Catching up on Some Fish Tales

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been out there pulling in some fish. I’ve been out three times since my last post so I’ll try to catch you up quickly.

June 20th

I went out on my own to see what I could catch in the way of a few fish. To say it was somewhat of a frustrating day would be an understatement! Have you ever been out there with fish jumping all around you but for some reason they just won’t hit what you’re throwing out there for them? Well that is what this trip was for me. Seriously, at one point a fish almost got tangled in my floating line but still didn’t hit what I had out there. No, really, I had just cast a fly out there and a fish jumped about a foot away from it, landed on the tippet and nearly got tangled in the leader but nothing, and I mean nothing, would hit my fly. Another thing, many of you may know the feeling but do you have any idea what it’s like trying to tie on a fly with fish jumping all around you? Frustrating, trust me!
In any case, I finally started getting some action with a fly I made up one day at the bench. I’m sure there is a name for it but I have no idea what it is. I tied a few of them on various hook sizes ranging from 12 to 18. Basically it has a yellow quill body, beige rabbit fur thorax, dirty red hackle wrapped around it with a mallard wing. It kind of looks like a small hex fly but not if you know what I mean. In any case, that’s what they hit and it took about 12 attempts at various fly’s to figure it out. Fish and Game must have just stocked that week because the fish were on the smaller size, about 9” and a little thin, they certainly needed some fattening up. But once they started hitting it was fun. I brought about 6 to hand before time for my adventure had run out and I had to head home. Over all the day ended up nicely but I sure got a new appreciation for ‘matching the hatch’!

June 27th
Jeff and I went out together this time. The day was beautiful but the fishing was slow. I suspect that the pond got somewhat cleaned out of the small stockies as the only thing we were hooking into were small mouth bass. Got a couple of hits, all on top but only landed this Small Mouth.
















July 3rd
A beautiful day!













Light mist on the water when we got there but the day cleared up nicely. Jeff tied up a third kayak as we invited another friend of ours, Jamie, along for the morning outing. We got on the water and almost immediately Jeff hooked into a small mouth. You know how when you get a quick bite after getting on the water you immediately assume the rest of the day is going to be great? Well, let me tell you, often, it is not! Jeff and Jamie had no luck the rest of the morning; I was getting a good amount of hits but couldn’t seem to hook anything, and even when I did hook into a fish, I wasn’t able to keep it on and land it. I did catch a small mouth but most of the morning they would hit and spit, hook and spit, again a frustration morning. But at least I was getting some hits which is more than I can say for Jeff and Jamie, things just went dry for them. It was getting close to quitting time and I was working my way along the shore of the pond when I saw some fish rising. Still, couldn’t get them to bite. I tied on that fly I mentioned earlier in this post, the one that was along the lines of a small Hex. Looking around my two partners were gone, apparently, they had decided to pack it in and, with just one more cast in mind I threw out the mini Hex. WHAM! I hooked into a nice 16” Bow, beautiful fish! The fish took to whole fly right down its throat, I had to cut the line or risk killing the fish. I only hope I can recreate the pattern from memory, it has served me well the last few times out.

So I’m paddling in, thinking these two guys went in just a little too early, and when I got to shore and told them of my last fish I was greeted with total disbelief. Imagine they thought I was telling a fish tale! Who most surprised me was Jeff. If you’ll recall I have always believed his fish stories even when most of them couldn’t be backed up because he often ‘forgot’ his camera. But even when I told him I had a picture he said, and I quote, “It better have a date on it!”

















Thank god my camera automatically displays the date and time when viewed from the screen.

Tigers and Brookies and Bows, OH MY!

After two weeks I finally got out this weekend. I got started early Saturday morning, on the pond by 6:30am to a slightly overcast, still morning. To my surprise I was alone on the lake, not a soul to be found, just me and the Cranes fishing that morning. I launched the Kayak and paddled directly across the lake to a small cove at the far end. I tied on the trusty Caddis on top, Prince Nymph dropper rig and began the quest.
Immediately I hooked into a nice fat 14” Bow on the Caddis and thought this was going to be a great day. As soon as I had that thought I reprimanded myself for jinxing the day recalling the last time out, when I hooked into a nice fish immediately and then spent the rest of the day fighting the winds that kicked up with no more fish to be found! But today would be different; as I was fishing I could hear fish breaking the surface a little ways away.
Paddling over to the far side of the lake I could see fish jumping. I don’t mean a fish here or there, I mean the fish were jumping!

I hooked into a nice Brookie and the fun began. Everything was hitting on top Saturday so I abandoned my dropper in favor of a variety of dry’s. It took some trial and error but I finally narrowed it down to darker Caddis’. It wasn’t easy, have you ever been in a situation where dozens of fish are jumping all around you and you’re trying to tie the ‘right fly’ on the end of your tippet? I couldn’t tie them on fast enough!!!







I hooked into about a dozen of these smaller fish in about a 1 hour time frame, it was glorious! Now I’m not saying any of these fish were trophy by any stretch of the imagination. They must have just stocked the pond that week, these were mostly 8” – 10” Bows, Brookies and Tigers (I even hooked into one Small Mouth Bass) but sometimes quantity makes up for quality and I was having a ball!





Unfortunately, the clock was ticking and I had to get back home but it was a lot of fun being out for the few hours I was there.

Memorial Day Weekend With Mixed Results

Well it’s been a while and I’ve been a bit remiss in posting so I’ll apologize up front. In any case while I was unable to get out last weekend I was on the pond both Sunday afternoon and Monday morning of Memorial Day Weekend with mixed results.

On Sunday all I got for my 3 hours of fishing was a 6” Small Mouth Bass that wasn’t even worth taking a picture of. The only thing it bought me was the bragging rights to say that I haven’t been skunked yet this year. A record I hope to maintain this season. Monday was a little different. I was on the pond by 7:00 am, It was a little breezy but the wind was coming from the far side of the pond and there looked to be some pretty flat water over there owing to the fact that the trees probably blocked the wind for the first few hundred feet from shore leaving at least that part of the pond flat and smooth. Casting in a dropper rig, with an Elk hair and CDC Caddis on top and the trusty Prince Nymph on the bottom, about 18” down I immediately hooked into a great 16” Bow.

This fish gave me quite a fight, breaking water with some nice jumps 3 times! 5 minutes into fishing and hooked into this fish, I thought it was going to be a great day! NOT!! I spent the next hour trying to get another fish to even look at my line. I went to a Crippled Elk Hair Caddis on top, different Nymphs below and nothing. Then I got a hit on an Elk Hair Caddis on top but missed it. A few minutes later, I hooked into the 12” Brookie on the nymph which turned out to be the last fish of the day.

Total count, 2 fish, both on the dropper, 3 bites, one on top and two on the dropper, all before the wind really kicked up and left me paddling through white caps on the little pond. Along with the pictures of the two fish I caught I also got some nice scenery pics. Maybe you can guess where we’re fishing from these pictures.




I just wanted to point out that Jeff still isn’t posting any pictures of his catches which, if I were a cynic might make me wonder if he really caught all those fish he has claimed to have caught. Being as I am not a cynic, I’ll just trust him at his word!

Filling the Time When you Can't Get Out

Since I wasn’t able to get out this week and therefore have nothing to post as far as fishing goes, I thought I’d share with you a tip I got on Midge tying at the Fly Fishing Show held in MA this past winter from a Fly Tier named Rich Ross. Often I’ve been on the ponds, lakes, rivers seeing fish rise but nothing I had to offer seemed to work. They were hitting something small and black and I have come to surmise that it could have been the notorious Black Midge they were eating as certainly those midges were eating me. Most of the charts I look at that track hatches (fish food) by month will list the midge over the course of months throughout the summer so, if the weather gets bad you may want to look at your fly tying table and tie up a few of these. Hopefully I be writing to you about how I made a killing with these flies sometime over the coming summer months. What I liked about this technique is that it kept the ‘wings’ on top and I can tell you from experience that you can see this fly, even though it is so small from pretty far away.

Here is the Midge build, step by step, it’s really pretty easy.

What you need:
Black Thread
Black Poly Yarn
Peacock Hurl
Grizzly Hackle
Instructions:
Lay a bed of thread to the bend in the hook

Cut a piece of Poly Yarn about 1 ½” long and then pull about ¼ of the thread from the rest of the thread, make a loop and tie the ends on at the back of the hook:

This is where I use that tool I made from 2 large hooks connected with a rubber band:

Hook one end to the loop and the other end some place up high:


Next tie in the peacock herl:

Next tie in the grizzly hackle:

Next wrap the hackle around the thread post that you have held up with to rubber band contraption. Hackle before the peacock because after to wrap the herl you’ll need to tie it in at the back of the hook:

Wrap the thread to the front of the hook and then wrap the herl to the front and tie it in:

Or a more clear picture:

Next unhook the poly year, using two fingers on either side of the thread, pull the hackle to the left of the thread, lay the thread along the top of the hook towards to front and tie it down:

You’ll notice I probably have too much hackle at the back of the hook but if you start the hackle wrap a little higher on the thread, being careful not to go to high that it would extend past the hook eye when you lay the thread along the top of the hook it would be perfect. Cut the left over poly yarn off, a couple of whip finishes and you’re done:

You’ll notice that all of the hackle is on top of the hook like wings, the hook will set down in the water (breaking the film) and the hackle/wings will set up high in the water. The guy who showed me this technique at the show says that you can see it from 30 yards out on the water.

I hope you have fun with this fly. After you do a few you'll find that they go pretty quickly.

Old Trips

I was cleaning up my photos and came across a few pictures from last year. Last year was my first year in many that I started actively fly fishing again and is when I really got hooked. It was also the first year I started tying my own flies and my goal was to catch some fish on flies that were tied by my own hand. As I started fishing, I started to talk to friends, neighbors and business associates about the sport and was very surprised to find out how many people I knew that were avid fisherman and, even more surprising, fly fisherman.

Anyway, I was invited out to Seattle to do a little Steelhead fishing but when I got there the rivers were running a little high so we went to a small pond instead. I have to tell you, the fish are BIG out there or at least they were in this pond.

Here are pictures of a couple of fish I caught on woolly buggers out there:









To say I had fun would be an understatement! I must have landed 6 – 7 all around this size. Sorry for the quality, being new to the whole adventure I wasn’t equipped with a camera, luckily I had my cell phone along, the quality isn’t as nice as the camera I now carry but the proof is in the pic!












I also attended the Orvis Fly Fishing School in Manchester VT with Jeff and another friend. It was a two day course, teaching us some basic techniques of casting, even learned a little about double hauling, fly tying, equipment, and knots. I even got a chance to fish the famed Battenkill River. At night the three of us would sneak off to some ponds in the area and try our hand at what we learned that day. Here is a picture from that excursion:







Not much of a fish but this is the first one I ever caught on a fly I tied myself. I caught it on top with an Elk Hair Caddis.










I would recommend the class to anyone who might be interested. The instructors were great, the two days fun and overall it was a good time on the water. In any case, I hope to get out this weekend, weather permitting, and I’ll let you know how it goes next week.

It was a Great Weekend for Fishing (sort of) 5/9/09

As you can see from Jeff’s first post(below), I’m not allowed to give the name of our favorite fishing hole for fear that the people reading this blog will flock to it and ruin it for the rest of us. Personally I think he’s just being selfish!

In any case, with my wife away for a couple of weeks and not home for Mother’s Day, I had no alternative but to be out on the water chasing some trout this weekend. Just to mix things up a bit, Jeff and I went out early Saturday Morning, we were on the water by 6:00 am.











It was cloudy, eventually it rained, but the wind was absent and the fish were rising. I only had a few hours of fishing in front of me as I had to get to Logan to pick up my eldest son who flew in for a few days to watch his brother’s lacrosse games this week.

In any case, I got a few Saturday morning, Brookies all. I fished a dropper rig, Elk Hair Caddis on top, Prince Nymph on the bottom, both tied by my own hand. The nicest one was a 13” Brookie which gave me quite a fight. When I left Jeff was "0" for the day and it was starting to rain. I caught up with Jeff on Sunday and he tells me it stopped raining shortly after I left and that he hooked into 3 Brookies. Unfortunately, he didn’t have his camera so I guess we just have to take his word on this. I also met up with Jamie on Sunday, you’ll remember, he went with Jeff the week before for Salmon and he also was a bit hesitant when I mentioned that Jeff picked up an Atlantic Salmon and he got skunked. He was quick to point out that while Jeff said he hooked into a fish, Jamie was not around to see it! Hmmm, I am starting to sense a pattern here. Jeff, I think you should put your camera in your vest for future trips so that no one will question your reports. Not that I would ever question you integrity of course!!!

On Sunday I borrowed one of Jeff’s kayaks and took my visiting son, Joe, with me to the pond.



It was pretty windy and I didn’t expect much but when you have a chance to share a passion with one of your kids you take it! And it was windy, the two of us were blown all over the pond but in the end I caught what was probably my nicest fish so far this year. I haven’t run the tape measure against my net to see what the actual size was but I’m guessing it’s in the 16” range.



What a nice rainbow, it took close to 15 minutes to bring it in. Again I was fishing an Elk Hair Caddis on top with a Prince Nymph dropper and picked this one up on the dropper.

Not a bad Mother’s Day weekend for a Dad!!

It Was Another Good Day of Fishing 5-3-09

Jeff and I split up this week and fished two different locations. Friday, Jeff played hooky and went up to the Pemi with another friend, Jamie, to try his hand hunting the Atlantic Salmon the State stocks. Jeff was fishing an Orange Bomber and I’ll leave it to him to post about his day.

I, on the other hand, had to work on Friday and with no one able to get out this weekend, I went back to my favorite pond to see if what I could do. So Sunday I packed up my kayak and headed for the pond to try my luck. It was an overcast day, around 62 degrees, no wind, and I had a window of about 3 hours before parenthood called me back home to run my son around. The pond wasn’t nearly as busy as it was last week but there were a few guys out fishing in canoes and kayaks. As I pulled up the fish were rising but I know enough about this place to know that just because they were rising, didn’t mean they would hit what I had to offer.

I started out with the rig that worked last week, I had a Elk Hair Caddis with a Bead Head Nymph dropper. But, unlike last week, they were hitting on top this week. Not a lot of action but I did manage to pick up a 10” Brookie within 15 minutes of being on the water. I thought this was going to be a great day! But that was it, nothing else even looked at my rig. I’m sure you know how frustrating it is to see fish rising all around you with nothing hitting what you’re fishing. Soon I started changing out what I was using. I noticed that in the beginning, I would only see swirls on the surface where the fish were rising but now I started to actually see them break the surface every now and then. Now I don’t profess to know how a fish thinks, nor do I profess to understand exactly what was going on but I did know they weren’t hitting my Nymph, I did get a hit on the dry but it wasn’t until the fly got pretty wet and started to sink a bit deeper into the film did I even get a second hit on the Caddis. I switched to a Crippled Elk Hair Caddis and my luck changed. I picked up another 2 Brookies, nice size, maybe 12” and 13” not bad. With the clock moving closer to my commitments back home, I headed to the boat ramp but started to actively cast the Crippled Elk Hair. I didn’t let it sit for long, just kept putting it out there, let it sit for about 30 seconds and cast again. As soon as it hit the water after 3-4 casts something hit it hard, nearly coming out of the water but I missed it. A few more casts and WHAM! I hooked into a 15” Tiger! Beautiful fish, I am only sorry that I didn’t have my camera for a picture.

Well that was it, I had to head home. For a quick 2 hour venture I picked up 3 Brookies and a nice sized Tiger trout. So far the season is off to a great start, let’s hope my luck holds for the rest of the season.