flyfishingchronicles.com

During winter break a friend graciously offered his town home in Dauphin Island, Alabama.  My wife and I love to travel and we figured that our nine month old son didn’t have much say in the matter.  What’s a twenty one hour drive, when you want to get out of the cold and snow?  Well, our baby was very cooperative with the travel.  The weather wasn’t nearly as kind to us!  We stopped seeing snow on the ground just North of Mobile, Alabama.  Our night time temperatures were in the upper twenties and the Gulf Coast water temperature dipped to a frosty forty five degrees.  Unheard of for this warmer region!

I did what any die hard saltwater angler would do, I went fishing and practiced casting.  Signs of bait were scarce and the angling reports discouraging.  A well known pier didn’t produce any fish for the bait anglers over the weekend.  When I asked the manager of the pier when the fishing was last decent, he replied, “November 17, our water temperature was 72 degrees”.  Every angler I spoke with mentioned the big chill and difficult conditions.

Undaunted, I started by fishing a tiny creek that had two great blue herons working the shallows.  I figured it had to be warmer than the bay water.  No luck there.  Another day, I awoke at dawn and fished the mouth of a marsh/creek channel that was surrounded by oyster beds.  No luck there.  Next dawn, I fished around a point and deep drop off at a secluded beach stretch.  No luck there.  The final trip, I prospected around a series of rock jetties with good moving water on the end of the island.  No luck there.  It felt good to cast and feel the salty breeze.  I’m sure Dauphin Island has decent fishing for spotted sea trout, redfish, flounder, bluefish, croaker and ladyfish when the water warms up.  It seems like a very productive fishery.  That said, I’m not sure I could have located fish, even with electro shocking.   We certainly enjoyed plenty  of fried seafood, local hospitality, great sunsets and quality family time.  Like any fishery, one trip doesn’t define the quality and it’s always nice to have things to look forward to.  I’m hopeful that down the road, I’ll be blessed with a rematch and better fishing conditions at Dauphin Island.

I’d heard two very favorable reports recently on cooperative steelhead on Oak Orchard River.  If it weren’t a longer drive, I certainly  would prefer to fish there.  Oak Orchard and the Salmon River continue to be the most consistent steelhead waters in NYS this time of year.  It’s a personal angling irony that these two superb fisheries require a several hour commitment.  Not having time to drive West, I opted for a short afternoon trip to our local creek.

A pleasant light snow was falling and there were no anglers present in this lower stretch of Irondequoit Creek.  Will and I fished for an hour, without seeing or connecting with any fish.  I have a lot of confidence in my dark stonefly nymph w/ a tiny chartreuse bead head.  It is a consistent prospecting producer fly for winter steelhead.  Will fished a smaller sucker spawn imitation.  Nonetheless, it was beautiful to walk along the snow covered banks and get outside.  Next, we moved downstream to a tiny culvert hole that sometimes contains fish.  After repeated casts and catching every loose twig in the hole, we hiked downstream.  Will managed to spook a small, darker steelie in a riffle.  It promptly hid under an ice shelf and we never managed a cast to it.  Finally, we drove to Linear Park to check out the action.  We fished for another 3o minutes, then called it quits.  No strikes, no fish, plenty of icing up of our rods and line, but a pleasant day overall.  One center pin angler showed us a picture of a hefty, dark colored fish that he landed earlier in Lower Linear Park.  Otherwise, things seemed fairly slow.  We were also surprised by the wind gusts.  Today felt cooler than the anticipated  20 degree forecast.  Those pocket hand warmers sure are nice and it was a treat to get outside on this early February day.