Most anglers struggle to find a balance between family, work, commitments and squeezing in fishing time.   One answer to this dilemma is to target fisheries closer to home.  This week, I’ve had a two hour fishing window (during our baby’s nap time).  My fishing solution was to return to my boyhood roots of chasing carp in the canal.  I can easily bike or drive, the Towpath allows easy access, and it is pure sight fishing in shallow water!

To be candid, I didn’t start out the week with intentions of catching carp on a fly. I was riding my bike on the Towpath for exercise.  Around mile two, I noticed carp milling around and casually feeding on a shallow cement bank.  Seeing those carp motivated me to ditch my cycling plans and speedily return home.  In short order, I threw two fly boxes into a fanny pack and grabbed my 6wt.  Soon, I was back on the canal and scouting out shallow water carp.  It’s surprisingly easy to strap a four piece fly rod to your bike frame with 3-M blue painters tape.

My tactic was to spot the carp, drop low and get within an easy casting distance.  Sometimes, these fish are so focused and comfortable feeding on the bottom that they don’t look up.  It could also be that they are accustomed to movement above them.  I would gently flip cast a #10 nymph and try to put it in front of a cruising or laid up fish.  Most times there were single fish, but sometimes a pair would be close to each other.  Any sudden movement from the fly would cause the fish to bolt.  Super slow, dropping  or twitching movement right in front of the carp yielded subtle takes.  You can’t see the fish open it’s mouth.  The carp gradually surges forward and tilts the head, or rolls a bit on it’s side.  Observing this was my best strike detection. On  my first fish, I strip set and promptly snapped the 4x flourocarbon.  Smaller, shaggy nymphs out fished any bugger style pattern.   It takes some practice to decipher the fish’s behavior.  Some spook easily, while others tolerate several casts.  Each trip yielded several 20″ to 28″ carp.  Three of my larger fish fought me to the backing.   It is an angling rush to stalk these fish, make an accurate cast and read the body language of each fish.  It’s not the same as fishing tailing bonefish on the flats, but it still fun.  Most important, it is local, manageable and it is a fishery in my backyard.   In addition, you provide some entertainment for fellow cyclists, dog walkers, joggers, etc.  Twice, I handed my rod to passerby’s and they enjoyed the thrill of bringing in a decent carp.  Speaking of bringing in, those carp really slime up and stink your fine trout net.  I’ve washed mine several times and it is still in the sun drying.  I even took it out of the garage, as my wife began to notice the odor!  That said, don’t let the carpy scent discourage you.  It’s a great backyard fishery and where else can you hunt tailing fish around here?

Dog days of August are a great time to visit your local warm water creek to cast topwater patterns.  I invited a friend to join me for a Huck Finn adventure of wet wading and rock hopping at Honeoye Outlet.  It’s refreshing to wet wade and explore a new portion of a stream.  The water was lown and clear.  Smallmouth were concentrated in stretches that contained greater depth.  Another way to locate these fish is to find suckers.  Smallmouth like to hang around suckers, as they stir up bait.

Despite the presence of numerous crayfish, we decided to throw larger deer hair sliders and poppers.  I think that the waking motion and ability to cover substantial water make topwater sliders ideal for summer smallmouth.  Surprisingly, topwater patterns will often out fish subsurface ones.  Our deer hair patterns out performed sub surface crayfish imitations.  Topwater is especially effective when covering large expanses of water that may or may not contain bass.  I know that when I fish a slider across the slow current of a 2′ or 3′ deep pool, the bass see/hear my fly.  Color isn’t as important, as is the waking retrieve and speed.  Sometimes they want a slow retrieve, other times they attack better on a faster, steady retrieve.

Over the course of four hours we caught fifteen smallmouth between 8″ and 13″.  We concentrated our efforts on five distinct pools, frequently catching several fish per stretch.  It was great fun to watch the strike and initial jumps of the bass.  We leaped frogged each other and gave up a primary spot after catching a fish.  It’s nice to cheer on a friend as he hooks up!  The angling highlight came when Dick hooked a better fish and he couldn’t turn it.  After several decent runs and delicately playing it on 6 lb test, he beached a beauty of a pike.  This toothy guy totally chomped on the fly and we couldn’t salvage it.  It was a very respectable creek pike and the clear top dog in that portion of the stream!  Pike are usually a surprise and anything close to thirty inches, a bonus.  This pike sure made our day and I’m looking forward to more topwater action.

For nearly fifteen years I’ve fished the beaches and rocks between Kennebunkport and the Saco River in Southern Maine.  I  just returned from a peaceful two weeks of beach time at my parents cottage on Hills Beach.  I managed to fish most mornings.   Typically , I would fish for several hours, anytime between 4 am and 10 am.  Most of my angling forays resulted in lousy fishing.  Uncooperative tides, warm river water (70 degrees), warm ocean temps, bright sun, and a lack of schoolie stripers created poor fishing conditions.  For the first eight days of my trip, I barely succeeded in locating a few stripers.  This was unusual. In year’s past I had little problem catching fish during the day.  My wife had to put up with my lamentations about the crappy fishing conditions.  I know how good a fishery it is and was disappointed.  Bloggers also chronicled the slow conditions and scarcity of fish, while shops  touted great conditions.  Eldredge Bros. Fly Shop was one of the few fly shops that admitted concern about a  lack of schoolie fish, as well as the prevalence of  bigger fish uncharacteristically rejecting flies .

My favorite angling highlight during the first week was rescuing a 4′ Atlantic Sturgeon.  I easily hand caught, tailing this majestic fish as it was going belly up in shallow water.  There was a heavy rubber tube wrapped around the gills (most likely used for commercial fishing). The gills were flared and this fish was fighting for survival.  I delicately removed the tubing and held the fish up current.  I  carefully revived it until it was able to swim away on its’ own power.  This was my second annual encounter with a sturgeon (last year I randomly landed a 52″ species on a fly) and I’m pleased that I was able to help it survive.  I doubt this fish would have lived much longer, especially stuck on a shallow sand bar.

On my ninth day, I abandoned the beaches and targeted the Saco River and rock jetties.  As a result, my fortune changed .   I experienced periods of exceptional fishing.  With the low tide in the morning, pods of stripers and blue fish crashed on schools of silversides and sand eels during the outgoing tide.  It’s impossible to miss the action, as terns hover and screech above the maelstrom, eager to pick off injured bait.  If the terns commotion wasn’t enough,  softball sized explosions in the water gave away the presence of the piscatorial predator and  trapped bait. Paddling my kayak, I positioned myself upstream or across from the melé and cast an intermediate 8wt w/ a sparse  chartreuse or olive, sand eel/silverside fly into the fray.  It’s important to mention, that you need to concentrate on slowing down your retrieve and to not become unraveled by the commotion.  If I managed to place several good casts into the scene, I would be rewarded with a hook up of a striper or bluefish.  Most of the blues and stripers were between 20″ to 30″.  I never fished steel leaders, opting for 30lb flourocarbon and managed to not loose many flies nor blues.  However, I was sloppy with fighting several hefty stripers and foolishly lost three fish that could have pushed 10 lbs.

Pulling on so many fish in that strong current, from a kayak, wears one out!  I decided to anchor on the rock jetty and observe the scene from above.  To my surprise, the water on the beach side of the rock jetty was placid and there were large stripers milling about!  I hurriedly tied on a crab pattern and began to hunt cruisers.  These 25″ to 35″ striped bass traced the rock contours, looking for crabs, stray sand eels, baitfish, flounder, baby lobsters, etc.  It was great game scrambling on the rocks, getting into position and attempting to time a cast to a cruising fish.  Gin clear water, minimal current and selective fish.  It reminded me of my best bonefish, permit and tarpon experiences in the Keys. I experienced lots of interest in my crab patterns, but only managed a few takes each trip.  Overall, I landed seven sight fished stripers with the smallest 24″ and largest 29″.  At one point, I flung a 70′ cast, intercepting two trophy stripers that might have reached 40″.  Great fun and agony watching them initially speed up, show  interest and then turn off.  There are plenty of nuances in fishing crab patterns and I certainly plan to improve my arsenal.  If you haven’t yet made a trip to the Northeast for stripers and blue fish, go for it!  It’s a great way to combine family and fishing, as well as wet a line for  nearby saltwater trophies.  It looks like I’ll have another year to mull over ways to fish a crab patterns, as well as tying new and improved crab imitations.

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My father-in-law and I left late Thursday morning to make our way down to Trenton Falls from our vacation spot in Indian Lake NY.  When we got to West Canada Creek (about 10am) 3 guys were coming off the stream.  Two of them reported catching a few fish with one being almost 20″.  We started fishing.  We tried everything.  Nymphing, dry flies, streamer, but nothing worked.  About four o’clock 2 guys from Syracuse showed up and fished next to us for a while.  We found out that Dennis and Dan, who are brothers, try to fish West Canada Creek about once a week.  So naturally they were a wealth of information.  This is what we learned from them about fishing below the Trenton Falls dam:

• Call the Waterline hotline before you come out.  Call 800-452-1742 and put in code 365124 or online.  USGS charts are not helpful because the power company is always changing the amount of flow. 
• If the Power Company flow permits (about 400 cfs), fish the morning until 10am and the evening from 6pm on.
• Caddis seem to be the preferred diet of these fish.  Use a low profile caddis.  Something with a turkey wing.  The fish don’t seem to like elk hair caddis.  If you can, make sure you bring some size 12 tiger caddis patterns with you.
• Finally, you don’t need rising fish to catch a nice one on a dry.  Do plenty of prospecting.

The last bullet point really surprised me but Dennis proved this to be correct.  He was fishing down stream of me for about a 1/2 hour just prospecting with a tiger caddis and out of nowhere a 17″ brown sipped his fly right off the surface.  The fish gave him a nice fight and had beautiful color.

Unfortunately, my fate was sealed for the night.  I had to leave just before the prime fishing period but was able to land one small brown on a size 16 caddis.  Even though this trip did not yield very productive fishing I feel like we came away with enough information to come back and be successful.  We were very lucky that Dennis and Dan entered our end of the creek that day or our trip would have been a complete bust.  Thanks again guys.  We hope to fish with you again on West Canada Creek.

Armed with my trusty computer I started to search for alternative fishing spots.  What I found was a big surprise.  It was a pond just a couple miles from our location that was stocked exclusively with rainbows and brook trout.  The NY DEC has a page on their web site that tells you where certain species of trout are located.  I picked a pond that had a 1/2 mile hike.  After scoping it out my father-in-law and I got our fly rods hiked into the pond.  Fly casting from the banks was near impossible because of the thick cover.  Luckily the pond had a number of row boats for us to use.  So out we went into the pond and started to cast the banks using streamers and other flies.  After not much success we started to troll while rowing.  It wasn’t long until we had a hit but were unable to set the hook.  Shortly after this I switched to a white bunny spey fly with a pink body.  It didn’t take long until we had a fish on.  It was a nice 14 inch rainbow.  He fought hard and made a nice jump out of the water.

Unfortunately, the hook made the fish hemorrhage and he did not survive.  We brought him home and filleted him and checked the contents of his stomach.  We found a belly full of red san juan type worms.  See image.  His stomach also had quite a bit of debris from the bottom of the pond but was still able to pick up quite a few worms.

Although I was not able to fish the Indian River this year I did find a new fishing sport that I will be sure to visit again.  Next time I will look into portaging a kyack or bringing in a small trolling motor for better coverage of the pond.  I am sure there are a lot more rainbows and brookies to be caught there.

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Two friends and I recently enjoyed fishing a quality sulpher and blue winged olive hatch on the West Branch of the Delaware River.  There was a good flow (600 plus cfs) and stable water temperature (50 degrees).  With this heat spell, the Upper West Branch has been one of the more trout friendly fishing venues in New York State.  Even better, it is the most consistent option to enjoy surface mayfly fishing.  You may find blue winged olives any month of the year and the sulpher hatch generally lasts from late May to September.  That said, you are hard pressed to find more selective trout.  With so many naturals, those WBD fish become conditioned to and capable of discriminating against flies.

We arrived on the river at 11 am and immediately spotted rising fish.  Only  yards from our car,  I noticed a nice snout feeding.  Claiming that fish, I eagerly crossed a side channel, crept through tall grasses and positioned myself above the trout.  I stayed low, crept closer to the fish and stripped out sufficient fly line.  I also noticed a few olives on the surface and observed the feeding pattern of this particular fish.  Then, I tied on a #20 blue winged oliver emerger to 7x and checked my 16′ leader.  Again, I observed the feeding patterns of this fish.   Timing my cast, I dropped the fly five feet above the fish and fed out line as it drifted towards the trout.  On my first cast, the trout rose, I saw the white mouth engulf my fly and I gently lifted tight. After some side pressure and patience, a beautiful 18.5″ brown was led  head first into my net.

It’s not always this easy.  Yet, there are a number of aspects to improve your odds.  Selective trout don’t automatically jump on your fly and you need to maximize your chances.  Here are hints that should help you land wily summertime trout:

1. Try staying out of the water and slooowly move into position.  If you have to enter the water, avoid sending a wake and spooking fish.  I prefer an upstream location that allows me to present my fly first, then the leader.  It’s all about the presentation and your stealthy approach helps.
2. Your first few casts are usually your best shot.  Strip out your line in advance and avoid lining (casting over) the fish.
3. Lengthen your leader.  If you can cast a 16′ or longer leader, there are advantages.
4. Mend and continually control your line.
5. If you manage half a dozen more drag free casts that were clearly in the fish’s window and didn’t earn a take, change flies.  Again, observe the water, seine the surface and ascertain what the fish might be consuming.  The rise form, combined with an observation of the surface film should help unlock some of the guessing game.
6. Your next fly should be distinctly different over the past imitation.  Ensure that you are giving the trout something new.  Spinners and cripples always take their share of summertime trout.  Or, sometimes movement is a key trigger.
7. Sometimes the fish are so focused on naturals that you can’t compete.  Consider throwing a tiny attractor (wulff/stimulator/terrestrial) or something beefy to get their attention (streamer/chernobyl/isonychia/drake).  The majority of fish won’t vary, but now and then an opportunistic fish pounces on something different.
8. Patience is a virtue, but know when to leave a fish to find another.  If you have an aggressive fish downstream that is gulping down insects steadily, go for it.  There is great reward in finally hooking that super selective fish.  At the same time, there is  merit in taking a break and restoring your confidence with a fresh fish.
9. Consider fishing until you can’t see any more.  During this last trip to the WBD, I hooked three quality fish between 9:20 pm and 9:40 pm.  Position yourself with the best possible light and cast minimal line.  Lift up when you hear, see or feel anything promising.  Your instincts will guide you.  During the heat of the summer, the best surface fishing may occur the final twenty minutes.  You should be able to get away with an over sized fly at this time.  Surface feeders may also be observed in low light, early morning conditions.
10. Had enough of super selective trout?   No problem, we all need variety now and then.  Head to your local farm pond for some bluegills on poppers or throw some foam/deerhair sliders at  bass!

This heat wave significantly elevated river temperatures.  It’s just not prudent to target trout in local streams when the water is low and air temps are in the nineties.  I was supposed to fish and show a friend local trout options for Irondequoit Creek.  Instead, I suggested smallmouth bass on a local, warm water creek.  Smallmouth surface action can really heat up during the warmth of summer.  Besides, bass are much more temperature tolerant over trout.  There are a handful of reputable smallmouth waters around Rochester (Oak Orchard/Sandy/Black Creek/Genny/Mill/4 Mile/Salmon/Honeoye Outlet/Canandaigua Outlet) -just to provide a few places to start.

The temperature was still pushing 90, humid and it was perfect for wet wading.  We hiked to the first hole and I tied on a chartruese deer hair slider, while Jessie tied on a brown crayfish streamer.  On my second cast, a fiesty smallmouth jumped on the chugging slider.  From then on, it was top water time.  Over the next three hours, we landed 12 to 15 aggressive smallmouth bass on top water divers, sliders and poppers.  Great fun to wet wade, tease the fly over promising bass water and anticipate a strike!  It’s funny how some of the smaller bass make the most explosive strikes.  Twitching, stripping hard, popping, slow retrieves, etc all produces strikes.  The deeper holes produced several fish, while the shallow stretches produced zero strikes.  It wasn’t uncommon to walk a hundred yards or more between promising fishing spots.   It was enjoyable to leap frog fishing holes, share techniques and laugh when one of us missed  a strike.  I’m certainly looking forward to my next top water adventure and aim to tie a few more deer hair sliders before now and then.

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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The mass of sulphers on the water was impressive.  As was the concentrated emergence of olives late afternoon.  The frustrating aspect was that these fish were so selective, they stymied us.  Other than a few smaller fish that we each landed, we couldn’t connect with the larger browns.  I lost one pig brown that buried itself in thick weeds as I was about to net it.  My 7 x tippet survived two spectacular jumps and a decent tug of war, only to part within a foot of the net.  That lost trophy brown (estimated 21″ to 23″) haunted me on the car ride home.  Otherwise, we didn’t land a fish over 13″.  Despite hours of snouts feeding, we couldn’t get a take.  Or, if we managed  a strike, we had so much line out that we managed to miss it.  I’ve fished the WBD sulpher hatch for years and have confidence in my ability to consistently fool fish.  Yesterday’s bag of angling tricks didn’t work (super long 17″ 6x or 7 x flourocarbon leader, stealth approach, accurate casts, drag free drifts, multiple mends, arsenal of cripple/emerger patterns, various sizes of rusty brown spinner, sneaking in a terrestrial, timing the feeder, etc).  The surface film was littered with so much competition that we didn’t land a single big fish.  Great to sight fish large feeding trout for hours, maddeningly aggravating to miss so many opportunities!  Artie and I took some consolation that the two guide boats and other wading anglers didn’t manage a hook up on our stretch.   It probably doesn’t hurt our angling ego to get humbled now and then.  The sulphers will continue to get smaller as the season progresses and I’m already scheming for a rematch!

As anglers, we tend to enjoy all aspects of fly fishing and relish each opportunity to wet a line.  I don’t know where I’d be without my annual dose of crashing bluefish, lazy farm bluegills, fresh tributary chrome, salmon madness in the fall, Thousand Island smallmouth, and so on.  We are blessed with so many fly fishing possibilities.

At the same time, most of us possess favorite fisheries and prefer specific styles of fly fishing.  One of my annual highlights is fishing the sulpher hatch in June on the West Branch of the Delaware River.  Drifting yellow mayflies, intercepted by lazy snouts poking through the surface is a perennial favorite.  Those white mouths breaking the surface, gulping in sulphers provide angling motivation throughout the season.

I invited two friends (Artie and Greg) to join me for Friday afternoon and planned on meeting another friend from North Carolina on Saturday (Bob).  Each of us drove several hours, just to fish the late afternoon and evening hatch.  Fellow blogger Artie Loomis-ADK Trout Bum and I started fishing the PA Gamelands, looking for bank feeders.  He has a smooth cast and it was nice to watch him work two shallow water fish as they periodically fed.  Within minutes he was tight to a 17″ brown that took a sulpher emerger.  Next, we hiked upriver and continued to look for feeders.  It looked like the sulpher hatch recently ended and we were faced with waiting/slow time.   With a bright sun overhead and clear visibility, we managed to spot several shallow water fish on a gravel shelf.  Artie hid in the grass, parallel to the fish while I worked it from above.  He did a great job of letting me know where the fish was and how it responded.  Thirty casts and eight flies later (cripples/spinner/nymphs), another fish pushed it out and they both disappeared.  I worked that fish as well as I could and never managed a take!  Sulphers picked up again  around 6 pm and we managed a few smaller browns, but we didn’t see many quality fish feeding.  I lost one large fish that I didn’t finesse on the take.  Still, it was a slow night for the three of us.  Discussing things at the parking lot, we had more questions than answers regarding our disappointing night and lack of decent fish.

Saturday morning, I hooked my first fish at 5:30 am.  It was a chunky 14″ brown that ate a rusty spinner.  Not much else rising in my stretch of water, so I enjoyed a several hour breakfast and reading break.  After 10 am, I returned to the PA Gamelands and promptly observed risers.  Staying on the bank, sneaking up and crouching low, I managed two dozen casts to a steady fish.  I didn’t like my position and the brown didn’t like my presentation.  So, I dropped back down, crossed the river, walked upstream and gently waded into a better casting position.  There were plenty of # 22 olives on the water and fish apparently enjoying these baetis delights.  I broke off my first fish on the hook set-total angler error!  Minutes later, I relaxed when I saw the white mouth engulf my fly and was soon hooked up to a fiesty 20″ brown.  Over the next six hours, I landed another nine fish, most over 15″.  The two most memorable included a chunky rainbow that cartwheeled downstream and pulled valiantly. The second was a 21″ measured brown that ate my #20 cdc sulpher emerger within 4″ of a large boulder.  That fish was feeding tight to the rock and it was a tricky reach cast w/ plenty of mending to keep the fly in the zone.  It was awesome to watch that fish rise up, turn with the fly and chase it down as it was passing.

The WBD provides superb sight, dry fly fishing for selective, trophy trout.  It will humble an angler and there are some fish that leave you shaking your head in disbelief.  Despite my successes, one larger brown rejected every sulpher and olive imitation that I threw.  Cool, yet aggravating to watch a trophy fish feed on naturals within inches of your fly.  Still, pay your dues and the fish will reward you.  Fishing a 16′ leader, casting to rising fish and wading like a heron improve your odds.  Combine these stealth tactics with patience and an arsenal of flies, and you may experience the thrill of dancing trout on the WBD.  I can’t wait for my next trip to the WBD.

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