Four Months of Fishing, finally a journal entry

 It has been a strange year. Viral pandemics have a way of doing that.

I see I haven't written anything about fishing since April. Here it is half way through August. 

While the early saltwater season was 2 weeks late compared to last year, the freshwater trout was epic this spring due to the high water. But then the rain simply shut off. Then the Sound got really warm. Bluefish never materialized, and the few school stripers evaoprated. But there were other things to catch and for me personally, I've caught things for the first time or more frequently than in the past. I've also tried different techniques, especially using lead jigs with either flies or powerbait white shads to find bottom fish. Porgy and fluke -- and squeteague! I caught my first ever of the latter a few weeks ago. A trailing fly behind a jig is very effective. Fish seem to like bucktail & feathers.

The fly fishing for saltwater has been terribly slow for weeks--as in I'd be skunked if not for the bottom fishing. Only one edible sized bluefish came to hand so far. But today I caught a number of them 4" long! They were taking shad darts, which the porgy were liking on the bottom.

 I finally went on a stream yesterday for the first time since June. I was not interested in finding trout. Instead, I was especially interested in fallfish, and I found one.

Found more than I've ever found of small flounder this year.

Searobins were abundant up until August:

 

One of my first two ever squeteague:

 

A few mid-20s Rockfish. Not quite keeper. This shut down in July.

Last trout June 9:

 

 

A nice fallfish early summer:

Even a Lamprey! (Dead, in the stream, 5 miles up).

June 1st or so, Hickory Shad on a fly. Did this twice.

August 15, finally back on a stream (last trip 8 June) and found what I was looking for--a wild native. A splendid fallfish fell for my own fly:

And of course scup, at least 6 made it into the pan this summer so far:

Native fish in their habitat

There's something really damaging about the trout stocking culture.

It messes with your head. It messes with expectations. It changes fishing from an interaction with the natural world, into a theme park contrivance, complete with burbling brooks, cascading cataracts, swaying spruce trees, and the sounds of seasonally appropriate birdsong. All so natural--except for the fish.

A stream loaded with stocked trout does not fish like a wild stream. There are far too many fish in the early stocked period. Somewhat later when the crowds diminish, it becomes more natural. And they are real fish--just not the same. Sometimes they act pretty much the same: they take flies, they rise, they chase streamers. But the only "hatch" they seem to know is power bait.

Fishing a stream for the naturally occurring wild fish is what one would think would be of greatest interest, but it is most assuredly not.

But I prefer to fish for wild fish.

This past Saturday, my son and I headed to a tributary that we have known for years. But never fished. Not once. It flows into a stocked stream that is popular. I fish it far more than any other water with the exception of the Sound. I've caught huge numbers of stocked trout there (and I've enjoyed that immensely!) But it is the wild fish that really satisfy me--because it is only then that I think I am learning what the river really is.

The tributary is also stocked with trout, in the lower reaches, but that's not why we went. We wanted to find what really lived there. After going as high as we could before private property, we set about fishing it in a high flow condition. After about an hour, we moved downstream a bit, noticing that there were not many slow sections. But there was this foam patch. I walked farther on and my son set to working it.

About 100 yards downstream I found a downed tree straddling the banks. Aha! A shadow line.

With one of my dead simple lite-brite flies, this one blue and black with a red head, and a bb shot, I fished it streamer-style on a #12--across and down. It only took 10 minutes. I felt the bounce off the bottom on every cast but then something different and sure enough that was my 5" fallfish. A beautiful wild fish doing what it does in 45 degree water in April.

Only minutes later I heard a commotion upstream. I put my rod down and sprinted up the path to get a look. My son had landed a healthy 9" fallfish. In his case it was that foam patch. He'd noticed quite quickly that fish were rising into the foam, taking something. He was dry fly fishing with one of my hackled lite brites. After 2 false takes he landed it.

Fallfish tend to be smaller than trout "on average" but so what? They are wild. They are native. They eat insects. They take dries. They take streamers (I caught my largest--12"--on a gray ghost). They have beautiful scales, and delicate coloring. They fight hard for their diminutive size!

The life in the stream would be poorer indeed without them. So what if I have to put in more effort to find them and catch them? That makes it far more interesting anyway.

As a bonus, we found a really cool insect on a tree. "Trout fare." No: Fall-fare haha.

Broodstock Harvest

The Fish Commission stocks not only 9 to 15" ready-to-eat table fare; they also stock 20-30" chowder-fare: excess broodstock--fish that have been producing eggs and milt and are probably mothers and fathers of thousands of the fish swimming in the river. At some point they are judged too old or something, so they get planted. For the stocked fish aficionado, these are "trophy" trout. OK.

I hold no false ideas of their trophy status. Nevertheless it is still fun to catch one! For one thing, there aren't all that many. So there is that. For the other, they are big. "What?!" I've only caught two ever. One was a brook trout male last year--on a spinner. Huge kype, nice deep colouring, and about 18" but only from rod marks. This year fly fishing, a female rainbow at 20" and 3.74 lbs, weighed at my tackle shop. Yes, I might even end up in the paper. That's part of the fun.

This fish (or more correctly, this attempt that led to this fish!) was fun because it took two sessions to land it. It started on the day that turned out to be the new opening day. I was fishing a TMA when, by happenstance, I decided to call a friend while I was at the stream. There were a lot of people out. It was a lot for preseason--and there were a lot of people below the demarcation bridge--which is not by itself unusual (this happens every year in the days leading up to opening day. Some even get citations for it.) During the phone call I learned that it was now open season!

There are certain lies in the river that, even though it is a stocked trout stream, are quite reliable at attracting fish. Not from the bucket landing there (there are those spots too) but from good trout features. I had already fished it a few days earlier working upstream--and seen three trout chasing each other there. But hadn't caught one. This time I did the downstream approach which works because of the riffle texture and the perfect rock to hide behind. Streamer fishing for stockers.

It didn't take long to get a taker on one of my strange streamers. I hooked up and after a normal tip lift, thought I had a good set, and was stripping in against a good load, when the fish went sideways underwater and popped the hook. It was fairly deep and I couldn't identify it. Some minutes and many swings later, I had a great surprise--a fish "slammed" the streamer so hard that it stripped the line out of my line hand! It was a really strong pull--bluefish pull--not trout pull! Lost it.

I tried again for a while and then rested the pool, then tried again at dusk. I went home skunked--and fish crazed.

The next morning I went straight back out, but the night before, I tied this ridiculous woolly bugger, using the chenille that I have *never* caught a single fish on, ever. But I made every part a different colour. Let's call it the "Calico Woolly."

In less than 15 minutes, I had the fish in hand! (When I say "the" it is worth noting that it may very well not be the ones or twos I lost the day before.) But the take wasn't a slam, and in fact the fish was remarkably docile. It really didn't seem to realize the trouble it was in for. As I picked it up, a good 1/4 pound of eggs came out. So maybe then when it was too late, it knew! It even did the docile calm upside down trick nicely in the shallows.

Weighed in at 3.74 lbs and 20" long, it is in fact both the longest and heaviest trout I have recorded. I have a lot more fishing to do to catch a proper "trophy" but the wild fish that I have caught the past few years have all been trophies to me, regardless of size.

I took this "huge" fish home and we had two dinners out of it! First, baked with thyme. That is a good way to make fish. Salt, pepper, thyme inside. No filleting, just head off. The thyme is on the belly flap meat when you remove it to eat so it is especially tasty. This fish was good. It wasn't tough, or muddy, or lacking texture. I was pleasantly surprised.

For the second meal we pulled the meat off the bones and made a trout chowder. Of course that was good--chowder is almost always good!

First trout catches of 2020.

I'm afraid this fish will turnout to be recently stocked. I like catching hold overs, but they started stocking early--apparently late February!










This was caught on March 8th. My father's birthday. Wearing my father's waders.

Today on  the 16th I caught another. In both cases simple flies I tied.

Two trips between these two resulted in skunkings.

From Creek to Table

From Creek to Table

Flu is not fun. 3 weeks and 1 day since I came down with it. STILL not all better. Fever and contagion been gone for a week. However now ears are clogged. But I had to go fishing. Two skunkings Saturday and Sunday. Then on Tuesday, success! But I changed it up and took an ultralight spinning rod. Left my fly rod in the car. I was going for wild natives. I knew there were perch, fallfish, chain pickerel, red breasted sunfish and some other non-native wilds such as bluegill, calico, and largemouth.

This stretch of river is interesting. I caught a brook charr there last year in the spring that I assumed had to be a stocked fish. There has never been evidence of a reproducing population of charr in this river. Yet the state designates it a "sea run brown trout stream." Not much evidence of them either actually. Never found a redd. Some people claim to see them and rumours of catching exist. But just exactly what is going on remains to be proven. But about the brook charr: it had pink flesh! Most of it. A section of it was lighter. And part of the flesh tasted riverish--but I ate it with skin on so not proof of anything.


At any rate, that's the thing about this stretch. Variety and surprises.

Well, it turned out that a white spinner was the only thing they would touch. Not interested in the black ones, nor in jigs. Hook up three times. Landed two. The first one was very chunky and about 18 inches long. I felt something like dragging the weedbed when the lure was half way across the river. Then as it got right to the bank I noticed an apparition following right behind it! Somehow I willed the fish to take it--and it did--right at the bank! Fun fight. Fortunately for the fish the treble was not deep and only one hook engaged in that little flap thing. Got it out OK and back it went.

Next pickerel was only moments later about 20 yards down. Almost same length but much leaner, it took it into the gills so it came home for the next night's dinner.

I decided to try something new: instead of trying to fillet out the y bones, I learned that if you slice it like steak but not all the way through the skin, spaced about 4 mm apart, the bones will soften when you cook them. I did multiple ways: cornmeal only, cornmeal + egg wash + cornmeal, and panko only, and panko over egg wash. I also cooked one slice of (boneless) by itself. All fried in shallow sunflower oil (because I had it).

Well, it was delicious. The corn meal feels drier, but the panko is crunchier All delicous. No seasoning but salt and pepper. Perfect fish.

It is very satisfying to go a mile from home in very good clean fresh water, catch a wild fish, and make a delicious dinner. This was not possible in my 1970s suburban childhood (pollution, and well yeah you could eat the planted trout but the river smelled like sewage...).

Last Fish Before the Flu

31 January I found a school of yellow perch and landed one small one. Then a few days later I came down with the full blown influenza.

3 weeks later I finally went back to try fishing again. And caught nothing,

This time I saw no swirls. But that previous day before the 31st, early in the day I saw lots of swirls and wakes. I spooked everything. So I came back twice on the 31st. I was sneaky. But still not sneaky enough. I had two tugs but one I got.

Winter fishing is often slow but you just never know what might happen.

December 21: Solstice Trout

Trout fishing has been less frequent this year. But very good wild trout. But not many stocked trout. Mostly because I haven't fished for stocked trout much and the saltwater was too much fun through November.

Yesterday I needed to go trout fiishing, and the freshet had ended --  with the possibility that the fish got washed down and moved around so that te good pools--which had gone empty from fishing pressure -- might have fish again.

I also tied a new fly--well same as the black one but in red/black lite brite.

Hey, with one split shot it did the trick in 10 minutes.