Summer fun with carp

I hate to say this, but Connecticut kinda sucks for trout fishing in summer. Sorry.

I hit the Salmon River as often as I can these days, but with sunny days and temperatures that melt your brain inside your skull the trout really aren't biting. Every so often I'll get to go out in the dark or during a rainstorm and the fish will take what I'm throwing, but I am, of course, at the mercy of the random New England weather. Most days the forecast calls for sun and we get random brief thunder showers. When it calls for rain we get sunshine and mugginess. Thanks weather.com. I may as well ask a magic 8 ball.

HOWEVER...

I'm nothing if not stubborn, and I refuse to let the summer heat beat me. I'm making an effort to target bass, though I have few bass flies. Wooly Buggers and Clousers will do the trick, but truthfully any small item moving in the water is prey to them. I've hooked small bass (and numerous sunnies) stripping in a dry fly. Whatever works. Though I have yet to LAND a largemouth bass on a fly rod, it's not from lack of trying.

My new mechanic is on the Quinnipiac river just downstream from the Wild Trout Management Area. The river is low and slow right off the bat, regardless of weather or spring runoff, and it's just a little bit grimy. Naturally I pegged it as a decent bass river, and set myself up with a 3x tippet and a white wooly Bugger. My backcast was blocked by the treeline, and I lost several flies the last time I fished here because I overestimated the clearance. I can only get my fly out so far with a roll cast, but I did my best. I varied my retrieves: short and fast, short and slow, slow and steady, fast and steady...even jerky erratic movements. The sunnies are building their nests this time of year so they were extra aggressive. I was pulling them in left and right, quickly unhooking them, then releasing them back into their pool. 

I also had a hookup with a largemouth on a slow drop and a jerky, erratic retrieve. He wasn't very big, but he yanked like he was. I fought him for a minute or two, then he unhooked himself. I'm using only barbless hooks, which obviously means my fish come unbuttoned pretty often. However, I feel the benefits outweigh the detriments, and my conscience doesn't gnaw at me quite so much.

While trying to re-entice the same bass, I saw some large carp swimming by. I immediately tied on a small Klinkhammer dry and started casting to them, only to have them refuse it over and over. I watched where they went and saw the carp were congregating at the head of the pool, so I reeled in my line and got a little closer.

I've been listening to the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast on a regular basis and watching their videos, and there is a good amount of information about fly fishing for carp. I did my best to remember what I'd seen and heard, and I made it a point to follow these carp and try casting to them. My Klinkhammer was getting waterlogged and I had no floatant with me, so I switched to a smaller dry fly. While casting to the carp I kept hooking up with juvenile smallmouth bass, which, under normal circumstances would have been cool, but in this case it was more annoying than anything else. I did my best to quickly unhook them and get my fly back out to the carp before they swam off. 

Eventually the carp had refused my fly enough to warrant changing the pattern. They weren't really hitting the topwater stuff at the moment, and they were clearly digging in the mud for underwater bugs. I tied on a size 12 pheasant tail nymph and began casting to them. I had to get my fly to drop right by their heads or else they would just ignore it. Eventually a smaller carp took the fly and I set the hook, only to have the carp run and snap my line. I did the same thing with a second carp a few moments later.

The third pheasant tail I tied on, I dropped right by one of the biggest carp and he took it. I set the hook and that fucker RAN! He went clear to the end of the pool and back. As soon as i started reeling and putting pressure on him he would do it again, and again, and again...this fish would not let up. I spent a good 15-20 minutes fighting this fish, only to realize my net wasn't big enough to handle him, and besides, every time he saw me reach out with it he ran again. Eventually he had tired enough that I could swing his head out of the water and scoop him up with my puny trout net. He was so big his back half hung out of my net and I had to carry it into the shallows with two hands! I'm horrible at guessing weight, so I won't bother taking a stab at it and making an ass of myself. All I know was it was a solid fish. I unhooked him and released him back into his pool relatively unscathed.

So I'm going to continue to target carp when possible during the summer months. Connecticut is full of them in just about every small pond and slow river. Hell, theres a large group of them in the river right behind my tattoo shop! They are quite hard to hook, even harder to land, and are pretty damned fun overall. I need to tie up some carp (and bass) flies and put them to good use over the rest of the summer.

Trout are great, but fuck 'em if they don't want what i'm selling. any port in a storm, as they say.

Thanks for looking!

Snag hag Beelzebass tees

Snag Hag Beelzebass tee shirts now available! Sizes small through 2XL, $15 each, shipping included. PayPal is patrickmurdough@yahoo.com. If you want one you'd better grab one, it's a small run of shirts. Thanks for looking!

Making The Best Of It 7/10/14

So I have this fishing spot near my house...and for once I'm not going to tell you where it is.

This particular spot isn't easily accessible, nor is it visible from public roads. Because of this it doesn't get a lot of fishing pressure. Because of THAT, the fishing there is pretty decent. There's a healthy population of largemouths, as well as pickerel, perch, and various sunfish. Its probably one of my favorite fishing spots.

My son is 9 months old this week, and currently sleeps what seems like 2 hours a night total. This means very late nights and very early mornings for all of us, but especially for my wife, as she is often the only one who can soothe our little howler monkey at 4 AM. I do my best to get up with him in the early mornings so my wife can get a LITTLE more sleep; however this cuts into my opportunities to go fishing a substantial amount. Imagine my surprise the previous night when my wife told me I should go fishing in the morning! I think I peed a little...

My son started to get noisy around 5:00AM, so we all pretty much got up and started our day. I got to the spot around 5:30; there's a ten minute hike and some mild bushwhacking involved, but once you get out of the woods its nice and clear. The water isn't overly weedy like most spots this time of year, and while I love throwing topwater frogs, I was STOKED to be able to change it up a bit.

I had no time to prep my gear, which was scattered between my car, my wife's car, our shed, and my drawing desk. My spinning reel was running on empty, so all I had was a pair of bait casting reels spooled with 20 pound Fireline Crystal braid. I brought my Cabelas Tourney Trail spinning rod and a heavy saltwater jigging rod, my temporary replacement for my broken Bass Pro casting rod. I brought my big swim baits, my soft plastics tote, some frogs, and a few crank baits.

I started with my standby, the KVD Strike King Swim'n Caffeine Shad. I left my newly purchased bag of green and whites in my car, so I stuck with the unused silver ones I'd bought months ago. I always opted for the green over the silver for fear of finding the latter useless compared to the former. Usually I fish them with little or no weight as I prefer to dead twitch them on the fall and the retrieve. In spite of this my heavy rod was already rigged with a 3/8 oz weight from my last fishing trip, and I didn't feel like retying my setup, so I said fuck it and started casting.

Fishing with the braid was nice because, while the weeds here are minimal, there are plenty of rocks and logs to get hooked on. The braid allowed me to rip through most hangups as well as feel the lightest of taps. Two or three casts in I had a solid hit from a 1.5 pound bass. With no fear of the braid snapping I horsed him, unhooked him, weighed him, and threw him back.  I got three more hits on the KVDs, all under two pounds, before I snapped my line off on a cast and decided to try something else for a change.

Tried a few cranks and frogs before I eventually switched to a Rapala DT series in brown and yellow. After dredging up weeds from the bottom on the first two casts I got a hit from another 1.5 pound bass, then another hit me but jumped the hook about halfway in.

My time was running short and I wanted to get a few more fish before I headed home. I tied on another hook and weight but this time I used a black and red senko worm, only to have a fish take it and somehow slip the knot and get away. I replaced the hook and put on another KVD which got me two more hits before my trip was over.

Once again, the KVD comes through, albeit with an assist from Rapala. I feel kind of bad throwing the same stuff over and over again, like I should switch it up more, but my trips are so infrequent and sporadic now that I really want to make the best of my time out and catch as many fish as I possibly can. In spite of this Sharkey and I have talked about doing a trip out and a post about buying weirdo budget shit lures from clearance racks and my local gas station in order to keep things lively. That will probably happen sometime in the near future. Until then or when the fish stop biting them, the KVDs will remain my default.

Pat Gets Wet at Miller's 06/16/2014

I am trying to keep this post more brief and to the point than past ones...

So once again I returned to Miller's in the hopes that I could get a strike on a big swimbait. The moon was still out when I arrived. I started with my Savage Gear trouts, which I'd got strikes on before, but nothing seemed to want them this time around. 

I switched to my 9 inch sinking 22nd Century Baits Triple Trout hardbait, a rather expensive piece of hardware. This bait is supposedly good for seeking out bass because of how wide it swims and also because the double hinges squeak as the bait clacks its way through the water. 

After a few casts from my favorite spot at Miller's, I managed to snag it just offshore in about seven or eight feet of water. I yanked as hard as I could to try and free it, but could not do so. For a moment I resigned myself to simply giving up the lure and moving on. 

It was then, however, that I got the idiotic idea to swim out to retrieve it. After all, it was only out about ten feet from shore, and I could follow my braided line all the way out to the snag.

 I would like to mention that this was the first time I have ever swam out to retrieve a fishing lure. I have no inclinations towards water or swimming, and have not swam for several months, if not years. I weigh about 200 pounds currently and am not a good swimmer/athelete and cannot open my eyes underwater anyways. Although none of this occurred to me at the time. 

I stripped down to my boxers and climbed down into the pond, which seemed freezing cold at the time. Our summer has yet to kick in to high gear and it still gets kind of cold at night. I got acclimated to the temperature and began to doggy paddle / drown my way out to the snag. 

Once there I attempted to tread water but could not do so because I was already exhausted from the swim out. I wrapped my hand around the braid and began to yank at it in the hopes of freeing my lure, only to slice up my hand profusely. 

The act of staying afloat for mere moments exhausted me and I returned to shore. Once there I sat on a rock in my soaked boxers, panting in exhaustion for several minutes. 

After I caught my breath I grabbed my rod for one last try to yank the lure loose. I figured I would either snap the line or break my rod in the process, but at that point I was comfortable with both of those outcomes. "Fuck it."

I pulled my rod up as hard as I could, and after a few seconds I felt a release of tension and assumed it was my line breaking. I began to reel and...lo and behold...my triple trout was free! The hook had bent just enough to release it!

A few lessons here:

Don't throw expensive swimbaits until you know where the rocks and potential snags are. 

Braided line cuts hurt. Like a fucking lot. Avoid them if possible. Mine hurt for days, and being a Tattooer I had to constantly wash my hands, opening up the wounds over and over again. Braid is dangerous, handle it with care. 

Braided line is strong stuff. I was using 20 pound Fireline and I gave that pull as much strength as I could muster, and the hook gave out before the line did! 

Finally, if you don't swim well, dont bother going out to retrieve your lures. If you love something, let it go. But then pull on it REALLY HARD, and if comes back to you it was truly meant to be. 

I didn't catch anything at Miller's in the four hours or so I was there. Not even a goddamned nibble.  Oh well. 

Thanks for reading, and see you next time. 

Upper Moodus Reservoir with Sharkey 06/14/2014

Sharkey and I set out at about 4:30 AM and got to Moodus by 5:00, and from there we parked at the beach along the Lower Moodus Reservoir and fished at the tressel. There were already people fishing for crappie and one gentleman had a bucket full of them that he brought home. So apparently the crappie bite there is decent.

Sharkey caught a largemouth from shore using a red lipless crank bait. I got a tap on a Savage Gear Line Thru trout, but no follow up bite to set the hook. 

At 6:30 we went to Lakeside Dan's, a small tackle shop tucked back into the Upper Reservoir. We rented a small rowboat, which neither of us really had any experience with. We proceeded to struggle our way out into open water and across the reservoir to a large group of lily pads. 

I had no hits on large swimbaits, but the KVD shads came through again with a solid bass and a pickerel. I threw them at the edge of the pads and slowly reeled them in with little twitches now and again. 

We eventually realized that the boat was taking on water through a small bolt hole in the side, and we decided to move back closer to shore before we sank ourselves. In the process Sharkey lost his lipless crank when he hooked into a big stump in the middle of the pads and we couldn't maneuver the boat close enough to retrieve it. 

Sharkey was at the front of the boat as we ran ashore, and he stood and hopped out before I could shift my weight. The entire back end of the boat dipped into the water, thoroughly soaking me and my gear, much to the amusement of my compatriot and several onlookers. 

After I berated Sharkey with a wide variety of insults, we moved back to the tressel to find that the other fishermen left. We worked our way along the road past a long cove that was filled with more lily pads. About halfway between the edge of the pads and the neighboring point,  I managed to get a strike on a green Booyah Pad Crasher but missed the hook set yet again. I have yet to master the trick of the weedless frog hook set. I know you are supposed to wait a second after the strike before you set the hook, but my timing is always off and the frog always floats to the surface once again. 

 Sharkey tried his luck at the tressel once more but had no luck there. When two other fishermen made their way down the road and positioned themselves right alongside us at the tressel we decided to pack it in for the day and head in to work. 

I managed to lose two rigged Savage Gear trouts during casts on this outing, presumably because of either (A) the rod I was using is not a freshwater casting rod and therefore not flexible enough to absorb some of the shock on the cast, (B) I am still snapping my rod too much when I cast big swimbaits and have not yet gotten the hang of casting them with more of a smooth swinging motion, or (C) both. I lost a few more at Miller's Pond a few days later in the same manner. I intend to switch back to my original casting rod in the hopes that this will at least partially lower my odds of snapping off during a cast.