Sharks are here...

Black Tips, Spinners, Sharp Nose, Bonnetheads and all their buddies are in town.  I love sharks, and try to spend some time chasing them each season.  A chum slick and some fresh bait is almost a guaranteed thing, but some of these guys will also take a well presented fly.  Our shark fishing can be very visual, as we are usually fishing in only a few feet of clear water, so you can see the sharks come into view and track down your offering. 










The sharks we target, range from 10-15lb bonnetheads to 100lb+ spinners and black tips.  It's a blast to catch these fish, and we let them all go to fight another day.  We should have shots at these fish through September.

 

Mulberry hatch

This is an out of state fishing report, but it was too cool not to post.  We recently got back from a family trip to Pennsylvania.  The week consisted of train rides with my little boy, visits to the Amish country, tours of Hershey's Chocolate Factory, and early morning visits to a very fishy creek. 




Before the trip, some research showing we would be in Smallmouth and Carp country peaked my interest.  Along with all the essentials for a family vacation, I packed my 5wt and 7wt and a bunch of fly tying material.  I tied up some woolly buggers and carp patterns on the ride up.  We spent the first afternoon locating access points to Mill Creek and looking for fish.  The first stop had plenty of room for fly casting but the only fish we saw were bream zipping in and out of their hiding spots.  One of the places we stopped had access to the creek way in the back of a city park.  This section of creek was lined with trees that overhung the water.  For the first few minutes I saw no fish, but then came across a carp milling around under a tree branch.  As a looked, more carp began to materialize and I ended up counting a dozen or more under this one branch.  I wondered why they were congregating, until I heard a light plop on the water.  After a few more plops, I realized that something was falling from the tree and the carp were eating these things off of the surface.  I looked down and saw little purple mulberries on the ground around my feet.  I picked up a few and tossed them in the water, and watched the carp rush to them and inhale them from the surface.  I ran back to the hotel, to sort through my fly tying materials and come up with some type of berry fly.

The next morning, I was back at the creek at first light with a fly box full of spun deer hair flies trimmed down to the size and shape of the berries.  The carp were still there, so I lined myself up to make a cast between the trees out to the carp.  The fly landed on the water with a plop, and a carp swam over to it, enhaled it, and spit it back out instantly.  I soon realized that it was going to be harder than I thought to trick these carp into believing these flies were berries.  I fed about five carp before I had one close it's mouth around the fly... and when he did, I set the hook and he took off peeling line out. 

Over the next few mornings I would spend a few hours chasing carp.  The first day was by far the best.  The other days had less carp at the surface, but there were also less berries falling from the trees.   Almost every carp I cast too, came up to the fly and ate.  Only one out of every five or so fish would actually hold on to the fly for the split second it took to set the hook.  I ended up catching around seven carp in the 10-15lb range on those mornings.  I also caught my first smallmouth, a few largemouth and some sunfish, all on the berry fly.  I spoke for a while with a maintenance man at the park who told me that the "berry hatch" only happens for about 2 weeks of the year.  I hit the berry hatch by pure luck.

On a side note, we visited nearby Hershey Chocolate factory on the 3rd day of our trip.  I punched "fly shop" into the GPS as I was in need of some more material for my berry flies.  "Clouser Fly Shop" popped up on the GPS as being 5 miles away. We ran over to the shop hoping it would still be open.  We drove into a neighborhood and stopped at a house with a hand painted sign out front that said "Clouser Fly Shop".  There was a jet drive jon boat parked in front of the house and two more in the side yard.  I walked around the side of the house and into the fly shop which was an extension of the house.  As I stepped in, I saw a room packed with materials and flies from the floor to ceiling but didn't see anyone in the shop.  I walked to the back of the room and peaked my head into the office, and saw Bob Clouser himself sitting at his fly tying desk.  I introduced myself and Bob dug through his tying materials and found me a few pieces of deer hair to tie more carp flies with.  We talked for a while about fishing and he was kind enough to give me a clouser fly out of his box before I left.  Some of the carp I caught that week, were on flies tied with the materials he gave me.  Thanks Bob!

Rockfish and Redfish

I had the pleasure of taking long time friend Todd Spangler out for a shot at his first striped bass on fly.  Todd and I have fished together several times but he just recently became serious about fly fishing.  He purchased a new 7wt rod and reel a month before, but had not broken it in on a fish yet.  The lower roanoke was still holding good numbers of stripers, so we set a date and went after them.

I left the house around 4am and picked Todd up an hour later as we made the drive North towards the Roanoke.  We got on the river around 7am and made the run to a secret little spot that the stripers love to hang at.  The depth finder quickly showed us what I was hoping for...a bunch of stripers hanging below the boat.  We got the boat in position and I explained to Todd where to cast, how long to let the line sink and how to strip the fly back in for a strike. 

Todd made a great first cast towards the fish and started counting down as the fly sank into the depths below.  Todd wasted no time hooking up on a striped bass about 3 strips into the retrieve of the first cast.  The rod doubled over, and I could tell from the smile on his face that he was gonna have a great morning.

Over the next few hours we would catch a handful of fish and then reposition again when the fish moved away from us.  It wasn't as red hot as I've seen it before, but we still had an awesome morning.  Todd ended up catching around 30 striped bass on flies he tied himself...not bad for his first real fly fishing trip.  I caught a few too, and we ended up bringing about 75 fish to the boat to be released.  We took a few quick hero shots, but released most of the fish while they were still in the water, allowing them to recover quickly without being exposed to the warm air temps.  I can safely say that Todd is a fly fishing addict now, and I know we'll have many more exciting trips in our future.

The following day I had the pleasure of taking Trevor Devine out on a trip looking for redfish on fly.  Trevor lives outside of Charlotte, where he normally chases trout and carp on the fly rod.  He was hoping to get a little saltwater action while he was down.  Trevor had not caught a red before, so we set out to put him on one.  We dropped the boat in at low tide, and made a run to a good spot for fish on low water. 

We pushed around for a while and started running into reds.  It was mid day and the water was very shallow so most of the fish spooked before we had an opportunity to cast to them.  We ended up in one small bay that had around 75 redfish, with the majority of them being 28"-32"s...there were some really nice fish in there.  Unfortunately most of them were very spooky in the shallow water and they were not in the mood to eat for us.  It was an awesome sight, watching dozens of big reds zoom around the flat, some bumping into the boat as they tried to escape...I even saw one pair of reds run head on into each other. 

As the tide came in, we moved to another spot that held a good number of redfish.  With a bit deeper water, they were tough to see, but they were a lot less spooky.  Trevor ended up hooking into his first and second redfish on fly while we fished this section of water.  I had a great time fishing with him, and was glad to see his persistence pay off.  Nice job Trevor!