub. Knowing well there were two very similar species I'd only caught one of, yellow chub and Bermuda chub, I photographed it thoroughly. Not much later I caught another and did the same. And right at the end of the day I caught a third, not including the two others I'd caught in between on bait. Bermuda chubs have 11 soft anal fin rays, Yellow chubs have 12-14. I caught one or the other back in January 2019, I'm not sure which, so one of the two is lifer #147 as I caught both species on the fly this time.
Bermuda chub, Kyphosus sectatrix
Yellow chub, Kyphosus incisor
A third and final new species found its way to hand somehow as well, a new damselfish species.
Longfin damselfish, Stegastes diencaeus. Lifelist fish #148. Rank: species.
Now, you may see that I caught ten species and three new species and wonder how I could possibly complain about how difficult the fishing was with the fly. Now consider the fact that I was looking into water just packed full of fish species I'd never caught, hundreds of possible targets, and I only managed to catch three new species. The bulk of what I caught was the same fish: sergeant majors. So many sergeant majors. If I could opt out of ever catching a sergeant major ever again, I gladly would. They're beautiful little fish but I'd settle for just seeing them in the water and never hooking another in my life. All the parrotfishes, other wrasses like bluehead wrasse, the burrfishes, the filefish, the cowfish... they seemed like long shots. But I wouldn't stop beating my head against the wall just yet, and occasionally, I was breaking a piece loose.
Tricolor heron hunting and boat-tailed grackle sizing it up for a potential mugging.
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.
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.
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