Reverted to Toddlerism

Sometimes when a big fish eats your fly things go in slow motion. This time things were extra slow and the fish was not just big; It was something that seemed out of place in a muddy pit of a park pond, almost tarpon like in stature and even appearance and behavior. Just a massive, massive fish. Almost certainly bigger than any fish I had ever caught in fresh or salt water on any kind of tackle. To make the anticipation that more intense it was a species I had never caught and have been yearning to for years. I had made an uncharacteristically perfect cast, and the fish had not changed its course. It slowly turned upwards, clearly intent on eyeing my foam bread fly. It was such a low rise. I had time to remark about the fish's movements

"Here he comes, HERE HE COMES, HERE HE COMES!

Ssschhhhloooop.

Ben and I have been on a mission. A mission to catch carp in two unique situations, on the surface and at night. After the first day and getting our butts packaged, wrapped, and delivered to us with a hateful letter taped on the top, I went out for a near full night session that was really focused on observing the behavior of the fish. I think I left with more questions than answers. I saw carp doing things I had just never seen before in all these years. I saw them exhibit what could only have been complex social behaviors, seemingly even grooming or communicating by touching each other. I saw fish do something that was bizarrely like kissing. I watched common carp over 10lbs seemingly filter feed on zooplankton at mid water-column. I saw both flippant ignorance of my presence and seemingly intuitive spooking when I made a regular schedule of coming and going. I could see fish at a distance abruptly turn and leave from where they could not possibly have seen, heard, or felt my presence. The biggest question this all left me with... why are people so enamored with brown trout and willing to pass up such a dynamic and intriguing fish that came here from the same part of the world? I mean these animals are just incredible. I watched them from 9:00 until 2:15 and it was one of the coolest nights on the water I've ever had.

I didn't make a whole lot of casts that night, but when I did I made sure they were to fish that were feeding on the bottom and I made sure the cast was pretty much perfect. I got five takes in total, hooked two, and landed one.

Really, really cool night. I got a few hours of sleep and Ben and I were off to look for surface feeders again. Once again, they whooped us. But we were starting to get some good ideas. We came back the next day for vengeance, and fish were caught on flies made from a foam mattress pad... yup. We had learned quite a bit here. We figured out just how much we needed to conceal ourselves, how important cloud cover is, and that no matter what we do grass carp will never be easy here. 

This pond is loaded with beautiful little commons, and that was the fish most likely to munch down our bread flies. Ben finally got the monkey off his back and I got a pair of beauties as well. 

Somewhere in the middle was the episode the reverted me to toddlerism. That huge grass carp came gliding along, I made a cast, and as though it had been waiting for this moment all day the fish came up to eat my fly with authority....

And I ripped it right out of it's mouth. I swore loudly and turned from my seated position to lay on my stomach and beat the ground with my fists. Ben just sat is his spot and laughed. Eventually I went back to being a 20 year old instead of a 3 year old and I was laughing too. The absurdity of all that had just gone down, when I thought about it, was both hilarious and wildly frustrating. I had just blown that one shot at what could have ended up being the biggest fish of my life, a fish that had shown no signs of even considering taking one of our flies prior to that on this particular day.

The outing got really weird after we met up with Kirk and tried to find a night bite. That night bite never materialized in the street lights, where fish had been so frequent in previous nights. So we went ahead with Plan-B, using a drill battery powered spotlight to sight fish in the dark. We saw a bunch of odd stuff using that light, including odd carp behavior and some sizable eels, but oddest of all, it seems spot lighted smallmouth will not shy away from a black bugger right on their nose!

Remember Where You Stand

The other day I was back on the stream I fished in "Foam is Home". I was hoping to bring a few wild brook trout to hand to show you all, and to be able to really add that stream to my wild salmonid list. It was a bit lower than it had been but was more than acceptable and very cold, so I was fairly confident. I went upstream this time rather than down, and I'm glad I did because I found some native char both in that stream and a tributary.

A hornberg and a kebari wet did most of the work, fished both wet and dry, and a lot of fish were brought to hand over a two hour period. It was very hot and I was sweating intensely, but the brook trout were happy so I put up with it.

It's hard to beat good brook trout fishing in July. But something happened during this outing that tainted things some. I caught one of the larger fish of the day on an old Edson Tiger. It was tied on a fairly long shanked limerick hook. It was not one of my ties, I can't remember where I found it. But it was a long shank hook that I hadn't been particularly careful about de-barbing, the barb was mashed but not well. These fish had been fairly nippy all day so I didn't think it would be an issue, and I was wrong. I killed a fish, hooked it deep in the gills. A beautiful, wonderful little creature in a delicate ecosystem died because of me, and because I had no way of keeping it cold I could not take it. I buried it stream side in hopes that it may return some good to the system, as food for aquatic insects or some passing scavenger.

I couldn't stand that. It's not something that happens often to me. In fact only four times have in that number of years, twice now this year, have I had a fish go belly up and not recover. It is oftentimes unavoidable. As someone who cares deeply about waterways and the fish and other animals that live in them I am keenly aware that I as an angler have an impact, and it is frequently a negative one. Like it or not, we all do. As humans we stand as the most ecologically destructive of  all animals. Every one of you who is reading this has killed fish before that you released with the best of intentions. Recreational anglers have an obligation, to practice responsible catch and release, to harvest selectively, and to ensure the impact we leave is more positive than negative.

I'll leave you with this thought. Lately I find myself extremely content just watching fish, studying their behavior, letting them go about their business. I'm a lot more picky about my shots and I don't really feel the need to catch every fish I see. I think a lot of heavily pressured streams could use some of that more restrained angling these days.


I figure I may as well share this as well, a video I found particularly poignant:

A Few Odd Species

I went down to the river last night and ran into Noah, who had just caught a banded killifish for his life-list. This is a species I had already caught but had never gotten a decent photo of, so I was fairly pleased to catch one after just a little bit of effort. They were hanging out in a tributary where I've usually found spottail shiners. I managed to hook one with a tiny caddis pupa.

After that and an unsuccessful attempt to hook a pike or big smallmouth, I broke character a bit and fished bait. I was really hoping to bump into a white catfish, by far the most interesting catfish we have in these parts. The thrive in the lowest reaches of tidal rivers and are capable of handling quite a bit of salinity. No white catfish were caught, but Noah added another species to his list, an American eel, and I caught a few of those and a yellow bullhead. Yellow bullheads aren't particularly common in this spot so it was a cool little fish to catch.

How's this for a spinner fall?

Sometimes flies just don't do the trick. I'm not too proud to admit that and fish living or dead bait. 

Night Fishing for Carp With a Fly

That carp took a black woolly bugger the first time it was presented to it. I was standing in full view of the fish at rod length with absolutely nothing obscuring that bright red tee. The fish showed no signs of noticing that  was there, when it surely would have spooked violently at most times of day. The deciding factor of this fish catch? It was 10:00 at night.

Noah tipped me off to this interesting nocturnal behavior three days prior. He had seen carp feeding on minnows while jogging along the shoreline, and when he inspected close he found that it seemed to be a fairly regular feeding pattern. Carp were coming into the area around this particular dock and feeding under the streetlights. And they were oddly unaware of the presence of a waiting angler. I thought this would be a great opportunity to help another fishing friend, Ben Bilello, get into his first legally fly caught carp. He fouled a large one earlier this year while shad fishing, obviously that doesn't count.

I went out briefly the night before just to poke around an I found two giant panfish. I didn't really try to get a carp  in the money spot because it would likely key them off to our presence.

Then came that fateful night. Ben and I fished all afternoon and saw a lot of neurotic and unusual behavior from the carp that made them extremely difficult to catch. And then came the after dark bite. Ben got tons of great shots at aggressively feeding carp... perfect shots actually... and the fish didn't eat and didn't turn the cold shoulder, they showed no signs of anything whatsoever. It was freakishly atypical. We worked through a bunch of different flies and none seemed to work better or worse. We probably had a couple hours worth of chances when  made a fatal mistake. Ben was changing flies and I casually flipped my first and only cast. I made a drag and drop presentation and the fish turned and sucked in the fly. Immediate regret. I pretty much stole Ben's fish, and after we had put so much work in. I felt pretty bad about it.

Interestingly, that is the same fish  had caught two nights before. That's the first time I've confirmed a repeat catch on a carp. I pretty pleased with that. I love seeing the same fish again. And I love most of all to let them swim off and say "by old friend, till next time".  

Ben payed his dues this time. Next time is his turn. For real. 

Foam is Home

I fished a little stream in Northern CT yesterday that I had never fished before. It was a beautiful waterway, clean and cold with lots of falls and plunges. Unfortunately it was a busy place. Lots of sightseers and swimmers. No bueno for catching fish. I found some aquatic creatures in the spots that were hard to get to though, especially places with a lot of foam.

See all those holes in the thick white foam in the first photo? Those were made by rising brook trout and creek chubs. Mostly creek chubs. I caught four chubbies and one brookie, and the brookie didn't let me get a photo. 

The only places that held fish in that stretch of water also had huge amounts of foam. Just goes to show that the old saying, foam is home, is definitely something to pay attention to, especially on small streams. Run a small wet fly or streamer under the foam and chances are something hungry will come up for a look.