The Bomber Takes December

We started December with a couple really warm days, and I knew looking at the weather forecast that it would be smart to knock out y monthly dry fly fish early. I could very well be ice fishing by the end of the week. I spent some stream time on Monday, and I must admit the choices made were not ideal. I spent way to much time looking for some high water big browns, which was just a total failure. I caught more ugly stocked rainbows than I did small wild browns. No good. But I managed to peel myself away from the brown trout water to look for a brookie on the dry.

I put all my hope in the good old Ausable Bomber. If I were to fish one dry fly on small streams for the rest of my life, that would be it. And just in time it came through. When the fish need a wake-up call, I twitch the bomber at the end of the drift, and sure enough that's what sealed the deal this time. 

I knocked of December nice and early, that's good. It takes the stress off, because I will be in a state with essentially no trout for more than a week at the end of the month. Now I can focus on other thing. Bigger brookies, big browns, and ice fishing (hopefully). I do love winter. 

If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Also, consider supporting me on Patreon (link at the top of the bar to the right of your screen, on web version). Every little bit is appreciated! 
Thanks for joining the adventure, and tight lines.

Sticking Hard-Mouthed Fish with the Fly Rod

I have become a bit dinosaur obsessed in the last year. Not the extinct variety (though those are wicked cool), the fish variety. Gar. Bowfin. Snakeheads. There is very little in freshwater that I have become more interested in recently than these armor plated, bony mouthed, prehistoric fish. They fascinate me endlessly. I have a life goal revolving around these fish: catch at least one of every gar species and one of every snakehead species on the fly. I am much closer to my gar goal with both Florida and longnose gar under my belt; I haven't caught either northern or bullseye snakehead yet but I will. To get the rest of the snakehead species I will have to go to Southeast Asia. And I promise I will before I die. But bowfin are very similar in behavior and shape to snakeheads, so I can shed some light on hooking them even though I personally haven't yet.

This is not a guide to finding these species. It isn't a guide to specific fly patterns. It isn't about presentation either. This is a guide to how to make sure, if you are going to target these species, that you can do the single most important thing after the fish eats: Get them stuck and stuck good. Because driving a hook into these specie's rock hard mouths can be very difficult, sometimes even impossible. This is...

RM Lytle's Complete Guide to Stickin' Gar, Bowfin, and Snakeheads 

KEEP YOUR HOOKS SHARP

There are no excuses. If your hooks are dull you are going to blow that shot at the gar, 'fin, or 'snake of a lifetime. Buy sharp hooks and sharpen them after each use. You should already be carrying a hook hone with you. If you aren't, get one. Snagged in a log? Sharpen that hook. Hit a rock on the backcast? Sharpen that hook. Just caught a good fish? Sharpen that hook. It should be so sharp that it only takes minimal pressure on the point with your finger tip to make you bleed... but I don't recomend doing that on purpose, so test it on newspaper instead. It the barb doesn't bury in a rolled up newspaper with one sharp pull... sharpen that hook. 

KEEP YOUR HOOKS STOUT, BUT NOT TOO STOUT

This is not the scenario in which you want some sissy aberdeen hook. It's also not the scenario straight up shark hooks either. You need a hook that is thin enough in diameter to bury in cartilage with one big swing or a few strip-sets, and stout enough to put up with being chomped on by some of the toughest jaws of any freshwater fish all the while being pulled on really hard with heavy tippet and a heavy rod. One of my favorite hooks for this application is the Tiemco TMC811S. They come real sharp out of the package, maintain that sharpness well, and set into a bony fish's mouth with relative ease. 

ALL ABOUT THAT TREBLE

Flies with treble hooks are probably not a common product in your local shops, but you may want to consider tying some if you intend to target gar species other than longnose. Don't go really big, Just use a size 8 treble and a 28mm Chocklett's Articulated Big Game Shank to tie your fly. Once again, make sure you keep those points needle sharp. 

GO SMALL

So you aren't about trebles, that's okay too. Go small if you want a better chance to stick Florida or spotted gar. Use an articulated fly or topwater with two size 10's, 8's, or 6's. These small hooks will bury with less effort than a big hook, and these smaller gar species aren't going to bend them out. They'll eat almost anything anyway, I actually got a few to eat small nymphs in the Tamiami canal and they stayed stuck far longer than any that took a big streamer. In fact, had I not gone down to a very small fly I doubt I would have caught even one. 

SHORT LEADER, HEAVY TIPPET

There's no sense in trying to hide your leader from these fish, they're so tough and gnarly they don't even care. Instead, tie up a short very strong leader that will stand up to the strain of a really hard hook set. A five foot leader to 20lb tippet will do exactly that. Fluorocarbon is preferable for subsurface presentations, especially since all these fish are very toothy and will abrade your line, but I use Trilene big game any time I'm fishing topwater since it floats and is dirt cheep. I have not yet had a bowfin or gar bite off, but I have had to change tippets after landing them. 

RODS WITH BACKBONE

Don't screw around with light rods for these fish either. If you want to stick them well, use a rod with backbone. Rods in 8, 9, and 10 are appropriate, even though it would be possible to fight these fish effectively with a 6wt (hell, I got my first gar on a 5/6 glass rod). But at close range I've found a hard set up and to the side is optimal, and a noodle glass rod or super slow action graphite won't provide the brute force I want. An 8wt is ideal for small gar an bowfin. For larger gar, big bowfin, and snakeheads, a 10wt is not at all overkill. And for real monsters like alligator gar, a 12wt or even a 14 or bigger is ideal. Fast action graphite with a good comfortable fighting but and a lot of pulling power will help you drive that hook home. 

STRIP UNTIL YOU CAN STRIP NO MORE

All of these species hold onto the fly after they'v eaten it. Unlike a trout mouthing bits of organic matter, nymphs, and other junk in the drift and spitting half of it back out, a bowfin or snakehead or gar has already decided that your fly was food before it put it in its mouth, and it's going to keep it there for a little while. Give the fish a second to really suck it down. Then strip set like you're trying to bury that hook into a cinder block and don't stop until the fish forces you too. You may have to tape your fingers after four or five fish, so be it. This is just what you have to do. When sight-fishing bowfin or snakeheads in the weeds or on fry balls this won't really fly. Instead, got straight up Jimmy Houstan on that sucker, cross his eyes and cross them good. Sweep that rod back and to the side and strip hard at the same time. 

DON'T EVEN USE HOOKS

So, longose gar are a little bit special in this realm. You probably won't hook one, so don't try. Not only is their snout bony as hell, it's so skinny their's not much between the inside of  the mouth and the outside of the mouth for a hook to encounter. Instead of frustrating yourself trying to actually hook one, Use rope flies. Nylon rope and other fine-fiber materials tangle in a longnose gar's many needle-like teeth, acting almost like velcro. I would't forgo the hook entirely, but not because it might stick in a gar... you don't want to miss out on the bass of a lifetime because it came along and sucked down a hookless gar fly. When a gar eats a rope fly, just let it toy with it for a couple seconds to get the fibers all nice and tangled in its teeth, then lift the rod gently to begin the fight. You'll want both a jaw spreader and pliers to get a longnose gar unstuck, not only for your safety but because letting one swim off with a bunch of nylon stuck in his teeth is just rude.
For for big spotted, Florida, and alligator gar, rope flies won't work nearly as well though.

NO STRETCHING!

There's no room in this game for a stretchy fly line. Use a floating line with a strong core. Less than supple is not a problem fishing for these species as the water is rarely cold enough to make your coating even more stiff and prone to tangling. You want is little give as possible. I, personally, am still looking for the optimal line for this fishing, but I've gotten much closer with Airflo.  

LOST FISH ARE A PART OF THE GAME

When you fish for bowfin, gar, and snakeheads, you are going to miss and loose fish no matter how sharp your hooks are, no matter how hard you set, no matter how perfectly tuned your gear is. It is just a part of the deal. Get over it, get back to fishing, and put every ounce of available effort into sticking the next one. 

Stick them hard. 

If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Also, consider supporting me on Patreon (link at the top of the bar to the right of your screen, on web version). Every little bit is appreciated! 
Thanks for joining the adventure, and tight lines.

100 SPECIES (and hybrids) ON THE FLY

Today was do or die day. I was either going to catch my 99th and 100th life list fish today or go home frustrated and have to come back in three weeks for redemption, making that trip more stressful than necessary. Fishing salt water would give me the best chance. I picked a spot on the Indian River and got about an hour to spend there. I was hoping the place was going to be just packed with species, unfortunately it wasn't. The first fish I saw were finger mullet. Then big fat ones that were eating algae off the rocks. I knew my chance of getting one to eat was very slim but any time one made itself a target I cast at it anyway because there was only one other species in abundance in that particular location, more on that shortly. Out of the blue, one of the smaller fish in one of the schools I cast to calmly swam up and slurped down my red and orange woolly bugger. Not at all how I envisioned catching my first mullet, but if I've learned anything over this life-listing adventure it is that fish like to ignore the rules. 

Life list fish #99: striped mullet, Mugil cephalus

The other aforementioned abundant species was sheepshead. These buggers pose a pretty solid challenge. They were being pretty lazy, not really feeding at all, and had almost no interest in my flies. I got a couple half hearted follows. I wandered away from them for a little while to look for easier targets but could not find the puffer I was looking for. I made a couple casts at a small stingray and watched a spin caster land what looked like a snagged pleco and a small trout. I was ill equipped to fish for trout with my 3wt and minimal fly arsenal. Eventually I went back after the sheepshead I rolled a few rocks, and besides finding a few blennies I was too lazy to change up to target, I found some small crabs. I decided to suck up my pride and just see if these fish would take a live crab. I impailed one on the fly and walked back down to where the fish were and dropped it next to a boulder that had probably 15 sheepshead around it. One came over and made quick work of the crab, but once it was all gone he seemed to still have a real interest in the fly. He took repeatedly, and I hooked and lost him twice with not bait on the fly. This got me thinking. I hurriedly went about collecting more crabs, which I broke into little bits. I then hurried back to the sheepshead, tossed the lot out there to where the fish were sitting and milling around, and watched them go bonkers as it all dropped down to them. I cast the fly into the mix and the fish were on it quickly. They were much more suspicious of the fly because it didn't taste or look anything like crab legs, but that didn't stop them from taking it. Four fish were hooked and lost before they got shy again. While I collected more crabs I got a text that signified my time was limited, very limited. I sprinted back, chucked the crab parts out, sunk the fly into the zone, and watched a sheepshead come up and take. This one stayed pinned, thank goodness. 

Life list fish #100 : Sheepshead, Archosargus probatocephalus

So that's it. I've caught 100 different species and hybrids on the fly. I think now I'll just go back to trout fishing, permanently. Nothing else. 

HA! As if. The more I fish the less I can stand to trout fish a bunch of consecutive days. Nope. I'll be doing the same things I have since I started this quest, and there are only two things that will stop me. Death or running out of new fish species to catch. It will be the first scenario undoubtedly, but that won't stop me from trying. To cap off this short, nearly full blown panic mission, I got to see dolphins essentially blitzing on adult sheepshead. It was quite spectacular.

Photo Courtesy Malachi Lytle

Photo Courtesy Malachi Lytle

If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Every little bit is appreciated! 
Thanks for joining the adventure, and tight lines.

New Species and Florida Bass on the Fly

Some of the most easy fishing in Florida exists in the many hundreds, if not thousands of neighborhood ponds, lakes, and canals. Aside from the very numerous bass and bream these water bodies also hold copious amounts of other native and non-native fish. Though the fishing is easy access is basically impossible for the vast majority of these water bodies. Luckily though my grandparents live on one, and though it doesn't have a huge number of species I haven't caught it has a few. The most abundant are the ubiquitous eastern mosquitofish, and I do intend to catch one of those little buggers eventually the ones here seem to be, on the whole, too small for hook and line and indeed too small for all but very fine mesh nets. Other than that I had no idea. Noah and I caught Florida black bass and coppernose bluegill. In my first few casts here this time I caught a run of the mill Florida 'gill, which we hadn't caught in December. They do look very different from the bluegills we northeasterners are used to though. I call them peacock bluegills now because their three dark bars and  green, orange and yellow coloration kinda remind me of peacock bass.

Coppernose bluegill were very much in the minority this time, but they were around. Florida bass though, were not. The were at times blitzing on the mosquitofish yesterday. I didn't see that today, but I suspect the water temperature was cooler even though the air was warmer than the day before. Water takes longer to cool and warm. Always, always keep that in mind and fish accordingly. Yesterday I got a bunch of bass on and Empie Shiner tied by Geoff Klane, and also on a black and purple gurgler. They weren't huge, or even average for this area. But I was fishing 6'6" 3wt, so it was an absolute riot. 

My first new species of the trip was a sunfish. I'm slowly chipping away at the sunfishes and will hopefully have all of them within the next few years. My 15th sunfish species ended up being Lepomis microlophus, called redear or shellcracker. Their appearance is not dissimilar from pumpkinseeds, but they are less round bodied and have a much bigger more up-turned mouth. They specialize in eating snails, hence the name 'shellcracker'. Not only was this my first new species of this Florida trip and my first new sunfish species since my last trip down here

Life list fish #97: redear sunfish

Later that evening, in a mix of bluegills and possible hybrids (maybe more on that later) I hooked something that I initially thought was a small turtle. After a few pulls the thing just came up to the surface, poked its nose up, and slowly slid in. As soon as I saw it in the water I saw that not only was it a fish but it was a new species. It was a tilapia. And there arose an unforeseen challenge. I new very little about identifying tilapia species. There are something like 5 or 6 of them in Florida. A few were ruled out easily enough, but I got stuck between three species and couldn't fully ascertain which of the three this was: blue tilapia, Nile tilapia, or Mozambique tilapia. I spent much of the rest of the night obsessively comparing photos, texting friends, and sending photos to a few of best multi-species anglers and fish identification experts I know of. I put a post up here with just a title and two photos that I never intended to keep up so I could more easily share those photos, so some of you already saw this fish. After all that, I am still not 100% sure, but I'm going with the ID Roy Leyva and Martini Arostegui suggested: Mozambique. 

Life list fish #98: Mozambique tilapia, Oreochromis mossambicus

So, two new species on the first day was a pretty good start. Today I didn't catch anything new but then again I didn't really do anything that would make that likely. We spent most of the day at Kennedy Space Center, which was awesome. We saw some dolphins in the Indian River, which was awesome. And I saw a big old redfish and a big old gar in different parts of the canals around the space center. Also awesome. So no complaints whatsoever there. But tomorrow will be do or die for breaking 100. I don't expect it to be too difficult though.

If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Every little bit is appreciated! 
Thanks for joining the adventure, and tight lines.

Going Into a Florida Trip With 96

A few nights ago Noah and I went out at night, fishing some small streams, looking for redd raiders. A lot of things like to eat trout eggs, and including a bunch of different fish species. Some of those species, like creek chubsuckers, longnose dace, slimy sculpins, tessellated darters, central mudminnow, and others that either both or one of us had not yet caught. With flashlights and careful, slow wading, we searched the stream bed in the dark hoping to find something we hadn't caught. And we did, in one run that had a couple redds in the tailout we found sculpins.

Life list #96 (species): slimy sculpin, Cottus cognatus. 

This species is listed as "of special concern" in CT, and as such should care should be taken if one is caught, be it on hook and line in a minnow trap. Handle carefully and release quickly. In some states sculpins are a popular fish to use as live bait. Under no circumstances should this be done here! Nor should nighttime spotlighting micros if you don't have an intimate understanding of the fish species, the stream, and how to identify and avoid redds or cyprinid mounds.  After quick photo sessions both Noah and I watched our beautiful, charismatic little sculpins return to their nocturnal routine. We left that stream shortly afterwards to look for a darter for Noah, no such luck. At least not finding one big enough to catch without a tenago hook.

So, I'm going into a Florida trip with 96 species and hybrids. Catching four new species in four days in Florida should be about as easy as catching one new species in a year here in CT. But I don't want to shoot myself in the foot before I even get there. Next time I report, it will be from the land of the exotic invasives, hopefully with some crazy new fly caught species.

If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Every little bit is appreciated! 
Thanks for joining the adventure, and tight lines.