Small Fish for some strange Big Fun

A Surprise in Massachusetts.

Near my office in Massachusetts, there is a pond. It might be called a lake but it is small, and is actually part of the headwaters of the Charles River. For the past 4 years, I've ridden and skated and skied by it regularly. But until I went fish crazy last year, I never thought much of fishing it. I certainly noticed fishermen. But it isn't a babbling brook, so it didn't catch my attention. (Except of course it did. I realize now that my fishing radar has been on for years--I just wasn't acting on it.)

As fall set in, I considered getting a MA license. Eventually I caved one day in December and bought one for 2017. But except for one misadventure involving ice, I hadn't attempted fishing it.

For some reason, I wrote to my local fish guru at the local tackle shop back in Connecticut. I do this from time to time. I gave him a run-down of my "opening day weekend" non-exploits. He wrote back:

"Thxs 4 the update. Opening day always has a few interesting tidbits to chew on. Sounds like you encountered more interesting pic possibilities emanating from shore than the water. HaHa. It was a hectic weekend, for sure. End of today ought to be decent before the barometer drops. Give it a try."

Well, so now I had to try. I have some stuff up here at the office so that I can stop on the way home, meet the kids on the Shetucket or the other streams on the way home.

I got to the lake at around 7 PM. Not dusk yet--but sun low. I quickly rigged up (and lost a coachman that blew away in the wind. (An Orvis from literally 40+ years ago, too.) I've eschewed my father's favourite fly this whole year. I don't know why except that I keep hearing about others. And I've always kept a lot of whacky flies in my boxes.

But this time I tied on a royal coachman variant. I actually loaded up a new fly box with *only* flies of my father's from brand new unused 40 year old Orvis containers.

I found a likely spot (again, my radar has been on!). NOT where all the others go. It is in a wooded point with a lot of trees overhanging water. I roll cast some 45 year old Sci Anglers double taper 5 weight out, and started with dry presentations. Immediately I saw a lot of breaks but not rises. Once I towed the fly under, I started getting hits. But I would react too quickly. I realized that the stocked trout were probably all gone and that I was most likely feeling sunfish. It went on like this for a half hour, playing with twitching or horizontal "jigging" and alternately letting it sit, then retrieving it slowly into closer water, then rolling back out again.

For some reason I decided that I needed to talk to one of my cousins. I'd given her advice about her kevlar canoe a few days ago by email and wanted to see what she thought. So we start talking, and I continue casting, but all one handed. I stopped playing with "retrieves" and just set up and cast with my left hand with the line clamped (like the photo above -- except lefty). 

Well, I started catching fish!

The first one was a good sized sunny about 4.5" long with beautiful indigo blue aft belly and red up forward belly. It had a blue opercule too. No vertical stripes. I didn't get a photo--I was photoing it along the bank and lost control of it and it swam. I continued talking on the phone as this is going on (speaker phone is wonderful!).

Next, another fish hits and I pull it up the mud/grass bank. I think it is as small bass. I've never caught a freshwater bass before. Ever.

  

I don't know what kind it is.

So far, so good. All in about 10 minutes.

Then, yet another fish! this time smaller. A 2.5" bluegill.

Then my cousin insisted I put the phone down and save that fish! Of course it died. So I used it as live bait for another half hour. I learned that If I had lots of line stripped, and I twirled it around and around underhand "David (and Goliath) style," I could huck it out 30 feet--as far as a roll cast! It would carry the line right through the guides if I pointed the rod correctly.

One fish hit it. Pretty hard. But nobody claimed it. Perhaps the Big One was somewhere else.

Now I had this dead little fish. What to do?

I took it "home." And I fileted it. And cooked it. And ate it!

https://youtu.be/MCffzJ4P-1U

(That's a friend of ours off-camera.)

It was quite a beautiful little fish. And tasty, too.

Post Mortem Analysis.

Now the talking on cellphone while fishing seems bizarre. It is certainly out of character for me out trout fishing, in the brook, away from it all. And I've only had a smart phone a little more than a year. I even had a flip phone for a couple months this year. And yet I think this phone call made me a better fisherman--by accident. I also know that my cousin is my fishing muse! (She told me of her bait fishing as a kid, her brother being a fly fisherman, and how she later got her own gear and went to Montana...all this while in real time I'm reeling in a bass...)

You see, I was lifting the rod tip too soon before. My trout instincts were at play. The brook trout spitting the hook....needing to get the load on and keeping it on.

Yet by being on the phone and one handing, I was distracted enough to allow the fish to hit repeatedly. I didn't rush the set. Having watched "Extreme Philly Fishing" a lot, I knew this was an effective technique for panfish on jigs. I've watched him watch the tip, waiting, waiting, then setting.

So go ahead--talk on the phone when you fish. You may just catch more fish!