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.
