Summer Tails

We've been spending most of our time targeting reds lately.  High tide tailers and low tide crawlers, fly and conventional...we've been having a great time chasing my favorite spot tailed friends.  Here's a few recent photos.

 

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!

I got the phone call....

I got the phone call the other night.  Y'know, the one that starts off something like, "You got any plans tomorrow morning?"  And then before you know it, you've made plans to leave before daylight to head to some hot fishing location.  I'm usually real quick to say yes to those invites, which can sometimes get me into trouble...or like this one, lead to an amazing day on the water.





I rolled out of bed at around 4am the following morning, asking myself what I was thinking.  I'm not usually a morning person, except when i've got a date with some fish...but 4am was a bit much, even for going fishing.  I met up with Chuck Laughridge in Newbern and we made our way North to the Roanoke River.  We put the boat in at a little hot spot downstream a ways from the world famous Weldon, NC.  Before long, we were were dropping anchor, and both doubled up with Rockfish on our first casts. 

Andrew's first fish on fly.

Within 2 hours we had hit somewhere near seventy stripers, and an hour later I stopped counting at a hundred.  No monsters were landed but we had quite a few fish between 3 and 5lbs...which is a lot of fun on little 5 and 6wt fly rods.  The highlight of the morning wasn't the fish, but an 8 year old named Andrew, that we met on the river. His brother and father accompanied him, and they were being introduced
to the stripers by a mutual friend of ours. 

Number three on the fly.

His little brother was in desperate need of a potty break, so their crew decided to make a run back to the ramp.  We asked if Andrew could jump onboard with us while they were gone so he could continue fishing.  We only had to ask once and Andrew was climbing aboard our boat.  In less than 20 minutes time we gave him a crash coarse on basics of casting a fly rod, stripping the line, setting the hook and fighting a fish.  We did the casting for him, but let him handle the catching...and by the time his ride showed back up, he was in the process of landing his fourth 
striped bass on fly. 

Andrew continued to cheer us on from across the river through the rest of the morning.  We returned the favor and cheered for him everytime he hooked up on his spinning rod.  Although he held his own on the spinning rod, I've got to imagine he asked his dad for a flyrod before the day was over.  Chuck took a few of the photos on this report, so a big thanks to him for that and for the invite to go fishing.

This little guy was gutsy, the fly was as big as him.

The death of a fly line.

Couldn't stand it.

I woke up this morning with all intentions of hitting the water.  Unfortunately the wind was blowing pretty steady, the sky was gray, and the air was cold and rainy.  Around noon, the rain and wind died off and I hooked the trailer up to the truck and made a run for the ramp.  In the five minute drive from my house to the ramp the rain started again.  I sat parked at the ramp hoping it would clear so I could go chase some fish.  Apparently I nodded off at some point and woke up 45 minutes later and it was still sprinkling.  At this point I figured "why not", and put the boat in the water. 

I ran through the cold drizzle and ducked into a creek to find some fish.  I found several drum working through the bays and around the oyster bars.  I came up on a few redfish with their fins out of the water and was able to sneak up and hook one.  He came unbuttoned, and I moved on looking for another one.  I ended up fishing a deep hole in the creek and finding several flounder, with two being big enough to ride home with me in the cooler.  At this point, I had dealt with enough rain and cold, and made the run back home.

Gator, Flounder and Reds...oh my

I had the pleasure of having Rick Grither aboard my boat today.  Rick is an accomplished fly fisherman and photographer.  He fishes as much as any person I've ever met, and most of the time he can be found walking the surf line chasing blues, spanish and the like.  I was looking forward to seeing if I could put him on some reds in the marsh today. 

We met at the ramp this morning, and Rick presented me with a bag from Dunkin Donuts...so I knew we were already off to a good start.  The sky was mostly full of gray clouds with just a bit of blue sky peeking through, but the wind was dead calm.  We launched the skiff and made a long run down to a little creek that I hadn't fished in months.  The last time I was there it was full of fish, but they had moved on, and the water level was dropping quick so we split.

The next creek we stopped at is one of my favorite creeks...mostly because I've never been there without seeing fish.  I started poling and Rick snapped a few pics as we went along.  We started seeing wakes in the creek, so Rick picked up his 8wt and started making casts.  I couldn't tell if the wakes were from reds or big mullet at first, but then I started seeing reds cruising the bank heading out with the tide.  Rick made some well presented casts but the reds were in a rush and weren't interested in stopping for a bite to eat.

I poled up the creek and we continued to see reds moving ahead of us.  As we got farther up the creek, we saw several pushes in an area where I always see fish.  We saw a few tails pop up, but the fish were super nervous and were bolting out of the shallow water.  You could track the fish by the sprays of tiny grass shrimp as the reds shot out of the bay they were in.  Rick and I were focusing hard on the fish as he took shots at them and I quietly moved the boat forward.  As we moved along, I picked up my push pole and placed the foot of it in the water beside the motor.  But when I did this, something unusual happened...the water under the poling platform exploded.  I immediately did a 180 and saw a 6ft plus angry alligator right below me.  Apparently we poled right over him in the muddy water and woke him up when I touched him with the pole.  At this point the gator swam down stream, and stopped between us and our exit to the little creek, and came up to the surface hissing and showing off his pearly whites.  Rick snapped some great shots as I tried to pole the boat around the alligator in the middle of the narrow creek.  We made a decision to let Mr. Cranky Pants have those reds and we moved back to the mouth of the creek to find the first fish we saw. 

We got a hundred yards down the creek and found several fish working.  I staked the boat out and we both started making casts.  We had several fish follow the flies and turn off after a few feet.  We switched flies and had the same issue.  Although the reds weren't happy with our offerings, the flounder were, and we caught several.  I decided to continue poling down the creek and Rick tied on an old standby fly.  He made a cast to a fish working ahead of us and connected.  A few minutes later, Rick brought a really nice red to the boat for a few pics and a quick release.  On his next cast he hooked another big fish, but the leader broke before we could land it.  I poled us out of the creek and saw several more flounder zip out of our way, including one over 5lbs in 8" of water!






Storm clouds were starting to build, so I made a run to my current favorite spot.  I knew if we could get to the back of this creek before it rained, he'd have a shot at crawling reds in clear water.  As we entered the creek I ran past some reds so I killed the engine and started poling.  After a few minutes, we heard a whistling sound in the grass and looked over and saw a whirlwind moving across the spartina grass.  The grass was twisting and blowing in one spot, while everything else was calm.  We watched the whirlwind come across the grass and cross the creek a fly cast away from us.  As if the day hadn't been enough of an adventure already, the skies opened up into a downpour immediately afterwards.  We made the run back to the ramp in a torrential down pour.

Once we got back to the ramp and changed into some dry clothes, Rick treated me to a BBQ plate and some sweet tea at the local restaurant.  Some of the photos in this post were taken by Rick, so many thanks to him for the pics and the great day on the water.  We'll do it again soon.