Memories (Western Pennsylvania Pt. 1)

We were going to Ohio. We had a fool proof plan to get on loads of new species around Cincinnati, with a local friend, Jake, as our guide and a good few days at our disposal. Then Covid, or more accurately Connecticut's policies regarding Covid, threw a monkey wrench in the gears. I double checked state listings while we were en-route and Ohio had been added to the list of CT's travel advisory states. I couldn't justify quarantining for 14 days upon returning home. I had things to do. As did Noah. The trip came to a screeching halt outside of DuBois, Pennsylvania as we tried to figure out what to do now.

If there's one thing that Noah and I are good at it's on the fly adjustments. In no time, we had a plan B. Jake started to get ready to drive out to meet us, and we changed our destination to the town I was born in and where I lived until I was eight years old: Franklin, Pennsylvania. 

For me, this trip had suddenly turned into a homecoming, an exploration of water I could be living near had my life followed just a slightly different course, waters I spent my early childhood around, but none of which I fished, or at least remember fishing. The middle Allegheny watershed also happens to be some of the most fish-diverse freshwater in the country, so although we wouldn't have a local guide that knew the ins and outs of the fishery as Jake knows his area, lifers were assured for all three of us. But for the first few hours it was up to Noah and I to do some scouting before Jake got there.

We drove through the bucolic upland areas of northwestern PA before steadily dropping in elevation, following the watercourse of a small tributary of the Allegheny. When it made a more abrupt drop in elevation, the road turned to dirt and we followed it to a pull off. Though I'd been here many times before I didn't quite recognize it. It was the same place but time had altered my memory. We then walked down a trail that was steeper than I remembered, past an old stone furnace that was smaller than I remembered, to as stream that was narrower than I remembered. There, I flipped slab rocks that were smaller and lighter than I remembered and found fewer and smaller salamanders under than than I remembered. That, I'm confident, was the only thing that really had changed. My memory of the quantity of sleek black salamanders that would dart out from under those stones is so vivid. Is it coincidental that my most vivid memories from early childhood are of amphibians, reptiles, fish, and insects? I think not.

Northern dusky salamander (I think?)

One thing I knew was that I'd never fished this place, but we were about to. At a glance it looked almost completely lifeless. It wasn't exactly brimming with minnows and dace like some streams, and it took some really close inspection before fish revealed themselves. Actually it took Noah one cast with a jig for a brown trout to come flying out from under a big sandstone slab. It didn't connect but now we knew they were there. And eventually we found a large hole with some chubs in it as well. Unfortunately, they weren't a new species, but the creek chubs we'd caught plenty of other places before.

Semotilus atromaculatus

As Noah continued to fish a tungsten ice jig, which revealed that not only were there trout in this stream but a few quite large ones, I decided to hone my focus on the shallow tailouts, the sort of water darters and sculpins love.

It took some legitimate patience but eventually I found some sculpins. They were tiny, and if I could catch one it would be in the running for the smallest fish I'd ever caught. It took extremely minute adjustments, but I managed to get two to eat a tanago midge and caught the second. It looked tome to be a slimy sculpin, a species I'd already caught in CT. This may indeed be the smallest fish I've caught on hook and line at much less than an inch in length. Absurd though it may seem to many of you, I'm very proud of this. 

Noah then finally connected with one of the wild browns he'd been dueling with. I rushed up to see it and I'm glad I did. I can't believe, all those years ago, I'd had no idea there were fish like this in this little creek. 

We headed back up the trail, not un-pleased as we'd just found a spot Jake would likely get this lifer brown trout in. I was just in a very strangest mindset at that time. This was the first time in my life I was going back somewhere that had been such a big part of my life after such a long time away. It was surreal. I was looking forward to seeing more of the places I remembered, but was also oddly apprehensive. 

 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.

Muddler in Dark Waters

 If I had to pick one fly to fish for trout at night for the rest of my life, it would be some variation of the classic Muddler. With variations in size and wing material, and adding or removing weight, the Muddler can do pretty much anything I need a night-fishing fly to do. I can imitate a large stonefly nymph or sculpin with a few split shot bouncing the fly along the bottom tightlined. Dressed with floatant and dead drifted or twitched, a small Muddler imitates an insect appropriately. Large, unweighted Marabou Muddlers fished in the film, across stream and with a slow retrieve, does a fantastic job of imitating a rodent or frog. It's true that a simple black Bunny Leech has accounted for the largest trout I've ever caught, and there are times I may have said that was my favorite night fly. But when I'e stopped and thought about it, there's no question, the Muddler covers all the bases. 

On a unfortunately well lit night in early September, this fly once again proved it's value. The Farmington was low, the water crystal clear, and the conditions all but assured slow fishing. I was confident that smaller, more subtle presentations would dominate productivity, and there was enough surface activity that I expected good action in the film. I tied on an unweighted size 10 Muddler Minnow and fished it across and down and sometimes across and up, occasionally giving it little twitches but otherwise just maintaining contact. The feed was slow. The first fish to hand was an average rainbow, released quickly. Not what I was looking for. A while later, I registered a gentle take. I lifted the rod into a heavy fish, though one that didn't fight very hard. In my experience, it's either all or nothing. Some night hooked trout hardly fight at all, others put up an excessive show of power and acrobatics. This one was very much one of the former. It was at hand without much fuss at all. 

It was a stout fish, a wild brown with girth to spare, though certainly a bit short of 20 inches. Nonetheless, exactly the sort of fish I was looking for. 

Time and time again, that simple pattern proves it's worth, be it in daylight or in darkness. The muddler really is a template, not a pattern. That template has morphed into new patterns, from Lou Tabory's Snake Fly to Kelly Galloup's Zoo Cougar. The neutral buoyancy and eddy making capabilities of a spun dear hair head are some of the best tools in a fly tyer's arsenal.

 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.

It All Went Down in Buzzards Bay

 I could still hear the frantic calls of gulls and terns ringing in my ears as we hit the road home. It had been one of those events. Bait, predator fish, and birds all collided under the right conditions, and massive blitzes were scattered all over. We paddled till our bodies wouldn't let us, bent rods on bass and blues, a few of them large, and almost died in raging and turbulent currents. This was the stuff I live for. This was the goods. Everything broke and we lost our minds over the course of two days in Buzzards Bay.

 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.

Cape Cod Brook Trout

 Historically, coastal streams in the Northeast were rich with brook trout. These lower gradient, mud and gravel bottomed, vegetation filled spring fed streams provided a nutrient rich habitat that grew char faster than high gradient mountain streams ever could. Add to that access to saltwater, and anadromy can happen. When a salmonid has access to the ocean and the plethora of calorically dense bait fish it holds, they grow to exceptional proportions. The anadromous life style also makes brook trout take on a chrome coloration not often seen in their solely freshwater fluvial brethren.

Connecticut doesn't have any healthy sea run, or "salter" brook trout populations anymore. Neither does Rhode Island. Massachusetts though still has a few. On and early fall trip, Noah and I decided to pay a visit to one we'd never seen before. The wind was honkin' and we felt we had very little we could accomplish on the salt in kayaks, despite crazy daily bass and bluefish blitzes and the first little tunny of the year being around, but Cape Cod has some surprising freshwater gems and this was one of them. 

I got taken almost immediately by a sizable brook trout, on my third cast, but it ended up being Noah who struck first, with a tiny silvery brook trout that flopped back into the water before it was brought to hand. But he redeamed himself not long later with an absolute gem of a long, lean female wild brook trout. 

We Continued down stream toward the estuary, getting a few takes as we went, but never got to brackish water because the stream was just too difficult to navigate. On our way back up I made a cast into the pool where I'd had the first takes and my streamer got pounded. A studly brook trout began leaping as though it were a small salmon. Some, I was holding my favorite fish of the many I've ever caught out on Cape Cod. 

Has this particular brook trout spent time outside the sweet water stream we were standing in? Maybe, but we'll never know. I was chuffed though, as either way this was an extraordinary fish. 

We decided to hop on a trail that paralleled the river and meet it again upstream to work our way back down to the parking area. On the way, we met a fantastically colored eastern garter snakes, one with no defined strip down its back and an extremely pronounced checkering pattern. I spent a bit of time shooting photos of her, then we moved along. 

When we got back in the river, someone fishing upstream almost immediately intercepted us. Unfortunately this meant we'd be fishing back down through water that had already been fish, and though this doesn't always mean you can't catch anything, we sure didn't this time. 

Nonetheless I think we were both very pleased. Noah had caught his first two Cape Cod brook trout, and I'd caught my best Cape Cod fish of any species. 

 New England's coastal brook trout populations live on the brink. Restoration efforts by groups like Sea Run Brook Trout Coalition have successfully brought populations back to health, including in the stream Noah and I were fishing, but in  changing world these are a fish that could all too easily be lost. Water quality, warming ocean waters, climate change, dams, and development all put these historically, socially, and ecologically important fish at risk. There's a lot that can be done to preserve and protect them. But at bare minimum, please keep these fish, as well as the numerous other at-risk species, in mind when you vote in local, state and national elections. Any politician, regardless of party affiliation, that seeks to dismantle clean air and water regulations, or even simply refuses to push forward towards definite goals in conservation, is a festering sore that needs to be removed. 

 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.

Scomber Colias From the Rocks

 Atlantic chub mackerel have been in Long Island and Block Island Sound each summer for a few years, but I'd yet to target them from shore until this August. Really I wasn't looking for them when I first ended up on the bite, I was looking for bonito. They had and still have yet to show in any notable amount in Connecticut waters. But on that first rainy morning I was looking for bonito, I ended up catching a huge chub mackerel, bigger than any I'd ever seen in photos. Though it gave me pause, it wasn't enough to make me pull my camera out in the rain... which I now regret. It was a seriously large chub mackerel and I may never see one like that again. 

The next evening though I wondered if I might find some feeding at the same spot, on a similar tide, but with the sun setting. It turned out I could. This time I was using my 5wt rod with the specific intent of catching Scomber colias. I'd tied some very small, simple flies on fine wire hooks to try to avoid issues with missing or hooking and loosing chub mackerel that had become obvious over the last three years of fishing for them from boats. One was a simple small version of a Gartside Soft Hackle Streamer, and the fish both showed a strong preference for this fly and stayed pinned without fail. (I thought this would be solution, but subsequent tests proved less successful.)

With the skies ablaze at sunset and the tide dropping, I caught chub mackerel from "my rock" until I was content, which was conveniently about when they wandered out of range. A slow, steady double had retrieve was periodically halted by abrupt and violent takes, then jarring fights that tested the limits of my five weight rod. I'd used a five weight for these fish from the boat and my experience was that it was not much different than an 8wt. Not so from the rocks. This was exciting fishing.

 

 There was once a time when catching a similar species from the rocks and beaches of southern New England wouldn't have been unusual. Atlantic mackerel used to make showing here. They still do sometimes in Rhode Island, on Long Island, and even on occasion in New Jersey, but really if I want to catch them from the rocks I have to go to Maine. That's the place. But now that these chub mackerel have made themselves at home in Long Island Sound, there's a great opportunity to catch a beautiful small scombrid in the surf at home. Of course, chub mackerel are actually bigger than Atlantic mackerel. I'm still not quite used to them, though they've been around for more than half of my time consistently fishing these waters. They still make me giggle and smile, as just about any pretty, hard fighting little fish does. Getting my first few from the rocks made me smile all the wider.

 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.