This Wednesday, September 7th I’m presenting a program for the Upstate Fly Fishers.  I have a neat presentation that showcases the promising bass and pike fishery of our Thousand Island Region.  Fishing strategies, weather conditions, temperature, fly lines, fly selection, fishing crafts and places to begin fly fishing this region will be covered.  I’ve spent 1-2 weeks over the past few years learning this fishery and look forward to sharing my observations.

The Upstate Fly Fishers meeting starts at 7 pm, followed by a brief business meeting.  My digital/spoken presentation will follow the business meeting.   We will meet at the Pittsford Recreation Center (located at 35 Lincoln Avenue, located in the Village of Pittsford).  Bring a dollar for the raffle prizes and I look forward to seeing you at the meeting!

Each Summer our family makes a trip to the Wellesley Island area of the Thousand Islands.  My wife’s family has some property up there and we are blessed with a free place to stay.  As a resident New Yorker and lifelong angler, I never gave much thought to the fly fishing possibilities in the Thousand Islands Region.  Spin/Bait/Troll fisherman have regarded the  Thousand Islands as a well-known hot spot for walleye, pike, musky, bass and perch.  In fact, it was and still is a destination fishery for many anglers in the Northeast and Midwest.  There are countless television shows featuring high profile anglers or tournaments showcasing this region.  Yet, it isn’t as known, nor respected in local fly fishing circles.  For fly fishers looking to pull on fish, that’s a shame.  The Thousand Islands has plenty to offer any level of fly fisher.

For the fifth consecutive year, I just enjoyed another fun angling/family trip to this region.  If you want to target numerous warm water species and catch plenty of fish, head to the Thousand Islands (May/June/July are  best months).  This trip, I never fished more than 2-4 hours per day.  I easily landed 15 to 30 fish per day and could have caught more.   Plenty of fish were caught casting off the dock or from rocks.  Others were caught from an old 15 horsepower,  noisy aluminum skiff.  There was nothing high-tech about the boat I fished, no depth finder and all fish were caught on either a floating, or intermediate line.  I caught pike, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, rock bass, perch and sunfish.  I could have caught dozens more rock bass/perch/sunfish if I were targeting them.  It wasn’t uncommon to catch three different species, on three consecutive casts, using the same fly.  I didn’t catch any trophy bass or pike.  My largest pike was around 26″ and several of the bass may have reached 2lbs.  These are small fish by Thousand Island standards.

The fishing was even better a week before.  Bass were finishing their spawn and still in shallow water (2” to 5′).  I heard plenty of pre-July 4th reports about easy catches of 18″ bass.  Once the water temperature rolls into the seventies and the calendar pushes into July,  larger bass move deeper.  This is the likely reason I didn’t locate any 3 or 4 pound fish this year.  I also chose not to fish deep and was content catching smaller fish.  One of my angling goals this trip was to experiment with different flies.  I compared the success of various flies based on silhouette, profile, color, action, water moved and ease to cast.  I tie some beautiful Puglisi Streamers and they nearly catch everything that swims.  I tie a convincing mottled brown goby pattern that is buggy and hugs the bottom.  I tie a sexy rabbit tail streamers that entice pike.  Nonetheless, nothing out fishes a simple chartreuse Clouser minnow.  Bass and pike tear them up.  It may be a glorified jig, but it sure works.  Best of all, the materials are simple, it’s an easy tie and effortless to cast.

Fishing the Thousand Islands is a family vacation that provides me the benefit of being on fishy water.  Before this trip, I’d been looking forward to seeing how my toddler would react to fish.  He has seen plenty of fish, but not held them.  It was a joy to place  small specimens in a plastic bucket and watch his inquisitive exploration of the fish.  They easily slipped out of his two year old hands.  He was eager to get his hands wet and to hold them.  He also enjoyed carrying my fly rod around.  It didn’t hurt the rod to bang it against a few trees.  His holding and having a positive experience with a fly rod, may be one small step towards an incorrigible life as an angler.  I can only hope…

The last few years I’ve spent my July 4th weekend in the Thousand Islands.  My wife’s family has a wonderful cottage on the water.  Each trip I learn more about the region, especially the fishery.  Every year I experience quality fishing and this year was most productive.  Even better, I didn’t spend the majority of the day searching for fish.  Fishing for 4 hours a day, I managed to land an average of 20 or more largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, pike and the odd perch/rock bass.  My  best day included 6 pike and two dozen bass, as well as a sight fished tailing freshwater drum.

A neat aspect about the Thousand Islands is that you may catch fish on foot, from a canoe, in a kayak, john boat/skiff or whatever vessel you have available.  Fancy bass boats are great if you have the money, but fish don’t care which craft you fish from.  As someone who has owned a saltwater bay boat http://www.maycraftboats.com/ and a flats skiff http://www.mitziskiffs.com/, I attest to the value of a quality fishing craft.  Yet, I don’t miss the maintenance and cost of operating these boats.  Perhaps most compelling, is the special charm and ease of using an old aluminum skiff w/ a forty year old 5 -stroke Evinrude Motor.  This is the family runabout skif.  It has plenty of wear and sure manages to help me catch fish.  This is my go to vessel, especially when I range more than a mile from the cottage.  A final advantage of this unassuming skiff is that it burns little gasoline.  Over four days, we only used up four gallons of gasoline.

Now, back to the fishing report.  I used an 8wt w/ a clear intermediate line and threw chartreuse clousers, puglisi baitfish patterns or a brown goby/sculpin/crayfish pattern that I’m not yet ready to share.  Nearly all of my fish were taken around the points of an island, or along wind troughs.  Often, bass would jump on my fly as it was still sinking.  Every fish was caught in five to fifteen feet of water.  Ledges, rocks, contoured weed mounds  and structure were places that I prospected.

The trip highlight was spotting a large tailing  fish within 40′of the cottage.  Initially, I thought it was a mammoth smallmouth bass.  I didn’t have my gear as I was watering nearby potted flowers.  I frantically ran back to the boat house, grabbed my gear and then couldn’t find the trophy fish.  Looking at my rod, I frustratedly realized I had a frog popper on the line.  I rapidly tied on my brown goby/sculpin/crayfish imitation.  Walking a few yards upstream, I again spotted the fish.  It was tailing, perhaps rooting for crayfish among the rocks?  I crouched low, crept forward and managed to flip a cast towards this hefty fish.  On my second cast, I observed the fish gently move to the side, twitch slightly and I strip set. Next, I was bulldogging with a freshwater drum.  Very cool to watch the take and bring this guy it.  The drum actually grunted as I was releasing it and the entire experience reminded me of  previous redfishing experiences.  If nothing else, it was my first freshwater drum on a fly.  Give the Thousand Islands a try.  You never know what you might catch!

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I took my Tribalance kayak to the Eel Bay /Wellesley Island Region of the Thousand Islands in early July and enjoyed a pleasant week of fishing and family time.  Many days I fished 3-4 hours, exploring various flats, rocky points, drop offs, weed lines, tiny rock islands and other visible structure. . Windy conditions and rain made sight fishing difficult, but most nights I was treated to a superb sunset

I fished w/ an 8wt intermediate clear line and a 7 wt floater.  During the trip I landed  7 pike up to 28″, several dozen smallmouth up to 3lbs and a posse of scrappy rock bass and perch.  Most fish fell for a chartruese clouser or some type of leech/crayfish imitation.  Anchored up or slowly drifting, I was able to catch fish between 3′ and 20′ of water.  All of the pike hit on weed edges and I only used 12lb flouro leader, only breaking off 2 pike the entire time.  The flourocarbon leader provided more hook ups over wire, and smallmouth were more likely to hit w/out the wire.  The smallmouth seemed to prefer broken structure/mottled bottoms and transition areas.  Oddly, my two best smallmouth each fell for a tiny 1.5″ clouser.

It is worth noting that I did miss a hefty 5-6 lb smallmouth that taunted me within feet of our Island (where we stayed).  In addition, I spooked a hog of a muskie one night as I was admiring the sunset and taking pictures.  There certainly are bigger fish around.  Next time you have a chance, consider making a short trip to the Thousand Islands.  This regional warmwater fishery w/ a fly rod is very manageable and there are plenty of perch/rock bass/sunfish/smallmouth/largemouth/pike to target.