October's For the Trout

 

    "And all at once, summer collapsed into fall" - Oscar Wilde 

    It's funny how universal it is the way people find a certain ethereal beauty in the changing of the leaves. How we go for long drives and hikes in October, watching hillsides and forests turn from their summer greens and are soon set ablaze in fiery reds and oranges. How we all find beauty within the dying of chloroplasts; an allure in the cutting off of circulation within the organs of some of our planet's most important living things. Fall's a time of change, when everything here in the North-East starts bundling up in preparation for the hard winters. 

    Our streams and rivers here get what I like to call "the leaf hatch." When the leaves start falling, they start clogging up the water column in slower and deeper parts of the streams and rivers, making it far more difficult for resident trout to find your flies. You got to make a lot more drifts. 

    Approaching one of my local Central PA limestoners, I tied on a double nymph rig with a #14 Pheasant-tail going down to a #18 Prince, and started working the first riffle. Here, the water was fast enough that the leaf hatch wasn't an issue. All of a sudden, my bobber dips down, and I lift to nothing but slack. Wondering if that was a fish or bottom, I made a second drift in there and immediately get dropped. I lift and instantly feel several headshakes before the fish pops off. Onto the next riffle. 

    A few more on the way up, I manage to stick a fingerling wild rainbow on a Prince Nymph. Wild bows are unique in the North-East. Not many streams have populations of true wild fish, and previously, the only ones I've caught in the past have been on salmon eggs in the veins of the Finger Lakes. They're beautiful animals, with distinct mottled pink dots on a backdrop of green and silver. 

    I moved up the creek as the sun moved across the sky and as the wind picked up, the black walnuts began to fall everywhere, soft thuds echoing throughout the trees every few minutes. I managed to pick off a few several more small fish, mostly on the little Prince Nymph. 

    Arriving at one of the deepest spots in the stream, my attention was drawn to a few large suckers sitting on the bottom. I tried drifting the nymphs in front of them, but they paid little attention to anything I had to offer, so I put the bobber back on and began working my way up, picking up a few small browns on the Prince. 

    Lobbing my rig to the top of a deep hole, I soon lost track of the bobber and reflexively set the hook. My 5wt doubles over, and I was soon able to bring to hand a beautiful 13 inch brown on a pheasant-tail. 

    Spring Creek is no longer a stocked watershed, having established populations of wild browns and rainbows from original stockings many years ago. It's a great opportunity to fish somewhere you can guarantee that every single fish you swing your flies past is stream-born and stream-bred. 

Cheers. fishy people. 

    

Who's the Sucker now?

 

    Central PA is full of limestone streams. These creeks cut winding paths through our rolling mountains and hills, staying cold and clear all year round from mountain spring water. These creeks are small, clean, and full of aquatic insects that keep robust trout populations fat and lazy. This also makes them extremely challenging places to fish. 

    One of the most famous of these limestoners is Spring Creek. This is the stream made famous by PA Fly Fishing Legend Joe Humphreys, who developed some of his most famous nymphing techniques while trying to fool trout in this extremely technical body of water. And lucky me, I just happen to now live within walking distance of Spring Creek in State College. 

    I'm very new to the game of fly fishing for trout. I love wading streams or walking along the shoreline of ponds, casting a 5wt with a foam popping bug for sunfish and small bass. However, where I live near Philadelphia, the only trout we have are mutated, finless pelletheads that only exist in our streams from when the truck dumps them in March to when the water gets too hot to support them in June. The only trout I've ever caught on the fly was a stocked holdover rainbow I managed to sight fish on a black wooly bugger. While I'm at school, I'll make it a goal for myself to be able to explore more wild trout streams and call myself a half-decent fly fisherman by the end of it. 

    My first time on Spring Creek was a misty September morning. My first instinct, having little experience with this fishery, was to tie on a streamer and start throwing it at every single piece of structure I could find. However, I wanted to force myself to learn how to nymph. I tied on a black stonefly, threw it under a split shot and "indicator," and started making drifts. Soon, my bobber hesitated and I struck. A few headshakes, a golden flash, and suddenly, the fish spat the hook. Still, that was the first trout I ever hooked on a nymph, and was a huge confidence booster. I continued working my way up. 

    After that, I came across a shallow riffle that I didn't think it would be effective to bobber fish through. Instead, I put my bait-fishing experience to use, tying on a pink San Juan worm and taking off the float, bouncing bottom through the run. A fish ate on the first drift, giving me my very first wild brown trout on the fly. 

    It wasn't long after that fish that I landed a nicer one on the same set up, this one giving a few spectacular jumps before being brought to hand. This fish had battle scars too, most likely from a past encounter with a bird-of-prey. 

    Soon after releasing that fish, in all his scarred beauty, I had to leave. However, a few days later, after leaving my Biology lecture and switching out my bookbag for my fly rod, I headed back down to the creek. 

    Starting off with a double nymph rig, consisting of a #14 Hare's Ear going down to a #18 Pheasant-tail, I caught a few very small rainbows and browns drifting it through shallow riffles. Soon, I approached the deepest hole on this section of Spring Creek. Adjusting my float so the nymphs would hang just above the bottom, I made a few drifts. When I bobber dropped and I lifted, a massive fish flashed below. 

    Holy shit, I thought, this might be a 20 inch brown. It rolled over, gave several headshakes in the current, and then took off upstream, putting line on the reel. As I gingerly fought this fish as much as I could with 4x tippet, amongst closer inspection, it turned to be a massive white sucker, my nymph planted right in the corner of the mouth. I eventually beached this fish, grinning like a madman. This fish probably got caught by the only fly fisherman on Spring Creek who was more excited to catch a sucker than a trout. 

    I love native fish. The ironic thing is that brown trout, which every angler on the stream are seeking, are an imported species, brought over in barrels from Europe and stocked. Suckers have been here since the beginning of time. Native peoples existed for thousands of years from spearing and smoking suckers when they made their yearly spawning runs. They're a fish I can respect. 

    Maybe someday I'll be on the deck of a boat on a tropical flats somewhere, throwing 40 ft double hauls to cruising bonefish and tarpon. Maybe I'll make it to some fancy big name western River, getting giant trout to sip hoppers off the surface. I can choose how my fly fishing journey ends. But I can definitory say that the starting point will always be these small, technical, and beautiful Pennsylvania streams

Cheers, fishy people 

Catfish Binge

    Hooray for college! That's where I'm writing this from. I've recently moved into Penn State Main Campus, so expect more trout fly fishing content published. However, right before I left, Slavik and I decided to have one last hurrah, ending the summer with a bang. Considering our shared love of catfishing, we decided to do an all night-catfish session on the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. 

    This expedition started exactly how any good catfish session should start. Throwing trout magnets around the creek behind my neighborhood for bait. After about 20 minutes, I had enough sunnies for a proper soak. After driving over to Slavik's house to pick him up, we made our way down to the Delaware right as the sun was going down. 

    I'm a huge believer in window-theory for catfish. However, sometimes I believe a spot change can also make a huge difference. After Slavik and I fished for about an hour with only one half-hearted run, we made the decision to move further up to a dock, giving us access to deeper water. Within a few minutes, I get a run, landing the first channel cat of the night. 

    A few minutes after that one, my baitrunner goes off again. I let the circle hook set itself, then begin fighting this fish, which is giving much more headshakes and runs than the last. The fish then runs straight at me, and as I struggle to pick up line quick enough, it wraps itself around the prop of a boat docked at the location, breaking straight through 20lb mono. 

    At this point, we were getting sleep deprived and more and more incoherent. Slavik and I decided to make a move and go to Wawa to fuel up the car and get some energy drinks. After enough Monster Energy to make any drywall within 20 ft of me feel unsafe, we took a look at the map. A section of the Schuylkill river was only about a half hour's drive from where we were, and considering it was 1:00 in the morning, I could get there even faster. 

    The Schuylkill is a much better known flathead river than the Delaware. While flatheads are native to the Western portion of the state in the Ohio River drainage and down into the Mother of All Waters, the Mississippi, they are invasive in the Susquehanna, Schuylkill, and Delaware. The Skuke was one of the first places that they were accidently introduced, and over time, their populations have exploded. 

    Arriving at the Schuylkill around 1:30, we quickly got lines set in. At this spot, a creek flowing into the main river and a bridge provided ample structure for fish to hide under. I set out my larger rod out in the middle of the river and casted my lighter set-up with a chunk of sunfish into the creek mouth. My baitrunner starts screaming a few minutes later. 

    I reeled down and let the circle hook set, and instantly, the $15 fiberglass rod I was using doubles over. Drag is singing off the reel and seeing as my line was set right next to a log jam, I put more pressure on the fish until I was sure it was clear. A tug-of-war ensued as I put as much pressure as I dared with 20lb monofilament to keep it out of the structure. Eventually, I managed to get this fish around a big rock and drag it right up the bank, landing my biggest flathead ever. 

    After sending that fish on it's way, we got bait back out. That same rod went off again several minutes later, and Slavik jumped on it. The rod doubled over and drag started singing, indicating that this fish was even bigger than the last. However, the same log jam proved to be an obstacle, and that fish managed to run into the structure and snap him off clean. 

    That window came and went, with no other pick-ups or bites. However, being down at the Schuylkill at night gave us a whole new perspective on the life that was in the river. Normally, the river, which runs straight through center-city Philadelphia, is thought of as polluted and lifeless. During big rain storms, thousands of rats that live in Philly get washed into the river from the sewage systems, and channels cats and bass in the Schuylkill will sip them down like wild trout sipping mayflies during a big hatch. However, life still persists in the river. There were crayfish under practically every rock, and a resident snapping turtle decided to hang out right next to where our rods were. 

    Throughout the night and into the early morning, Slavik managed to hook two more confirmed flatheads. However, all of our bites came around large pieces of structure, and we were unable to land them. We'll be back. The sun slowly started creeping up over the horizon, and we were exhausted and delirious. I made the long drive back home early about an hour after first light, and as soon as I dropped Slavik back off and made it home, I crashed. 

    Night fishing is tough. Relying on feel and auditory cues only adds a whole new challenge to the game. However, it can give you a whole new perspective on bodies of water that you thought you knew well. 

Cheers, fishy people. 

Lessons from Catfishing

 

    Most anglers start out simple, knowing fishing as putting a piece of bait on a hook and casting it out, hoping a hungry fish will pick it up. However, so many of us deviate away from that. So many of us act like we're too good to fish worms under a bobber for trout or sunnies, live-line shiners to bass, or chunk for catfish. Even today, I do way more fishing with flies and lures than I do with bait, partially for convenience reasons, but mostly because I enjoy the challenge of force-feeding fish, attempting to pattern these creatures we don't fully understand, and finding the key that'll flip the switch in their brain to make them want to kill shit. However, the more I did this, the more I realized how much I loved being a little kid soaking pieces of sweetcorn for the carp in his local pond. In January of this year, I decided that for 2023, I'd make an effort to soak enough to make even BYU students jealous. 

    So there I was, on a cool August morning, eating my cheerios at the breakfast table, when I get a call from my buddy Kyle, asking me if I wanted to fish today at a spot on the river near his house. The fact that this was a private stretch of river with a dock, and Kyle was friends with the landowner, didn't hurt either. 

    Hell yeah, I responded, jumping into my minivan and racing down to the creek down the street from my house. A few minutes with a gold trout magnet later, and I had enough sunnies for a proper river catfishing session. 

    When I got there, the river was full on chocolate milk. Heavy rains upstate had brought the river up almost two feet overnight, and that Nesquik was chock full of floating logs and other assorted debris items. However, if cocoa water is good for anything, it's good for catfish. I sent out two rods with chunks into this quiet little cove. 

    After about half an hour of sitting there, twiddling our thumbs, a flurry hit. Kyle and I got several runs in a 15 minute window, managing to land a pair of decent channel cats. 

    With catfish, I believe in window theory. From my experience, bites will almost always come in waves or flurries, and if you're posted up in a spot where you know the fish will be, your best bet is to wait until they start putting the feed bag on. Several years back, when I caught my personal best channel cat at 12 lbs, my grandpa and I had fished cutbait for about three hours with no bites before my fish hit. As I was fighting him, the other rod went off, and my grandpa landed an 11 lber almost simultaneously.  

    Kyle and I fished for a few more hours, with no more real catfish bites. However, we did see a entire tree drifting down through the rapids. 

    After that, we decided to pack it up. We kept one of the channel cats, and afterwards skinned and fileted it at Kyle's house for the frying pan. Go out and soak some bait, you'll be surprised on what you'll learn. 

Cheers, fishy people. 

    

Invasives and Mutants

 

    Fish get into places where they're not supposed to be. This is a pretty well known fact among anglers. From the ditch behind the shopping center to the highest alpine lakes, we never know exactly every single species that swims in there. This fact however, remains especially true in an open river system. 

    It was late May, at the tailing end of a massive rainstorm. My friend Max and I gave it a day or two to clear up, then made plans to go attempt to catch our first snakeheads of the year. 

    Early season snakeheads typically involve fishing lower and slower than I'd like to. There are guys that will only fish for snakes with topwater. For them, snakehead fishing is all about watching a fish wake on a frog or buzzbait in shallow water, slowly coaxing it until it opens it's maw and absolutely engulfs your lure in a violent surface explosion. If that's not going to happen, then they don't want to catch them. I'd agree that if snakes will eat on top, then I don't want to catch them any other way. However, I'll tie on a chatterbait or spinnerbait if they're feeling slow and hugging bottom. 

    That seemed to be the type of mood that they were in today. I covered water with a spook, hoping to raise a strike. Nothing except a few largemouths were willing to play. Tying on my trusted white chatterbait, and making a few casts, I got slammed. Felt those signature snakehead-shakes, where the entire body of the fish undulates backwards when it first realizes it's hooked. 

    The first snake of the year is always special. It's a kickoff, a sign that summer is about to come, with it's warm nights, tree frogs, and topwater explosions. A few minutes after I release that fish, Max comes trudging out of the forest to join me. We move on to a different spot, catching many smaller bass and walleyes on swimbaits and jerkbaits. Wanting to fish a little bit deeper, I put on a zoom fluke with a jighead. Popping it off the bottom, something grabs my jig. Setting the hook, I feel dead weight. The fish takes off into the current. On the first flash, I thought walleye, but walleyes don't fight that hard. 

    "Big rainbow!" yells Max. I'm instantly pumped. I've only landed one other holdover trout from the Delaware, and it was years ago. However, I get this fish closer and notice it has a series of vermiculations along the back. Tiger trout. My first one ever. 

    Tiger trout are a funny deal. A hybrid between a brook trout and a brown trout, there are very few places where they'll occur naturally. Largely an artificial hatchery creation, tiger trout are stocked in certain areas, but not around here. Tigers exhibit what's called "hybrid aggression," where cross breeds of two different species are typically much more aggressive than either parent counterpart. That fish must have washed in from a different stocked stream much further north, growing fat in the river on larger baitfish, and holding out through the summers with it's much higher tolerance for heat than both brown and brook trout. Some people are anti-tiger trout because they're unnatural and can outcompete wild fish. I'm not sure how I feel. They're such a rarity in my area that one or two rogue tigers are a sign of celebration, but if I lived in an area where they were more plentiful, I might feel different. 

    After that tiger, we continued picking off walleyes and bass. Max even got a striper. We returned to snakehead fishing, and soon, I managed to pick off another one on a swimbait. Max, however, was still not on the board with a snake. I let him have first shot as we're walking up this creek. All of a sudden, a big snake materializes out of the weeds. Max makes a cast with a chatterbait, slowly starts to bring it back, and this fish slams it right next to the bank. At 28 inches, it was a new personal best for him. 

    Strange fish get into strange places. On this day, we were fish for species that weren't meant to be in these places at all. Yet, they persisted, surviving against all odds, moving with the currents as the river flooded and ebbed. They're never gonna go away. So if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. 

Cheers, fishy people. 

Multi-Species May

 

    May is hands down my favorite month to fish. April showers seem to not only cause the hillsides to spring into bloom, but the elevated flows of the river that seem to come every mid-Spring carry thousands of cubic feet of water downstream towards their ocean-bound journey, creating huge pushes of fish that are going the other way. This is striper season, the end of shad, the beginning of snakeheads and flatheads, and the best time to catch big numbers of smallmouth and walleye. And I can't get enough. 

    I always sleep next to an open window. There's a quote from a conservation hero of mine, Aldo Leopold, where he said that he always loved waking up early enough to listen to the birds wake up. It was the birdsong of a few mourning doves that woke me up earlier today, while it was still dark and I still had several hours before I had to go to class, so I opted to drive down to the river hoping to intercept some migrating striped bass. 

    I pulled into the parking lot while another angler was rigging up a large shad swimbait. Shit, I thought. Better get there before him. I strapped on my waders, slung my tackle bag over my shoulder, grabbed my 9ft plugging rod, and started running. Take that old man. Twenty seconds later, he passed me on his bicycle. "Nice try buddy," he said, and I had to admit, he got me there. 

    We arrived at the end of the trail and my new friend and I started throwing lures through a current break. I was using a bucktail while he was throwing his shad. I soon get a hit, but I swing and miss. He starts retrieving the swimbait through a riffle and gets slammed, but the fish breaks him off. At least they're here. 

    Soon, two more anglers showed up, faces of regulars that I recognized. To preserve their anonymous identities, I'll refer to them as Jim and Bill. We set up a rotation, and Jim and I started swinging our lures through the break. All of a sudden, Bill throws straight over our lines. 

    "What the hell man!" yells Jim. "You just threw right fucking over us!" 

    "Oh yeah?" Bill retorted, "I'm just following your example. Every single fucking week I come down here to see your ass taking up the entire fucking spot." He gets right into Jim's face, practically spitting each word out. I reel my bucktail in and step out back from in between the two men. 

    Both men were getting heated at this point. However, even a boiling kettle will eventually spit and steam until eventually it runs out of hot air. That's what North-East fisherman are like. We're usually sarcastic, bitter, shit-talking assholes, but it rarely results in physical altercation. Eventually, they both got it all out and began fishing next to each other like nothing happened. 

    However, four people fishing a rotation usually turns into a shit show anyways, so I decided to head out and try something else. I rigged up by smallmouth rod and started throwing a little swimbait at a much less crowded spot. First cast, I catch a little walleye. Next cast too. Soon, I start picking off little 'eyelets that were stacked up at this spot almost every cast. Soon, something bigger slams my swimbait as I'm letting it flutter to the bottom. This fish runs into a log jam before I manage to pry it back out. It doesn't jump, so that ruled out smallmouth in my mind. Was this the 10lb walleye I've been looking for? It comes into view and I see a long, grayish shape dart into view and dart back out. I laugh out loud. Channel cats on artificial lures are always fun. 

    After I release that catfish and retie my frayed leader, I make another cast. Another pick up, another hookset, and this fish launches itself out of the water. Hello Mr. Bronzeback. I soon play this fish in and flip it up. I've said it before and I'll say it again, a pissed off smalljaw fights harder pound for pound than anything in freshwater. This wasn't a big fish, but he had battle scars, probably from an earlier encounter with an osprey or heron. 

    After the smallmouth, I continued to get a steady pick of walleyes. They were very small, but small walleyes grow to be big walleyes. 

    Even if the average size was small, it was good to see that the fishery in my home river was healthy and would be for the future. And I had more fun having these fish all to myself than any striper I could pull out of a crowd of anglers throwing plugs over your shoulders. 

Cheers, fishy people. 

Cold Front Bites

 

    Cold front lock-jaw is real. When high pressure fronts bring in bluebird skies and cold, heavy winds, fish seem to just shut down and stop feeding. You can still catch them, but the methods often have to be very finesse. For bass guys, these are drop shot conditions. However, in my home river, the shad that run up every spring don't eat. Instead, they merely smack flutterspoons and shad darts out of pure aggression, snapping at something shiny and bright that comes across their face and aggravates them. So on a day with these conditions in early April, I opted to shad fish. 

    Arriving at my spot, the first thing that I noticed was how the wind was ripping. Heavy gusts from the North was stirring up the water, creating ripples all across the surface. I wasn't sure if I could present a dart through the current properly given the conditions. My concerns were immediately dispelled when a nice roe grabbed my dart on the third swing. 

    For the next hour, I had a steady pick of shad on darts. What's interesting is that I was using a double dart rig, with one chartreuse and one orange, and very single fish hit the orange. There's a big debate amongst fisherman on whether lure or fly color matters. Generally, I don't think it does in most circumstances, but with fish that rely so heavily on seeing what you're presenting, I'm not so sure.

    I managed to pull a half-dozen of them from one current seam before the bite died. Shad bites come in waves, and I managed run into one immediately before it eventually petered out as the fish all came through the run, making a mad dash for the next current break where they could rest. After the bite died, I got a text from my friend and biggest shad fan I know, Ernie, saying he was at a spot further south. I met him there, and he proceeded to school me, pulling three nice fish out of a run in a short amount of time while all I got was one buck that spat the hook. 

    Quickly after that however, the bite shut down there too. We headed even further south to find some more willing fish, but the shad seemed to be done for the day. We did, however, catch a mess of largemouth and crappies from a back creek on small swimbaits and trout jigs. 

    The cobra-chickens are nesting, the hydrilla is forming, and the tree frogs are a' croaking. It's spring now folks, and it's shaping up to be a good one. Get out there and fish, folks. 

Cheers, fishy people. 

The March of the Founding Fish

 

    Coastal rivers have a special magic that courses through them. Something about flowing freshwater with a connection to the ocean brings a certain mystique, a quality that is hard to put into words and even harder to figure out on the water. They'll always throw you a curveball. Often times, coastal rivers will have a certain time of year when something is different, where a biological clock overtakes the survival instincts of ocean going fish and pulls an invisible thread that compels them upstream. In the Delaware, that time of year is the spring. 

    American Shad are true natives. Accounts from Amerindian tribes along the East Coast from the St. Johns River in Florida to the Connecticut River in New England tell about how the rivers would turn into churning masses of black and silver every spring as millions of shad tried to get up to spawn. A miraculous early run of American Shad saved General George Washington's troops from starvation at Valley Forge and enabled them to continue fighting in the Revolution, earning them the moniker, The Founding Fish. Every spring, dating back to before measurable time and language, shad brought millions of pounds of biomass from the Atlantic Ocean hundreds of miles upstream, where they would engage in their ancient primordial spawning rituals before dying and returning what they took from the ground, feeding the birds, racoons, foxes, and bears and nourishing the landscape. And every year, river rats like me look forward to the shad run where we can put the walleye gear aside after a long winter and kick off the spring season. 

    The reports trickle in slowly, like a summertime spillway. They start with rumors in the tidal section, hearsay over the tackle shop counters that a few sharpies picked off some bucks (male shad, smaller and skinnier). Maybe one or two even caught some roes (female shad, much bigger and fat with eggs). Then they enter the non-tidal waters. Soon, more and more guys start catching shad. This is when you say, fuck the reports, I'm finding my own fish. Usually, the first few shad trips are ghost hunts, swinging darts through old revisited riffles trying to figure out if they're here yet. It was on Friday, the last day of March, when I finally found them. 

    I pulled up to a familiar spot that I'd fished the previous year and a little bit during walleye season. There were silver and lavender scales on the rocks. I began swinging, and after a few minutes, I feel a thump. Setting the hook, I feel a few headshakes and then it goes slack, ending as quick as it began. They were here. I get set up again and this time, when I connected, I wasn't going to lose this fish. It turned broadside into the current and ran, ripping drag. I managed to turn her and slowly ease her in, yet each time she got near the net she bolted. Shad are fantastic fighters and can use the current to their advantage better than any other fish. Soon, I got her in the net, a 3 lb roe that was my first of the season. 

    Soon after that, I caught one more and lost a few fish before I had to leave. However, the very next morning, I was back. This time, the April showers were in full force. When I arrived, it was a torrential down-pour. Standing in the riffle, swinging darts and small curly tail jigs, were two guys I met earlier this winter fishing beating the banks for walleyes. After some greetings and sharing of info, I slid in next to them and began fishing. Soon, I picked off two more shad, a small buck and a bigger roe on the double-dart rig. 

    Shad bites often come in waves. These fish are moving from pool to pool, controlled by a one-track mind that carries them up river. In between, they rest in staging areas, eddies with deep water and a break along heavy sets of rapids. The spring rains must have carried a school through, breathing new life into the river. A juvenile bald eagle flew overhead as we were shad fishing, carrying on a tradition that sustained colonists and Native tribes for hundreds, likely thousands of years. I've never felt more American. 

Cheers, fishy people. 

 

    

Waiting...

 

    The clock's ticking. The cherry trees are in bloom, the daffodils have emerged, and last night, I heard my first tree frogs of the year. Yet, the river has been hovering right under the magical water temp of 50 degrees. Slowly, painfully, creeping upwards before a cold snap plummets it back down. I'm logging into social media to see pictures of shad starting to be caught from the river and am immediately hit with a sense of FOMO, thinking to myself, It's happening, I gotta get down there, I gotta get down there, before realizing I had just gotten back from spending hours freezing my ass off swinging shad darts and flutter spoons through riffles that once turned silver every spring from shad with narry a hit. 

     Walleye bite's been decent lately though. Once the sun goes down the gravel lizards are usually willing to hit a jerkbait or swimbait. I can't even begin to count the number of hours I've spent this winter, how many cold nights I've passed standing along the bank until the cold makes the atoms of my hands indistinguishable from that of the cork rod handle, anticipating that signature walleye thump that often times never came. But then came February. With February came the pre-spawn, that time where once clever marble-eyes were suddenly overtaken by their biological clock, the one that no concrete hatchery race-way could take away, the one that said, We need to spawn soon. It's time to start killing and eating stuff, and goddamit they got straight up stupid on some occasions. I doubt I'll ever be a walleye guy like they make 'em in states like Minnesota or Wisconsin, but I've gained a lot of respect for the fish and what it takes to dial that fishery in. 

    The other night, to try to save the failed shad expedition, I tied on an x rap and begin working a deep hole. Didn't need to wait too long for the thump. Beautiful 19 incher destined for the fryer, right around magic hour sunset.

    Earlier today, I had some time to fish while there was still daylight out. Probably going against my better judgement, I ran down the river looking for Jersey Tarpon, The Founding Fish themselves, American shad. When I arrived, the water was clear and clean and raging, shouting, stretching, squeezing, carving itself in a gap between the concrete jetties where a set of rapids lay. I stood at the end, where a little plunge pool provided a slow moving back eddy to the adjacent raging torrent. Looking down, I saw a small buck shad slowly work it's way into the pool, resting, circling a few times, before making another push back into the rapids and start heading upstream, being guided by an invisible line that guided thousands of generations of his ancestors before him back to the place where he will spawn and die and float back down the river and return to the Earth, beginning the cycle anew. They were here. 

    I casted out a small flutter spoon, letting the current spin and wiggle it along the current seam. No bites. At one point, I bumped something and pulled back, two silvery scales along the point of the hook. With the water temps still in the mid-40's, the fish weren't in the mood to bite. I resigned myself to watching the plunge pool, observing shad after shad swim in to rest on it's upstream journey. I'll wish them good luck. Until then, I'll keep waiting. 

Cheers, fishy people. 

February Marble-Eyes

 

    Over the course of this winter, I've gotten kind of ate up with walleye fishing. I still think they fight like a wet sock, and I'll stand by that statement. But after catching some decent ones from the river, feeling how they thump a jig or jerkbait like a ton of bricks, I'll admit I've put in a lot of hours, pushing through frozen fingers and guides, looking for the next hit. 

    January was a very slow month. A month comprised of an endless cycle of freezes and thaws, each of which I'd thought would be the last. Finally, in early February, a warm front successfully pushed through, bringing the water temp back up to 40 degrees. February is generally considered the start to good pre-spawn river walleye fishing. The big egg-laden females and the skinner males all start pushing shallow and feeding like my track friends when it's time to bulk. Now's the time the fish will be the heaviest and most in the mood to kill stuff. 

    On Wednesday afternoon, I stopped by one of my favorite low water spots on the river while running some errands. With less than an hour to fish, I started casting a swimbait. Fishing it on a straight retrieve, barely gliding it over the rocks, I got slammed, landing a pissed off 17 inch male. I had to leave pretty soon afterwards, but I began putting together a plan for next time. 

    So it was at that same spot I found myself a few days later. The river was still low and clear, but this was a spot you could only access in low water, a spot with one of those mysterious deep dark holes that often spawn thoughts in the angler such as what the heck is down there. First one to knock at the door was a black and silver x-rap. With walleyes, I like to change up retrieves until I find something they like. I covered this hole with a straight retrieve, no cigar. I made another cast, this time offering them the classic twitch, twitch, pause. It was on the pause when I got slammed. I set the hook, and my light spinning rod instantly bows over. I get two or three headshakes and then it rolls over as dead weight. A green shape flashes into view and rolls a second time before I'm able to drag this fish onto the bank. A new personal best, shattered by a pre-spawn hen absolutely loaded with eggs.

    While I still prefer snakehead, or tautog, or seabass, walleye make fantastic table fare. Still, I didn't want to harvest a fish of that size caliber, one I knew would be soon laying eggs for the next generation of the river. I popped the hook out and set her back. She kicked off strong.

    With the sun slowly going down the mountains, I continued pushing upstream. Tying on my trusted paddletail swimbait and making a long cast with a steady retrieve, I get another thump. I'm tied into another decent sized fish. I landed this one, a healthy 19 incher, and decided to harvest it. 

    Shortly after that fish, I packed it up and left. I'm not entirely convinced that the woods around that section of the river aren't haunted, for reasons I'll discuss someday. Either way, it was a hell of a kick off for the pre-spawn -> spawn walleye bite that will hopefully last me until the river hits 50 degrees and the shad start running again. 

Cheers, fishy people.