Brackish Flies

Because the Covid19 outbreak is hitting the economy hard and those who stand to lose the most financially are small business owners, I find it pertinent to use this space to promote my friends in the fishing industry. I very rarely use this blog as a platform to try to sell anything, but with trade shows getting cancelled and the economy absolutely tanking, I want to help my fishing friends out in any way I can and this is the best I can do. If we're at all friendly, have chatted on occasion, and you are small business owner who is worried about how things will turn out with this pandemic, please get in touch and let me know what I can do to help.

Geoff Klane has been a good friend of mine for while now. I've fished with him in both CT and MA, on my home waters and his and a little bit in between. When I met him, he had already started his business, Brackish Flies, tying custom fly orders and guiding, and soon after he started rod building as well. His business has grown substantially in the time that I've known him and that's fantastic. Geoff is a good dude and good people deserve success. Right now, like so many other small fishing businesses, Geoff is having to deal with clients understandably canceling early season trips as well as trade show cancellations.

This would be a great time to give Geoff  holler and stock up on some flies. I've fished flies that Geoff tied and they were workhorses. They took a beating and lived to take even more. Geoff has gotten especially creative with the deadly Empie Shiner pattern, he can pretty much tailor that one fly to match most baitfish color variations. There aren't many predatory fish species that won't eat an Empie Shiner. 

Geoff builds some pretty fantastic looking and functioning rods as well, so if you are in the market and want a rod made exactly to your specifications, it is definitely worth looking to Brackish Flies.

And, of course, when things start to get more relaxed in the not-to-distant future, consider booking a day with Geoff. He guides for warmwater species in the Lowell canals with emphasis on carp, striped bass long the Massachusetts shoreline, and for sea run brook trout. Geoff is very knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and just a pleasure to spend  day on the water with. So check out the website linked in the second paragraph and buy some flies or a rod, or book a future fishing trip.

Until next time,

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.

*All photos in this post courtesy Geoff Klane unless otherwise captioned.

Early Spring Pickerel Pattern

Redfin and chain pickerel spawn in early spring, like most Esox. They are impossible to catch when they are in the act and they don't guard a bed like some species, so it can be hit or miss targeting around the time that they spawn. If you see pickerel rolling around at the surface in weedy areas, assume you aren't going to catch many that day.

Redfin pickerel spawning in shallow reeds, rippling the surface.

Increases in water temperature very early in the spring can often lead to good fishing, unless they peak near the preferred temperature for spawning. After that point, it is best to wait for the water temperature to drop back down to fish for pickerel. It may seem counter intuitive, but a snotty, windy, rainy, cold day after a string of nice early spring weather is more conducive to a strong feeding window. Pickerel that would otherwise be rolling around spawning in the weeds take the time when conditions are no longer suitable to do that to feed instead.

 With temperatures spiking towards the end of our trip south, Noah and I got home to mid-spawn and post spawn pickerel conditions. It was much cooler than it had been and any time the barometric pressure dropped, the fish put the feed bag on. I had one quite good day with a bunch of pickerel to hand and one fairly nice one, at least for the water I was fishing, and the next day Noah hammered larger fish in the same location. We had our pattern figured out.

Steadily retrieving a naturally buoyant streamer is probably the most effective way to catch these early season fish on the fly. Evan earlier in the year, before the fish have started to spawn at all, a gurgler might be even more effective for numbers of fish over shallow mud flat. But for larger pickerel, a fly like an unweighted Bucktail Deceiver, a large Muddler, or a Tabory Snake Fly is a great choice. Something with an erratic action that tracks at the same depth through the length of the retrieve is ideal. Core the water column: start near surface, then fish deeper until you find where the fish are suspended. In shallow water, less than two feet, this is unnecessary, but in deeper water it is a key tactic. A lot of the most memorable pickerel in my fishing career came suspended in deep water over weed edges.

I'm in a mood to catch big fish right now, I'm utterly sick of stocked trout and I'm inclined to leave pressure off the small streams a well given the uptick in pressure I've already seen this spring. Pickerel, especially big pickerel, are on the agenda. I'll be doing a lot of kayak fishing on snotty weather days looking for the largest pickerel of my life this spring.

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.

Parrotfish, Cowfish, and a Puffer on The Fly

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.

The Lifers in Between

When you go on a multi-week long trip to an area like Florida with extremely high species diversity and are fishing all day every day, it isn't at all unlikely to catch lifers while between focused fishing missions. This post is about those species that I caught on this trip that just don't fit into their own story or the story of a day.

Coastal shiner

Coastal shiner, Notropis petersoni. Life list fish #150. Rank: Species

Our camp was on a pond. This was familiar territory as we'd spent a bunch of nights at the same campsite back in December 2018 and January 2019, but this time around I noticed some micros that we hadn't seen here before, shiners and silversides. Silversides in ponds may sound wrong to northeast saltwater fisherman that are used to silversides being a saltwater baitfish species, but a number of silversides inhabit freshwater habitats. However, and somewhat embarrassingly, I never put much effort into catching the silversides. I did, however, one morning, catch on of the shiners. With very few candidates it was an easy ID; so coastal shiner joins the list at 150 as well as being only my third Notropis. 

Slender mojarra

Slender mojarra, Eucinostomus jonesii. Lifelist fish #156. Rank: species.

In front of a culvert in a mangrove lined river one morning, right near a boat launch we were using a lot, I caught two mojarras on small midge patterns. Mojarras are a notably difficult bunch of fishes to identify. A variety of factors, chief among them the profile of the top of its head in comparison to the other possible mojarra species, lead me to conclude that the first was a slender mojarra.

Striped mojarra

Striped mojarra, Eugerres plumieri. Life list fish #157. Rank: species.

The second mojarra was much easier to identify, thanks to Leo Sheng for pointing out to me that no other mojarra has, as he put it, "the weird extra meat at the beginning of the dorsal fin".

Crested goby

Crested goby, Lophogobius cyprinoides. Life list fish #158. Rank: species.

In the cracks of the boat launch itself were dozens of gobies. Each individual seemed to have a different response when a fly was presented to it. Some ran away. Some attacked. Some didn't seem to care one way or the other. I managed to catch a few of them, and though one was a frillfin goby, a species I already had, a few were the aptly named crested gobies.

So, that fills in some gaps. And creates some gaps, as you may have noticed if you were counting. But have no fear, we will get there eventually. 

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.

Sprung, Spring Has

The governor said we could fish... so I did.
Of course, I would have anyway, but my choice of waters was increased substantially. Now I could finally legally hit some places I'd never gotten to in late March before, brook trout water I knew would be fishing well but had to stay off of through the closed season. Come the week following opening day I'd fished these places and the fatness of the brook trout I caught lead me to believe something spectacular had been going on before I could get there.

The late winter, early spring stonefly emergence probably peaks during closed season. It's the first notable dry fly fishing of the year but only available on limited TMA and Class 1 WTMA streams. Not this year.

I chose a cluster of three similarly sized streams in close proximity. Each one has a slightly different character, but share the same bedrock, the same mix of macroinvertebrates, and the brook trout look pretty much the same. Very dark, typically. Shortly after hiking into the first the clouds of midges, stoneflies fluttering on the surface, and frequent rises told me I was in for a good afternoon. 

I put the Ausable Bomber to work. Frankly, I'm not sure why my small stream box isn't filled with only five flies: The Bomber, foam beetles, the Ausable Ugly, and Picket Pins, because that's about all I've ever needed. The bomber would take any riser I presented it to this day were it cast tactfully and from an obscured position.

With so many rising fish, I took the time on a few occasions to simply sit back, relax, and watch them do their thing. I even took the time to sneak around them so as not to put them off the feed. For a couple stretches of creek I was simply an observer with no intention of intervening at all. This is something I personally believe more fisherman should try to do more often.

I didn't need to cast at every rise, I knew there's be plenty more fish. There always are, on days like this.

After a dozen fish to hand I decided to move on to the next stream. I elected to fish a stretch I never had before, a bit I knew had a beaver meadow that looked great on the maps. I caught a few brook trout before I reached it, but the abundant dimples and wide open casting lanes when I did reach the meadow made me grin ear to ear. Oh, and add a sixth to my fly box, the Sturdy's Fancy did the job on these small but splendidly dressed native char. Blue winged olives joined the midges and stones here. Sprung, spring has.

The beaver meadow yielded a half dozen fish, one much larger than the youngster you see above,. but that little fish was far better looking. Simple maybe, compared to some rook trout. But quite lovely.

As the sun crept lower I made tracks to the third stream before I lost daylight. There, I tied on the Ausable ugly just for a change of pace. Dangled the buggy nymph/small streamer in the current and waited to feel the thump of a hungry brookie. I didn't have to wait long. Another dark wild fish danced on the surface as I guided it in my direction with the rod. I talked to it as I landed it.
"Do you know how happy you make me? Of course you don't, you're just fighting for your life here."
Barely lifting the six inch fish from the water, I turned the hook and gave it a little shake. "Lucky for you, I'll fight for your life too", I said, watching him quickly swim away.

A second and final fish fell to the Ugly before I called it a day.

Keep in mind, with this open season and the extra free time we've been forced to have, that it is possible to pressure fish too much. That is a concern I have for the duration of this pandemic. Please take this into consideration. Spread your fishing pressure out as much as possible, both to keep crowds to a minimum and to prevent undue pressure to sensitive fisheries.

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.