It's 'Gill Time

'nuff said

The Sulphurs are Flying!

Just a quick post for the local folks.  The Sulphurs have been around in dribs and drabs for a few days now, but last night they were out in numbers that had the fish looking up!   The bug pictured was on the small size most were considerably larger (as large as size 12!).  The fish ate good last night!

Usually, I would have more fish porn but I forgot the camera.  I took my iPhone on the water (which I never do) but I almost dropped the damn thing in the drink taking this shot, so that was the end of the pics!  I need to invest in a waterproof case...

This water was boiling with fish an hour after this photo was taken!

Farmington River

I recently took trip to Connecticut's famed Farmington River with a group of friends.  We headed up to the river on the tail end of a nor'easter, so we had some adverse weather and water conditions to deal with.  Despite less than ideal conditions it turned out to be a great trip.

There were plenty of chunky little rainbows to be had.  They were everywhere and eagerly took our nymphs and streamers in the morning and rose to Hendricksons and caddis in the warmer afternoons.  The rainbows averaged 12 to 14 inches with the largest nosing up to about 16 inches.  They fought surprising hard for their size.

 The brown trout averaged a inch or two less and were just as abundant.   I managed to hook a few larger browns in the 20" class, while fishing streamers in some of the deep runs and pools, but they got the best of me and never made it to the net.

The fishery folks on the Farmington have an interesting way of tagging fish to identify when they were stocked.  The small recently stocked brown trout all had this green laser etch behind their right eye.  I have never seen this method of tagging before.

We managed to have one phenomenal afternoon when my buddy Rick and I got into a riffle that was just teeming with fish.  There were actually more fish in this one spot than I have ever encountered on a river before.  We discovered that they were staged in that riffle taking emerging Hendricksons.  Fishing soft hackles we took fish on almost every casts for hours right up until dark.  The numbers of fish caught was astounding, between the two of us it was one of those rare "100 fish days".

Fishing two fly rigs and catching two fish at a time was just as common as catching one!  More often than not, everyones rod was bent over at the same time.  Since we left fish biting the night before, we returned the next morning morning with another friend and found the fish there again.  This time they appeared to be taking spent little yellow crane flies.  A partridge and yellow soft hackle did the trick and we did it all over again.   This had been my first trip to the Farmington, I can't wait to head back!

"Winter" Fishing Wrap Up

This blog has been far too quiet lately.  My apologies to my regular readers.  Fortunately I have been busy fishing as well as working.  I thought I would share some images from some of my winter trips to the river.  We were blessed with a extremely mild winter this year.  I was able to fish in shirt sleeves or a light jacket for most of the days between December and the present.  Today we have seasonable temperatures in the mid fifties and it feels down right chilly!

The fishing this winter was phenomenal!   Although we experienced extremely high water during the spring, summer and fall, the lack of snow/rain this winter has really brought water levels down,  The low crystal clear water we typical experience in autumn has been with us all winter.  This mild weather has the bugs all confused as well.  Many hatches are several weeks early.  As it looks now we may miss our Hendrickson hatch completely as we suffer through three weeks of closed waters.

I had several months some of the best dry fly fishing I have ever experienced in New Jersey with loads of fish coming to the surface chasing our little black stoneflies.  This hatch has always been hit or miss because of weather and water conditions, but this year we had two solid months of consistent action on stoneflies.

There has been plenty of BIG fish as well.  My best this winter was a twenty six inch brown.  Unfortunately his picture will not be found on this blog because I was without a camera (my friends know that is a regular problem with me), but there are plenty of 22"-24" pictured on this post to make up for it.

Many of these big fish were taken on top but the largest were often taken dredging a nymph on a dark cloudy day.  This spring our rivers were chock full of suckers getting their spawn on.  Unlike some anglers, I have no aversion to matching that particular hatch so I am no stranger to sucker spawn patterns.  If its good enough for a fish to eat, its good enough for me to tie and fish!

When going down low effective patterns were my Yellow Stonefly Nymph, Cased Caddis, Chimarra Caddis and my trusty Pheasant Tail Anchor.  As far as dry flies went your basic black stone fly imitations produced well, the fish were not too picky.  But the biggest fish always seemed to rise to My buddy Lou's CDC Stone.  Water temps were high enough to get some great action on aggressively stripped streamers as well.

The last few days of the open season were the best.  Daytime temps in the seventies brought the water up into the mid fifties.  With temps like that the caddis and mayflies started popping.  I spent the last day of the open season fishing wet flies to very aggressive fish willing to chase down and absolutely smash the fly.  At the end of the day at dark I was treated to a caddis hatch and took several fish on Iris Caddis fished with movement in the film.






















So my apologies again for the lack of posting but a man has to have his priorities.  Fishing will trump writing every time in my book!  I promise things will get back on track and you will hear a lot more from the Jersey Angler in the months to come.

Tight Lines!

Brookies and Bears

During my recent trip to the Yellowstone area we spent an afternoon on a small, off the beaten track, piece of water. A short hike, of a few miles, rewarded us with a day of great dry fly fishing. This particular stream was loaded with brook trout. Every piece of holding water held one or more fish. In reality, it did matter where you cast as the fish seemed to be everywhere! The numbers added up quickly, as we worked our way up stream casting flies to fishy looking water.

I started fished with conventional fly gear but quickly switched over to Tenkara as the water was perfectly suited for it. Once I changed over to Tenkara the fish came even quicker. Tenkara is THE PERFECT technique for fishing dry flies on small waters.

Fly selection was simple, a deer hair bee pattern was the only fly needed on that day. These little brook trout were not selective, which was a nice change of pace from the maddening, match the hatch scenario on the Henry's Fork the night before.

The fish were small but they were numerous. Most were little hand sized brook trout with a few 11 or 12 inch fish in the better water. I had a refusal from a 14" fish late in the day. That fish would have been a trophy for this water.

As we were packing up for the hike out we encountered a young grizzly. Things became tense for a few moments when instead of fleeing he rapidly closed the distance between us to about 25-30 yards. He then paced back an forth a few times before finally circling off to our right and slipping out of sight over a hill. I managed to get a few crappy photos. Manipulating a small point and shoot camera and bear spray simultaneously with two shaking hands is no easy task!

Unfortunately, when the bear finally left us, he left in the direction of the trail home. When I zoomed in to take this last picture of the bear disappearing over the hill, I hoped it would be the last we saw if him...it wasn't. We crossed paths with him two more times on the way home, luckily he had no interest in us during those encounters.

Brookies and bears in the backcountry! A wild experience in the place these magnificent creatures, both large and small, call home!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Yellowstone National Park

Toothy Critters

I have been encountering quite a few of these fellows during my last few warmwater outings.  The larger specimans usually make short work of the 1x or 2x leaders I typically fish for bass.  They are causing me to spend a lot of hours, at the tying bench, replacing lost bass bugs.  Some of these pickeral have been real brutes getting close to typical northern pike size, but these smaller guys can usually brought to hand without the risk of a bite through. Even these little ones can make short work of 1x tippet if they get the chance. 

 I think the next time I visit this particular lake I am going to tie on a short flexible wire tippet and target some these  larger pickeral.  I am also experimenting with some  braided lines as tippet material.  So far they are holding up well but I have not hooked any big fish with this set up to really put it to the test.  On light tackle they are great sport, they often spend as much time out of the water as in.  

The Rising Lippa4Life tool  makes handling these fish a breeze.  Especially when fishing from a kayak.  In addition to being toothy there a bit on the slippery side and a writhing, snapping pike or pickeral thrashing around between your legs on the bottom of the kayak is an adrenaline filled experience to say the least.

Mono or flourocarbon tippets don't stand a chance!

Summertime Fly Fishing

I enjoy warmwater flyfishing as much if not more than trout and saltwater fishing.  Though I have to travel about an hour from my front door to find a decent trout stream, I can walk out my front door and be casting over water in about 5 minutes.  The area I live in is peppered with lakes and ponds of all sizes.  Since New Jersey's trout fishing is a 3 season affair for me, I need something else to occupy my time during the summer months.  That means bass, panfish, carp, and the occasional trip to the beach for some salty action.

Panfish are probably my favorite.  Abundunt, scrappy and great fun on a three weight.  Early mornings and late evenings can often produce some great topwater action.  Probing the depths during the day will produce some of the biggest fish of the day.  They tend to school up by size class, so if you locate a good sized fish you bound to find some more in the same area.

You will find these little fish in all colors of the rainbow from drab to brilliant.  Not to mention that they are some of the finest eating on the planet.  No need to feel guilty about taken the occasional stringer of fish home either.  In most waters around here they are ignored and thereby abundant, sometimes too abundant and the population can certainly sustain a few meals a year.

Its coming to an end...

until September that is.  Trout fishing in New Jersey is winding down for me until the fall.  I personally don't fish for trout in most waters around here during the summer months.  I give the trout a break once we start seeing daytime temperature spikes hiting the seventy degree mark.  Lately the trend here has been morning temps in the mid to high sixties and by mid day you could see some places hitting or exceeding the seventy degree mark.  So there will be some traveling involved when it comes to trout fishing over the next few months, which is not a bad thing.  There will be two weeks in Montana in July, a few day trips to Pennsylvania and maybe a long weekend in New England.  Local trips will be limited to warm and saltwater venues, again not a bad thing.

My last trip of the spring season found the river high and off colored which has been the norm this year.  So it was a nymphing game and the golden stone nymph continued to produce well.

It was a mixed bag of brookies, browns and rainbows.  A nice way to wrap things up until fall.

It is great to see these small native fish in the river.  If you encounter a fish smaller than 9 inches around here you looking at a native fish.  This little brook trout likely was flushed out of one of the tributaries that feed this river, but there are plenty of similar sized browns found throughout this section of water which is great to see.

Not all of the fish were small, these two rainbows stretched the tape past the 20 inch mark.  They were in prime shape.

The next trout you see on this blog will likey be from somewhere other than New Jersey...until September that is!

They are finally looking up!

Its been a difficult season this year.  On most days that I have had available to fish I was forced to deal with  high muddy water.  Lots of fish caught but all below the surface.  Things have finally settled down over the last few weeks and there has been some fine afternoon dry fly fishing.  There have been some great sulfur hatches but little in the was of surface feeding.  The late afternoon spinner falls are another matter all together.  Fish can be found boiling on the surface as clouds of spinners descend to the water, just as the last visible light slips below the horizon.  It becomes a game of feel and sound. There has been some great fishing just after dark.  Fishing in the dark presents challenges.  Since I try not to use a light on the water, re-tying flies to tippets can take forever,  There is enough fumbling with rod and reel going on, so no after dark photography for me, besides its a short lived game, so there is no time for pictures.

Luckily there have been a few that have been convinced to sip a dry fly while still light enough to enjoy seeing the take.  This guy fell for a carpenter ant at high noon...

This one on a sulphur emerger fished in the film.

Its been a long time coming...

Solving a Mystery

I spent a few hours on my favorite trout stream over the holiday weekend and had an excellent day of fishing.  I had the whole section of river to myself, which shocked me since it was a holiday weekend.  What made it even more enjoyable, was the fact that it was one of those rare occasions where you manage to figure out what your pea brained quarry is focused on and find that little piece of the puzzle that makes for a great day's fishing.

After spending the first few hours of the day picking off a fish or two.  I sat down on a mid stream rock and began to ponder all the reasons why the fishing was so slow.  I reckoned it could have something to do with the little bit of color that still lingered in the water from the high water event earlier in the week, or perhaps the fish were gorged on sulphur nymphs that have been coming off in huge numbers every afternoon.  As I sat on this rock and retied my leader and selected yet another set of flies to present to the fish I spied this fellow crawling up from the waters edge.

This was a good sized stone fly with bright yellow markings on its underside.  With no better choices to go with I selected a large golden stone fly nymph as my anchor fly and was rewarded with a fish on my first cast.

And so it began...for the rest of the afternoon fish after fish came to this fly including the big fish in the previous post.   Here's a few more quick shots of this fly in action.

The fly I fished was a one of a kind experiment.  It was a more detailed version of a soft hackle stone fly that I regularly use.  Instead of a soft hackle it has a traditional double wing case and some rubber legs added.  When that fly was eventually lost to a fish, my soft hackled golden stones produced well enough but not quite as good as the experimental version.  So its off to the vice to turn out some more of what is now a proven pattern instead of a experimental one.

Catch and Release

Over the past few months I have caught and released this fish on four seperate occasions.  She has always been caught in the same spot despite the fact that she has been released several pools down stream from where she is originally hooked.  She always does the same thing, a few quick bursts up stream than an about face and a mad rush down stream that requires you to beat feet after her or she's gone baby gone!  The fish has a damaged mandible from a former battle and and a very recognizable spot pattern on the cheek.  The picture above is from our most recent encounter this weekend, when she took a big golden stone nymph (more on that in a future post).

The first time we met it was late winter and it was far too cold to be messing around with a camera so she was quickly sent on her way but I made a note of the water she was in and that damaged jaw.  On that occasion she was tricked by a green rockworm imitation.

Our next meeting took place right before the season opener.  This time a pink san juan worm with a gold bead did the trick.  I saw this take as she rose up from her spot in front of a log and picked off the fly mid current.

Our third encounter took place a few weeks ago during a high water event.  She was in the same spot as always.  She is never visable but you just know she is down there somewhere.  This time a heavy cased caddis imitation fooled her.

I am going to bid her farewell for the rest of the season and leave her be.  Four times in one season is more than enough...

Fishing in the Rain...

This spring has been a very cool wet one for us here in the northeast.  Great for the trout, not so great for those of us that chase them with a fly rod.  I am not adverse to fishing in the rain, but all this rain has kept our streams at or near flood stage for long periods of time.  When water levels and clarity drop down to fishable levels its time to drop what your doing and head to the water regardless what the weather is.  In between all of this rain we have had some breaks with a beautiful day or two but usually the rivers are blown out or running with the consistency of chocolate milk.  I have been glued to the computer, studying water stream gauges on my local waters and dashing out when there looks like there is an opportunity to fish.  On days when the streams are just not an option I've been able to slip my kayak into a local pond and chase warm-water species.

This Monday there looked like there was going to be a opportunity to hit the trout streams.  Water levels were dropping to fishable levels and hopefully there would be enough clarity to fish.  After work I slipped out for a few hours and was not disappointed.  There were plenty of fish in the margins and the softer water along the banks.  The low light and off colored water made some of the stream's larger browns a little more approachable but landing these fish in high water was next to impossible.  Once they headed off down stream chasing them was not an option, so your only option was to snub up on the reel and bid them farewell.

The positive side to this spring's tough conditions will be that there should be plenty of water and fishable temperatures well into June.  It was also good to see that the bugs don't seem to have any issues with the high flows.  Our sulfurs are coming off like crazy and are getting a break from the fish as they ride rapids unmolested, at least on the surface.  So there was no delicate presentation of light colored mayflies to these fish.  It was big heavy nymphs, the kind that will put your eye out with an errant cast.

Longing for soft warm evenings presenting delicate dry flies to rising fish...