Fishing Report 24-AUG-2016

Well, August is nearing its conclusion, and the cooler nights are finally starting to creep into the area.  Naturally, a rally of the hot, humid weather should be expected, but it will not be too long before Autumn is upon us.  With that said, fishing is still in the summer patterns, and I have been splitting my time between river and lake fishing.

With river fishing, the time of day is less important, with keeping an eye on water clarity and lighting conditions more so.  Rivers tend to be clearer than lakes, and typically are more shallow.  This makes fish more skittish of aerial predators.  I've been spending some time fishing the Rivanna River near downtown Charlottesville, and have enjoyed my fair share of smallmouth action.  Typically, during sunny, clear water days, the action can be slow, with the best success coming from fish hiding in the shadow lines found near the banks.  Generally, fishing is better during overcast or muddier water days (although not too muddy), as the fish tend to swim around more freely.  This is also true for the early morning and evening hours, as the lower light conditions have a similar effect.  This is not to say that fish cannot be caught during the bright, sunny, summer days, but it does help narrow down where the fish may be hiding.

As for flies, I've been finding great success with topwater in the evening hours, and deceivers during the rest.  Specifically, I've found blue over white deceivers to be particularly deadly, with both swing and cross current retrieves working best.

Blue over white deceivers have been very successful against smallmouth lately

In the lakes, subsurface flies are a must during the day, with topwater not setting in until just before sunset.  With that said, some of the best fishing is to be had in the last hour of the day, with the bass keying in on topwater lures.  Lately, I've been having fun with the Master Splinter mouse pattern.  It is a great topwater pattern that is easy to tie, lightweight, and casts well.

The Master Splinter is a great mouse pattern

As a general rule, you know when you've selected the right topwater fly when the bass inhale the lure deep.  This makes going barbless even more important to ensure safe releases.  I've found the best success with either a slow twitch retrieve, or a steady, gurgling retrieve.  The key is to find what motion attracts the best strikes for the particular time of day you are fishing.  While the sun is still fairly bright, I've found a slower retrieve to be more successful, but typically speed things up as the sun sets.

This ambition little bream decided to go for a big meal with my mouse pattern

Fishing in Maryland: Potomac and Conococheague

Once again this weekend found me up in Maryland visiting friends and family.  After spending the day at Pangborn Park playing Ultimate Frisbee, and otherwise goofing off during my friend's annual reunion, my father and I spent the evening at the Potomac River.  This night, the fish were not overly enthusiastic about anything, and very little action was to be found.

After trying deep and mid level waters, the sun was getting closer to the horizon, and I decided that enough time had past since the harsh midday sun to throw on a topwater popper.  This was to be rewarded with a largemouth bass near the edge of a weed patch, and a smallmouth on the edge of a whitewater channel.  This was actually very interesting, as it perfectly highlighted the preferred habitats for both species, and shows how one river can support both species with very little overlapping competition.

This morning, we decided to try a more scenic river, and found ourselves along Conococheague Creek.  We set out around an hour after sunrise, and if you have never fished that early, you are missing out.  One of nature's finest effects is the steam rising off the water early in a summer's morning.  This only happens when the water is warmer than the surrounding air, and never fails to take my breath away.  Even if we hadn't caught a fish, it would have been a trip worth taking.

Smoke on the water...one of my favorite sights

The good news is the fishing matched the scenery, and we had an outstanding day.  Since we started early enough, and since the first stretch of the creek was fairly shallow with lots of grass beds, I kept my popper on from the evening before, and quickly was rewarded with a fun little longear sunfish.

Not the most common of catches East of the Appalachian Mountains

With the topwater bite being strong, I quickly found success targeting smallmouth, and many smallies were taken, with much bending of the fly rod :)  Most of the catches were your average small river bass, but all put up a strong fight.

Small but fierce, these guys are a ton of fun on any rod, especially the fly

The earliest hours saw very aggressive topwater takes, but as the sun rose, and the temperatures increased, more action was found on subsurface streamers.  I found the best luck on green over white clousers, and blue over white deceivers.  All in all, it was a great day, with nearly forty fish landed, including more than five different species.  Definitely a good sign of a great day, and a healthy river.

And, naturally, my father outfished me again...although he does tend to use a spinning rod, so I like to say I have more fun ;)

First Striper on the fly

As I usually do when I am traveling on the road, before I leave I check to see whether or not I should bring my fly rod.  This week, I am up in Portland, Maine, and the Internet said they were catching Rockfish/ Striped Bass/ Greenhead/ Squid Head/ or whatever else people have named this hard fighting fish.  After seeing that the fish were biting, I next checked to see what the local fishing regulations were, and, for Maine, saltwater fishing only requires a $1.00 angler registration with the Maine fisheries department, so I happily packed my 8 weight.

One thing I highly recommend if you travel with your fishing gear, is to find a local tackle shop, and patron their store.  This is a great way to pick up some tips, and to learn if there are any local restrictions/precautions that should be taken.  If you do visit a local shop, be sure to support them by picking up some local flies or gear.  For this trip, I visited the nice folks at The Tackle Shop (http://www.thetackleshop.net/).  They were awesome, and gave me great advice on when and where to go, as well as what to use.  If you find yourself in Portland, Maine, I highly recommend you pay them a visit.

Following their advice, I found myself at Back Cove this morning, looking at a salt flat during full low tide.  After tying on a CK Baitfish and sinking leader, I walked along the shore to begin my search.

CK Baitfish designed by the legendary Chuck Kraft

 The CK Baitfish is an amazing fly designed to mimic the darting, panicked actions of a fleeing minnow.  Walking along the shore, I checked for signs of baitfish, and variations in shoreline structure.  Sure enough, at a section where the tidal flats drained into the main channel of the bay, tons of small minnows were schooled up along the shore.  A quick couple of casts, and my flyline slammed tight with my first Striped Bass on the fly.

Hello Beautiful

Fishing Report 1-AUG-2016

Well...my ocean trip was a bit of a bust, and by bust, I mean it was never meant to be.  Such is life, and it was for the best.  Next Time!  As a consolation, my family came down to Charlottesville, and the local fishing commenced.

The first stop was the Rivanna River, during the heat of the afternoon.  As was stated before, during the dogs days of summer, expect the bass to be less active during the day, with better fishing times in the early morning, and late evening hours.  If you can only pick one time of day, pick the evening, as the bass tend to eat late into the night, and therefore are less hungry in the morning.  With that said, sometimes you don't have the opportunity to fish during the best hours, and just getting out is a reward in itself.

As was expected, fishing was tough, and was made more-so by the passing kayaks and river floats.  With that said, we still managed to catch a few fish, with the largest smallmouth being caught deeper in a fast moving rapid.  Warmer waters mean less dissolved oxygen, so look for fish to take advantage of deeper white water during the hottest hours.

After an afternoon cookout, an ode to summer charcoal, my father and I hooked up the boat, and headed to Chris Greene.  After all the recent rains, the water is back to a darker chocolate, but the fish are still active, and did not disappoint.  After starting the evening with the usual bluegill, ensuring a successful trip, we targeted a deep water drop off near the shoreline with lots of fallen trees.  This type of bank structure allows access to cooler water with a shorter swim to bait rich shallows seeking refuge in the sunken tree limbs.  Here, fishing deep and slow is the key, and my father was rewarded with a nice 2-3 lbs largemouth, among many other fish.  Unfortunately, as is the danger with evening fishing trips, a strong thunderstorm rolled onto the lake, ending our trip.

Sunday morning, for our last outing, we decided to go to a more scenic lake, and trailed the boat to Beaver Creek Reservoir.  Besides from the pleasant views, Beaver Creek is spring fed, resulting in consistently clear waters.  While all of the surrounding ponds and rivers were mud choked from the torrent of Saturday night, Beaver Creek was still holding 4 foot visibility.  Unfortunately, while the morning looked fishy, the bass did not respond.  Several fish were raised from the deep by clousers, but none took the fly.  Our best guess is that the previous night's passing storm caused too great a shift in one or more environmental variables (temperature, pressure, etc), and shut down the bite.  Even the bluegill were reluctant to respond, although I did trick a decent 10"+ brim on a small yellow popper.

Next weekend sees the return to the upper Potomac...weather permitting of course.

Sometimes a fishing trip is just an excuse to get away, and enjoy the water...

Gearing up for Flounder

With the summer heat, bass, crappie, and the other lake fish are deep and lethargic during the daylight hours.  Unless you get out very early, or very late, you shouldn't expect too much on the surface, with the exception to bluegill, because, hey, bluegill are always up for hitting topwater.  Additionally, the heat brings major stress to our resident brook trout populations, so hitting the mountain streams should wait until the weather cools back down.  The end result?  Time to hit the saltwater.

The good news for me is that I have family near the coast, and they make a perfect staging point to hit the back bays along the Maryland and Virginia Coasts...and it's nice to seem them as well:)  One of my goals this year was to try and catch a flounder off the fly.  Obviously, flounder are not the most targeted fish off the fly, but they are catchable, and even a small flounder could be fun off the long rod.

There are two strategies for targeting flounder with the fly.  The first is to stick to the shallows, and use weighted flies.  This permits the use of a floating line, while still being able to get the fly into the strike zone.  Of course, this means there will be a limitation in the habitat and waters that will be fishable.  To overcome this, a sink tip, or even a full sinking line will be required.  For me, I will be using a full sinking line.  This allows me to fish all zones of the back bays; allowing me to target not only bottom dwelling fish like flounder, but also the mid and upper levels of the water column.  Remember, even though the line may sink, the moment you start stripping, the fly will come alive.  This still allows casting into breaking fish, with the added advantage of hitting the top of the boil, as well as allowing the choice to let the fly to sink to where larger fish may be lurking.

As for flies, the usual saltwater suspects apply.  Think clousers, deceivers, half-n-halves, but shrimp and squid patterns are also useful.  Granted, tying an all white clouser or deceiver may do a decent job of imitating a squid, and tying either in pink colors is a decent soft shrimp imitation (they are pinkish when they shed their shell), but having an excuse to tie something new is more than enough for me to have to break out the fly tying kit.

Tying a squid fly is a nice change from the typical trout and bass flies

There are plenty of good guides on youtube and the Internet to find interesting patterns and ideas for saltwater flies.  My search helped me to develop the squid fly above.  I chose to use dumbbell eyes near the rear of the hook to (1) invert the hook, and (2) change the action of the fly to more closely resemble a swimming squid.  I also used some of my holoflash, which has tons of different colors, and, I think, will more closely imitate the rapid color changes squids are known for...plus, it helps it look cool :)  Sometimes, making the fly look better to yourself actually makes the fly fish better, because you will fish it with more confidence, and throw it for longer.  A great quote is even a poorly tied fly will catch fish if you throw it long enough.

For shrimp patterns, I decided to try my hand at the crazy charlie.  This is one of THE patterns for bonefish, because it imitates a small shrimp or crustacean...hey, that sounds good enough to me.  I did tie mine a little larger than the average charlie, and added some colors that more closely match the shrimp in the back bays where I fish, including some touches of pink for one of the flies.  Believe it or not, pink can sometimes be the only color flounder will hit, and therefore I always make sure at least one of my flies incorporates this hue.

Some of the crazy charlies I tied for flounder

All in all, it will just be nice to get out and hit the salt.  I'll be sure to post an update, but, remember, getting out to fish is just as important as actually catching a fish.  Even if you strike out, you should always have a good time...I know I will.

Upper Potomac Fishing Trip

Greetings Everyone!  The good news is that the waters have subsided long enough for me to brave the Upper Potomac.  Earlier this week, while visiting my parents, my father and I snuck out to spend a few hours on the river for some summer smallmouth action, and the river did not disappoint.

It's always nice going out on a river with someone familiar with the water, and my father chose a spot packed with smallmouth, and a few other surprises.  While most smallies were subsurface along the edges of the whitewater, requiring a sinking leader to get down quick while moving the fly quickly...luckily I forgot mine, a few were found to take a topwater popper, which I was happy enough to oblige.

Any size smallmouth is a blast on the fly

It is always a blast to catch smallmouth, and even more so off a fly rod.  If you haven't had the chance, I dare you to try.  Pound for pound, they are one of the scrappiest fish, and I dare say more fun than a trout twice its size!  The little guy pictured above was no exception, and decided after several failed attempts to shake the fly while going airborne the best course of action was to do a crazy Ivan, and swim right under a log.  Fortunately, I was able to get Mr. Smallie out from under the submerged tree, and safely land and release...to be caught another day.

In addition to the abundance of smallmouth, my father also managed to land his first tiger muskie.  While it was a far cry from the size of some of the monsters the Potomac is known for, it gave him quite a fit on his ultra light outfit.  Personally, I have yet to battle a hybrid or a full strain muskie on the fly, but, just like my father, there is always a first time for anything.

As expected the rock bass were also quite active, being found near the edges of grasses, and in the shallows along the shore.  What was unexpected, was the occasional walleye we caught in the deeper pools and eddies.  For these, the trick was to get the lure down as far as possible, with slower movements.  I found the greatest success with a half n half, which is basically the offspring of a clouser minnow with a Lefty's deceiver.  Typically, this is a good saltwater striper pattern, but sometimes its worth throwing something they may not have seen before.  As always, tight lines.

An unexpected, but welcomed catch

Long Time No Post...What Gives?

So it's been a while...actually it's been a long while, since my last update.  And, if you've been like me, it's been frustrating watching storm after storm after storm roll through May and early June.  This has absolutely wrecked havoc on the local rivers, and only recently has the weather held off long enough for them to be fishable for smallmouth.  Unfortunately, work has decided to get really busy, and has made getting out to fish even harder.

So...yada yada yada, I am still around, but fishing has been something that has been a bit difficult to manage.  With that said, the waters are now fully fishable, and the fish are out there.  Actually, if you can brave the humidity and hot weather, now is a great time to hit the rivers or lakes, because even if the bite is not as strong as it was, you could always take a quick dip to cool off.

If you do decide to hit the mountain streams, remember to take extra precaution with the brookies, and to try and end the fight quickly, and return even quicker, as the warmer temperatures will be stressing our state fish.

Finally, I should have a better fishing report next week, as I will be traveling to Smith Mountain Lake to celebrate the holiday.  Cheers and tight lines!