Thursday, June 28, 2007, Leisure Lakes Park, Homestead, Florida
There are still two hours until dark and I’ve found a gorgeous blue spot on the street map of Homestead. The blue spot is in the midst of a green rectangle labeled, “Leisure Lakes Park.” Sounds right up my alley.
As I weave through this town towards the blue spot I notice that the homes are shrinking. By the time I get to ground zero the houses are small and flat and their orifices are covered with bars and their lawns are surrounded by fences. (Even their front doors have elaborate bars.)
And then I see Valhalla: a blue lake – maybe 15 acres – amid large green lawns. The sign says “Leisure Lakes Park,” and there’s a busy pavilion with music blasting – a kind of exotic Zydeco with a thrumping (yes, “thrumping”) rhythm. And a refrain that repeats and repeats and repeats – all in Spanish.
In a green field is a fully-manned soccer competition – shouting and running and kicking. And everywhere are mothers and children and babies. All Hispanic.
The lake is populated with bizarre ducks. You know how at city parks there are tons of white ducks and then that one duck that is splotched with blacks and reds and speckles and other abnormalities? At Leisure Lakes Park all of the ducks are like that. Even their babies. I see several groups of newly-hatched ducklings – all with mottled coloring. Nowhere is there a plain white duck.
The lake has no anglers. Not even a sign of anglers. No errant fishing line, no lure packages, no worm containers. This lake must prohibit fishing, but there are no signs stating such. So I decide to wade right in – figuratively, that is. (The signs do say no swimming or boating.)
I park in a crowded lot, walk through scattered families (Cuban perhaps?), and become the only angler. The water is clear as a spring, and within seconds I see a shoreline bass about a foot long. He’s not interested in my finesse worm, so I switch to a Senko and he takes it.
A couple sitting the grass twenty feet away sees my accomplishment and one remarks, in English, “A fish!” That’s all I hear them say.
During the next two hours before the sun sets I catch two dozen bass, mostly the size of the first one, all along the shoreline shallows, and all on the Senko. All of these bass look the same: long and slender and pale green with no striking markings like I’m accustomed to seeing in other waters. They must be hatchery fish, and the hatchery truck must have dumped them earlier today. All of my fish have been approximately the same size – a giveaway that they’re from the hatchery.
There are also Peacock bass in this lake; I see them and can’t get them to bite. They’re various sizes, and the largest I see is about a pound. I throw every lure in the world at them, but no interest. I’ve never caught a Peacock, but I know what they are – from television, from magazines, and from visits to other Florida waters where experts have pointed them out to me. I’ll have to read up on them.
Just as the sun is beginning to set a man coasts up to me on his bicycle. He’s thin and harsh and scarred, has shiny black hair and mellow brown skin, and appears to be in his late twenties.
“Are you doing any good?” is his salutation with a smile and raised eyebrows in perfect and unaffected English.
We are soon embraced in a fishing conversation. He’s a bass angler too. He explains that no, these are not hatchery bass, and that the hatchery truck has never ever visited this 15-year-old lake that is a borrow pit used to build the housing development surrounding it. He says the lake looks shallow, but it’s deep in the middle. He never sees anyone fishing here, and had thought it fishless until seeing a little boy catch a fish. Then he began occasionally fishing here and even caught one fairly large bass on a Krocodile spoon fished out deep. He points to where the ledge is – a ledge he found while wading out to unhook a hung lure.
He’s never seen or heard of a Senko and I explain and demonstrate how it works. As we talk I get a strike and my rod really bends and my drag really burns and soon I bring in a large bass - over four pounds.
Before he pedals off, he tells me about another lake I need to try – a very deep lake where he got his diving certification. He says it’s out near the air base, it has huge bass, and it’s publicly accessible.
He leaves and I hear him talking with others – in Spanish – as he pedals off. The Zydeco beat continues its exotic rhythms as I walk back to the car among Leisure Lake’s regulars.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
John Lloyd State Park, Florida
Thursday, June 28, 2007, John U. Lloyd State Park (Ft. Lauderdale)
The wind is up – really up – and the red flags are horizontal. So are the cranes that load the huge container ships across the canal on my left as I drive into this park.
Like Oleta, this park has hundreds of vacancies in its parking lots – only a dozen cars are here now. Also like Oleta, there are yellow butterflies. And on the ground are ground-hugging, six-petal yellow flowers the size of silver dollars. The same shade of yellow as the butterflies. And also like Oleta, there is a chameleon that lets me get very close – this one with a herringbone brown pattern on its spine.
The beach areas are no good for fishing today. The surf and the waves and the wind are all turbulent. And even if you could cast into that wind and surf, the turmoil has delivered a smorgasbord of flotsam and driftjunk – stuff that would foul every line cast into it. So I head to the boat launch area.
There are a few ramps in a small protected harbor and a canal running both directions. Only one truck and trailer are parked there. This is the area where I saw my first manatees during a business trip last year. I see none today, but I do catch a fish. Within a few minutes my rod bends and I reel in a 14-inch barracuda on a red finesse worm. After I toss him back I wipe my hands on a pancake-size leaf growing along this boardwalk trail along the canal.
I see schools of 3-inch pale green minnows, so I tie on a pale green Zoom fluke and give it a fishless try. I also see a school of a dozen or so 3-pounders swimming in circles – mullet I presume. They don’t look at my lures. Foot-long needlefish plow the surface, and I can get them to slash at a fast worm, but they don’t get hooked. Deep below I see a profound deep-green flash. I visit Florida waters seldomly, and now I remember one it the things that is always good: seeing a gigunda flash or a shadow down below that stops you alive in your tracks.
I depart this state park after an hour and hope for calm breezes that will allow beach fishing next time.
The wind is up – really up – and the red flags are horizontal. So are the cranes that load the huge container ships across the canal on my left as I drive into this park.
Like Oleta, this park has hundreds of vacancies in its parking lots – only a dozen cars are here now. Also like Oleta, there are yellow butterflies. And on the ground are ground-hugging, six-petal yellow flowers the size of silver dollars. The same shade of yellow as the butterflies. And also like Oleta, there is a chameleon that lets me get very close – this one with a herringbone brown pattern on its spine.
The beach areas are no good for fishing today. The surf and the waves and the wind are all turbulent. And even if you could cast into that wind and surf, the turmoil has delivered a smorgasbord of flotsam and driftjunk – stuff that would foul every line cast into it. So I head to the boat launch area.
There are a few ramps in a small protected harbor and a canal running both directions. Only one truck and trailer are parked there. This is the area where I saw my first manatees during a business trip last year. I see none today, but I do catch a fish. Within a few minutes my rod bends and I reel in a 14-inch barracuda on a red finesse worm. After I toss him back I wipe my hands on a pancake-size leaf growing along this boardwalk trail along the canal.
I see schools of 3-inch pale green minnows, so I tie on a pale green Zoom fluke and give it a fishless try. I also see a school of a dozen or so 3-pounders swimming in circles – mullet I presume. They don’t look at my lures. Foot-long needlefish plow the surface, and I can get them to slash at a fast worm, but they don’t get hooked. Deep below I see a profound deep-green flash. I visit Florida waters seldomly, and now I remember one it the things that is always good: seeing a gigunda flash or a shadow down below that stops you alive in your tracks.
I depart this state park after an hour and hope for calm breezes that will allow beach fishing next time.
Oleta State Park, Florida
Thursday, June 28, 2007, Oleta River State Park (Miami)
Fresh off the plane and into the rental car I soon see the Oleta River State Park sign on the highway over to Miami Beach and can’t resist. Sunny, breezy, scattered clouds, 80s, and water everywhere. When you are compelled to fish and you see a possibility of publicly accessible water it’s hard to resist.
A $5 fee at the gate opens to a green-embraced entrance road. “You’re continually fighting back the jungle,” said a friend of mine years ago after his move to Florida. Today this jungle has pale yellow butterflies – solo fliers as big as pocket watches – bouncing among the bushes and trees.
The parking lots have room for hundreds of cars but nobody’s here on this mid-day workday. (I count 10 cars.) I park at the last lot, the one with the sign for the fishing pier, and grab my rod and walk a manicured trail past a pavilion with restrooms, past picnic tables, and to the pier (350 yards from the car).
There are 9 persons on the pier and none of them looks like me. None of them speaks like me. It‘s all Spanish except for one couple – dark as a charbroiled coconut – whose tongue is more exotic, more delicious. “Dominique fishy fishy!” she exclaims with a grin as she looks into the water. I have an idea what that means.
The pier is short – less than 100 feet – and juts out into a huge bay that I assume is the Oleta River. The water is clear to the bottom. I immediately see two small barracuda – each alone in the shallows and camouflaged against the pebbled bottom.
The anglers on the pier are all bait chunkers – huge rods, huge hooks, huge sinkers, and huge full-arm casts that go a mile. I gaze down among the pilings beneath the pier and see schools of small baitfish and occasionally a larger fish – maybe a couple of pounds – darting among them. These are foreign waters to me; I’m not familiar with most of the fish.
The bottom line is that I try several of my bass lures – I am certain, but wrong, that a small finesse worm will catch something – and go fishless. Even the barracuda, with which I do have some past experience, don’t bite. I throw a Rat-L-Trap in the far distance without a bite, and a topwater chugger across the shoreline shallows without a bite. But it’s absolutely fun knowing that there are fish here and knowing that I MAY crack the code. Hope always!
A huge splash – just like a feeding largemouth - happens 100 feet up the shoreline. An equally huge black man says to me, “That was a big one.”
“Barracuda?” I ask.
”Yep, and he’s still there.” He moves his hands into a three-foot-wide demonstration.
I throw a finesse worm and then a chugger, but nothing.
With live shrimp I could catch fish here. But live bait – and even cut bait - is a pain to deal with. So I usually don’t fool with it.
On the walk back to the car (my time is limited to less than an hour) I notice that the air is abuzz with sounds of locusts. I also notice that there are no bugs bothering me – no mosquitoes, no noseeums, no black flies, no nothing. A real treat for Florida.
A brown chameleon perches on a log beside the path and stays alert until I am within inches of him. Then he jumps away.
Fresh off the plane and into the rental car I soon see the Oleta River State Park sign on the highway over to Miami Beach and can’t resist. Sunny, breezy, scattered clouds, 80s, and water everywhere. When you are compelled to fish and you see a possibility of publicly accessible water it’s hard to resist.
A $5 fee at the gate opens to a green-embraced entrance road. “You’re continually fighting back the jungle,” said a friend of mine years ago after his move to Florida. Today this jungle has pale yellow butterflies – solo fliers as big as pocket watches – bouncing among the bushes and trees.
The parking lots have room for hundreds of cars but nobody’s here on this mid-day workday. (I count 10 cars.) I park at the last lot, the one with the sign for the fishing pier, and grab my rod and walk a manicured trail past a pavilion with restrooms, past picnic tables, and to the pier (350 yards from the car).
There are 9 persons on the pier and none of them looks like me. None of them speaks like me. It‘s all Spanish except for one couple – dark as a charbroiled coconut – whose tongue is more exotic, more delicious. “Dominique fishy fishy!” she exclaims with a grin as she looks into the water. I have an idea what that means.
The pier is short – less than 100 feet – and juts out into a huge bay that I assume is the Oleta River. The water is clear to the bottom. I immediately see two small barracuda – each alone in the shallows and camouflaged against the pebbled bottom.
The anglers on the pier are all bait chunkers – huge rods, huge hooks, huge sinkers, and huge full-arm casts that go a mile. I gaze down among the pilings beneath the pier and see schools of small baitfish and occasionally a larger fish – maybe a couple of pounds – darting among them. These are foreign waters to me; I’m not familiar with most of the fish.
The bottom line is that I try several of my bass lures – I am certain, but wrong, that a small finesse worm will catch something – and go fishless. Even the barracuda, with which I do have some past experience, don’t bite. I throw a Rat-L-Trap in the far distance without a bite, and a topwater chugger across the shoreline shallows without a bite. But it’s absolutely fun knowing that there are fish here and knowing that I MAY crack the code. Hope always!
A huge splash – just like a feeding largemouth - happens 100 feet up the shoreline. An equally huge black man says to me, “That was a big one.”
“Barracuda?” I ask.
”Yep, and he’s still there.” He moves his hands into a three-foot-wide demonstration.
I throw a finesse worm and then a chugger, but nothing.
With live shrimp I could catch fish here. But live bait – and even cut bait - is a pain to deal with. So I usually don’t fool with it.
On the walk back to the car (my time is limited to less than an hour) I notice that the air is abuzz with sounds of locusts. I also notice that there are no bugs bothering me – no mosquitoes, no noseeums, no black flies, no nothing. A real treat for Florida.
A brown chameleon perches on a log beside the path and stays alert until I am within inches of him. Then he jumps away.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Bear Creek Lake State Park
Tuesday, June 26, 2007, Bear Creek Lake State Park (60 miles west of Richmond, VA)
It’s over 90 degrees, no clouds, no wind, and 1:30 in the afternoon. There are rowboats and canoes and paddleboats here, but not one is in use. A beautiful, 40-acre remote lake nestled within deep woods, and it’s currently unused. The lake is on the little Willis River – a relatively unknown tributary of the James.
I rent a paddleboat for me and Tony, my Down Syndrome brother-in-law who is visiting for three weeks. He loves to fish from the bank, and hates being in a boat ever since I made the mistake of taking him to see the movie, “The Perfect Storm,” and then followed it by taking him in my little boat and getting caught in our own storm. But he’s begged to go in the paddleboat, and so we do. The folks here are accommodating and help Tony with his lifejacket and into his paddleboat seat.
I take two fishing rods – Tony’s with a finesse worm on which he’s caught his share of fish without any need for my assistance, and mine with a Senko. We launch and immediately Tony regresses to his boat-hating mentality. He holds on tight and has no interest in using his fishing rod. But we’ve paid the $6.30 fee for an hour in this paddler (as opposed to as much as $60 that I’ve personally seen charged at other public lakes around the nation), and so we’ll use it.
This lake is so fishy looking that I anticipate a strike on every cast, but it takes me a while to figure them out. In spite of the paddleboat’s very loud and squeaky locomotive gears, I learn that the bass are in the shoreline grass rather than in submerged and fallen trees. And I do mean SHORELINE grass. I can’t find any underwater grass beds, but the lake is high and some of the shorelines have a few inches of water in the grass. And where this slopes into the lake is were there are bass willing to hit the Senko. I catch 5 during our hour, including 2 that weigh a bit more than 3 pounds each. Only one is small – perhaps 11 inches.
We’re wet with sweat when we return (the rule requires that we wear those bulky orange lifejackets), but I’ve learned that this state park’s lake is loaded with good quality bass. Motto: find a bassy lake in the mid-summer heat and drift a Senko into and around cover and/or shade, and you’re likely to find some bass.
It’s over 90 degrees, no clouds, no wind, and 1:30 in the afternoon. There are rowboats and canoes and paddleboats here, but not one is in use. A beautiful, 40-acre remote lake nestled within deep woods, and it’s currently unused. The lake is on the little Willis River – a relatively unknown tributary of the James.
I rent a paddleboat for me and Tony, my Down Syndrome brother-in-law who is visiting for three weeks. He loves to fish from the bank, and hates being in a boat ever since I made the mistake of taking him to see the movie, “The Perfect Storm,” and then followed it by taking him in my little boat and getting caught in our own storm. But he’s begged to go in the paddleboat, and so we do. The folks here are accommodating and help Tony with his lifejacket and into his paddleboat seat.
I take two fishing rods – Tony’s with a finesse worm on which he’s caught his share of fish without any need for my assistance, and mine with a Senko. We launch and immediately Tony regresses to his boat-hating mentality. He holds on tight and has no interest in using his fishing rod. But we’ve paid the $6.30 fee for an hour in this paddler (as opposed to as much as $60 that I’ve personally seen charged at other public lakes around the nation), and so we’ll use it.
This lake is so fishy looking that I anticipate a strike on every cast, but it takes me a while to figure them out. In spite of the paddleboat’s very loud and squeaky locomotive gears, I learn that the bass are in the shoreline grass rather than in submerged and fallen trees. And I do mean SHORELINE grass. I can’t find any underwater grass beds, but the lake is high and some of the shorelines have a few inches of water in the grass. And where this slopes into the lake is were there are bass willing to hit the Senko. I catch 5 during our hour, including 2 that weigh a bit more than 3 pounds each. Only one is small – perhaps 11 inches.
We’re wet with sweat when we return (the rule requires that we wear those bulky orange lifejackets), but I’ve learned that this state park’s lake is loaded with good quality bass. Motto: find a bassy lake in the mid-summer heat and drift a Senko into and around cover and/or shade, and you’re likely to find some bass.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Clinch River Steam Plant
Monday, June 17, 2007, Clinch River Steam Plant (central Tennessee, just off I-40)
The http://www.takemefishing.org/ Web site says this spot has bass and trout and stripers, and when I arrive this morning I see why. Huge smoke stacks announce the steam plant, and water rushes from the plant’s channel into the main body of the Clinch River.
There is lots of parking space and lots of clear shoreline available. I tie on a chrome Rat-L-Trap and begin covering water. This lure throws a mile on 8-pound line, and it’s one that will catch all three species. I have only an hour, and most of that will be with the crew from a Knoxville television station that’s interviewing me about the new book, TAKE ME FISHING – an anthology of writings by 50 great authors.
The tv folks arrive and I give the on-air guy – Russ Bevins – an extra rod and we cast and talk while the camera and remote mikes do their things.
There are no boats, but there are four other shoreline anglers including two near enough to see that they are casting Rooster Tails – trout lures. They say they haven’t caught anything.
It’s only 10:00 a.m. and it’s already hot – blazing sun, no clouds or breeze. I’ve given Russ a rod with a finesse worm and he starts getting bites – bluegill I suppose, but he gets excited and sets a fishless hook a few times. My Rat-L-Trap never gets bit, but it does get hung and I have to break it off.
There is an eddy area where the steam plant’s water rushes into the river, and we both target it – Russ with the worm and I with a new Rat-L-Trap. Nothing. I switch to a topwater chugger. Nothing. Then a Senko. Nothing. Then time’s up. The camera has watched and listened to us talk for more than 30 minutes and I’ve said about all I can say about the http://www.takemefishing.org/ Web site and the book.
That evening Russ’ pre-news hour-long program gives great coverage: several lead-in promos prior to commercials, and then almost 3 minutes of fishing at the Clinch River Steam Plant. No fish, but the camera guy has made it inviting anyway.
Motto: Whenever I travel I-40 I now know that this is a great drive-up-and-fish spot that’s less than 5 minutes off the Interstate. I will definitely add this one to my growing list of fishy Interstate stops.
The http://www.takemefishing.org/ Web site says this spot has bass and trout and stripers, and when I arrive this morning I see why. Huge smoke stacks announce the steam plant, and water rushes from the plant’s channel into the main body of the Clinch River.
There is lots of parking space and lots of clear shoreline available. I tie on a chrome Rat-L-Trap and begin covering water. This lure throws a mile on 8-pound line, and it’s one that will catch all three species. I have only an hour, and most of that will be with the crew from a Knoxville television station that’s interviewing me about the new book, TAKE ME FISHING – an anthology of writings by 50 great authors.
The tv folks arrive and I give the on-air guy – Russ Bevins – an extra rod and we cast and talk while the camera and remote mikes do their things.
There are no boats, but there are four other shoreline anglers including two near enough to see that they are casting Rooster Tails – trout lures. They say they haven’t caught anything.
It’s only 10:00 a.m. and it’s already hot – blazing sun, no clouds or breeze. I’ve given Russ a rod with a finesse worm and he starts getting bites – bluegill I suppose, but he gets excited and sets a fishless hook a few times. My Rat-L-Trap never gets bit, but it does get hung and I have to break it off.
There is an eddy area where the steam plant’s water rushes into the river, and we both target it – Russ with the worm and I with a new Rat-L-Trap. Nothing. I switch to a topwater chugger. Nothing. Then a Senko. Nothing. Then time’s up. The camera has watched and listened to us talk for more than 30 minutes and I’ve said about all I can say about the http://www.takemefishing.org/ Web site and the book.
That evening Russ’ pre-news hour-long program gives great coverage: several lead-in promos prior to commercials, and then almost 3 minutes of fishing at the Clinch River Steam Plant. No fish, but the camera guy has made it inviting anyway.
Motto: Whenever I travel I-40 I now know that this is a great drive-up-and-fish spot that’s less than 5 minutes off the Interstate. I will definitely add this one to my growing list of fishy Interstate stops.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Potomac River - Leesylvania
Saturday, June 16, Potomac River (south of D.C. out of Leesylvania State Park)
Bob and I are here fishing in today’s Fishers of Men bass tournament – dawn until 3:00. The Potomac is loaded with bass, and it’s expected that many of the tournament’s 52 boats will bring in 5-bass limits. (Our boat is the smallest and slowest of the bunch: 15 ½ feet, 80 hp.)
We know a couple of good spots where we’ve caught a lot of bass in past years, but neither yields a bite, so we decide to just “go fishing.” The grass beds across the river in Mattawoman Creek are being pounded by everyone else, so we select a random UNgrassy Potomac shoreline knowing that nobody else will be there and hoping that that shoreline’s bass will be less cautions than those inhabiting the grass beds.
The strategy works, and we have our limit by 9:30 a.m. We cull the rest of the day and wind up with 11.71 pounds and 15th place in the tournament. The winner brings in 17 pounds and change.
But this day’s story is a pair of mental mistakes by me. (Bob fished great, made no mistakes, and put the two largest fish in the livewell.)
My first mental mistake was when I set the hook on what I thought was a bite in the middle of a fallen shoreline tree. My rod bent double but didn’t move. I saw where the line went – to a limb – and assumed I was hung. I immediately lowered the rod and slackened the line, and as I did a large bass surfaced and spit out my Senko. Lesson: keep the pressure on until you’re CERTAIN that you’re hung in wood and not in a bass’ jaw.
The second one was worse. I was reeling in a quality bass – 3+ pounds – and it was coming in so easily that I didn’t kneel down on the deck of the boat to be at water level ready to thrust the tip of my rod under water to keep the bass from jumping if it were to try to. Which it did, easily, and easily dislodged the finesse worm.
The Potomac River is just loaded these days with bass. The best advice is to just keep moving and changing lures until you catch bass. And you will.
Leesylvania State Park is a great place to launch a boat or fish from shore – tons of room for both. And be prepared to see lots of deer along the sides of the entry road – in the middle of the day.
Bob and I are here fishing in today’s Fishers of Men bass tournament – dawn until 3:00. The Potomac is loaded with bass, and it’s expected that many of the tournament’s 52 boats will bring in 5-bass limits. (Our boat is the smallest and slowest of the bunch: 15 ½ feet, 80 hp.)
We know a couple of good spots where we’ve caught a lot of bass in past years, but neither yields a bite, so we decide to just “go fishing.” The grass beds across the river in Mattawoman Creek are being pounded by everyone else, so we select a random UNgrassy Potomac shoreline knowing that nobody else will be there and hoping that that shoreline’s bass will be less cautions than those inhabiting the grass beds.
The strategy works, and we have our limit by 9:30 a.m. We cull the rest of the day and wind up with 11.71 pounds and 15th place in the tournament. The winner brings in 17 pounds and change.
But this day’s story is a pair of mental mistakes by me. (Bob fished great, made no mistakes, and put the two largest fish in the livewell.)
My first mental mistake was when I set the hook on what I thought was a bite in the middle of a fallen shoreline tree. My rod bent double but didn’t move. I saw where the line went – to a limb – and assumed I was hung. I immediately lowered the rod and slackened the line, and as I did a large bass surfaced and spit out my Senko. Lesson: keep the pressure on until you’re CERTAIN that you’re hung in wood and not in a bass’ jaw.
The second one was worse. I was reeling in a quality bass – 3+ pounds – and it was coming in so easily that I didn’t kneel down on the deck of the boat to be at water level ready to thrust the tip of my rod under water to keep the bass from jumping if it were to try to. Which it did, easily, and easily dislodged the finesse worm.
The Potomac River is just loaded these days with bass. The best advice is to just keep moving and changing lures until you catch bass. And you will.
Leesylvania State Park is a great place to launch a boat or fish from shore – tons of room for both. And be prepared to see lots of deer along the sides of the entry road – in the middle of the day.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Marsh Creek State Park
Monday, 6/11/2007 – Marsh Creek Lake (Marsh Creek State Park near Philadelphia)
Boy, what a lake. Deep and clear and loaded with fish. Less than an hour west of Phildelphia, this is part of Marsh Creek Lake State Park. There is lots of fishing room along the lake’s shores, and there are plenty of rental boats at reasonable rates – which is what I did all afternoon.
When I arrived I introduced myself to a bass angler coming off the lake. Kevin Nash, commercial photographer, was generous with his advice: spinnerbaits, soft plastic jerkbaits, big Zara Spooks (there are muskies). He’d caught one good bass today. He assured me that things would be “dead” up until 3:00, and would then pick up.
My line hit the water at 1:30 and I caught my first bass at 3:05. Perhaps Kevin had hit it on the nose, but I of course like to think that I finally figured the pattern. Prior to 3:00 I’d thrown Pop-R’s and buzzfrogs over weeds, Zoom flukes through weeds, crankbaits alongside weeds and off long points, and tiny finesse worms everywhere.
At 3:00 I went to my money bait, the Senko, and during the rest of the afternoon I caught a bunch of bass including a dozen over 12 inches, a couple pushing 3 pounds and one weighing 5 pounds. All on the same pattern: let the unweighted Senko flutter down to the bottom on the outside edges of deep weedbeds. The further offshore the weedbeds, the bigger the bass. Weedbeds right up against the shore produced no bass.
And I saw a musky – a pretty big one I guess. I’d never before seen one in its natural environment. This one was swimming just below the surface above some deep weeds. He was up long enough for me to pull a buzzfrog past him twice. He just ignored it and swam away. He looked as big around as my leg and perhaps five feet long; but as I say, I’d never seen one before, so my estimate is questionable.
I looked for other fish in the clear shallows – just to see what I could see. Kevin had said there are spotted bass. I never saw or caught one, but I did see lots of abandoned spotted bass beds – deeper and smaller than those that largemouths usually make. I also saw lots of bluegill – some still on beds. And at one place I saw two little yellow perch. And of course four or five big carp. Every water these days has big carp.
The folks at the boat rental facility are wonderful. It took them about 10 seconds to get the boat ready including attaching the electric motor and a double-charged battery. (The battery still seemed full of juice when I finished around 6:30.)
And I discovered a good luck strategy. We anglers always try various things for good luck, and this is the only thing having to do with fishing that the www.takemefishing.org Web site doesn’t cover.
The good luck strategy had to do with a green and black canoe which contained a young couple with the female maintaining an ongoing cell phone conversation. That’s what got my attention; you know how far sound carries over the water – even at a great distance. At any rate, when I looked over in their direction I could see that the male was wearing a dark blue athletic jersey with a big white number 13 on it. I had not yet caught a really big bass, so I decided that that number 13 might do the trick and headed in their direction. When I got to within 100 yards I looked down through my polarized glasses and saw weeds – WAY offshore. On the first cast with the Senko I caught the 5-pounder. And the couple saw me catch it. She discontinued her cell call, and he wound in his line and cast out farther. (They were anchored next to the shore.)
Lucky Tip: If you see a 13, don’t pass it up.
Score for Marsh Creek Lake: A+. Of course I score almost every fishing water A+. The only failing grade I’ve ever given was to a pristine mountain stream – not because I never got a bite during 3 hard hours of fishing, but because the ranger later told me that the stream was fishless because of acid rain. Fishing is a lot of fun when there is hope.
Boy, what a lake. Deep and clear and loaded with fish. Less than an hour west of Phildelphia, this is part of Marsh Creek Lake State Park. There is lots of fishing room along the lake’s shores, and there are plenty of rental boats at reasonable rates – which is what I did all afternoon.
When I arrived I introduced myself to a bass angler coming off the lake. Kevin Nash, commercial photographer, was generous with his advice: spinnerbaits, soft plastic jerkbaits, big Zara Spooks (there are muskies). He’d caught one good bass today. He assured me that things would be “dead” up until 3:00, and would then pick up.
My line hit the water at 1:30 and I caught my first bass at 3:05. Perhaps Kevin had hit it on the nose, but I of course like to think that I finally figured the pattern. Prior to 3:00 I’d thrown Pop-R’s and buzzfrogs over weeds, Zoom flukes through weeds, crankbaits alongside weeds and off long points, and tiny finesse worms everywhere.
At 3:00 I went to my money bait, the Senko, and during the rest of the afternoon I caught a bunch of bass including a dozen over 12 inches, a couple pushing 3 pounds and one weighing 5 pounds. All on the same pattern: let the unweighted Senko flutter down to the bottom on the outside edges of deep weedbeds. The further offshore the weedbeds, the bigger the bass. Weedbeds right up against the shore produced no bass.
And I saw a musky – a pretty big one I guess. I’d never before seen one in its natural environment. This one was swimming just below the surface above some deep weeds. He was up long enough for me to pull a buzzfrog past him twice. He just ignored it and swam away. He looked as big around as my leg and perhaps five feet long; but as I say, I’d never seen one before, so my estimate is questionable.
I looked for other fish in the clear shallows – just to see what I could see. Kevin had said there are spotted bass. I never saw or caught one, but I did see lots of abandoned spotted bass beds – deeper and smaller than those that largemouths usually make. I also saw lots of bluegill – some still on beds. And at one place I saw two little yellow perch. And of course four or five big carp. Every water these days has big carp.
The folks at the boat rental facility are wonderful. It took them about 10 seconds to get the boat ready including attaching the electric motor and a double-charged battery. (The battery still seemed full of juice when I finished around 6:30.)
And I discovered a good luck strategy. We anglers always try various things for good luck, and this is the only thing having to do with fishing that the www.takemefishing.org Web site doesn’t cover.
The good luck strategy had to do with a green and black canoe which contained a young couple with the female maintaining an ongoing cell phone conversation. That’s what got my attention; you know how far sound carries over the water – even at a great distance. At any rate, when I looked over in their direction I could see that the male was wearing a dark blue athletic jersey with a big white number 13 on it. I had not yet caught a really big bass, so I decided that that number 13 might do the trick and headed in their direction. When I got to within 100 yards I looked down through my polarized glasses and saw weeds – WAY offshore. On the first cast with the Senko I caught the 5-pounder. And the couple saw me catch it. She discontinued her cell call, and he wound in his line and cast out farther. (They were anchored next to the shore.)
Lucky Tip: If you see a 13, don’t pass it up.
Score for Marsh Creek Lake: A+. Of course I score almost every fishing water A+. The only failing grade I’ve ever given was to a pristine mountain stream – not because I never got a bite during 3 hard hours of fishing, but because the ranger later told me that the stream was fishless because of acid rain. Fishing is a lot of fun when there is hope.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Schuylkill River and Penn's Landing
Monday, 6/11/2007 – Schuylkill River (downtown Philly)
For 10 years my connection to this fishing spot had been from one of the top floors of one of Philadelphia’s skyscrapers where I annually met with a colleague who loves to fish and who would point to this spot and say, “I’ve heard that people catch fish there.”
From up there this spot looks about as urban and paved and yucchy as possible. But down here at ground zero it’s not bad. It’s dawn and drizzly and I’ve walked down the hill from my public parking spot just outside the west entrance to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The river stretches before me, a generous parade of fish splashing the surface. I stand on the grassy area just above the dam. This is sort of a platform and the river is five feet below. There’s a rail, but it’s easy to cast over. The river is gorgeous: I see shallows, rocks, underwater vegetation, currents and glides. And just upstream – within easy casting distance – are overhanging and fallen shoreline trees that are just perfect for bass. (The www.takemefishing.org Web site talks about this spot and says there are bass here.)
Last evening I came by to check out the parking and saw a dozen anglers – none with any fish – mostly using bait, not lures. But now it’s Monday morning and there are no other anglers. Cars whiz noisily to work on the across-the-river highway.
After a few fishless casts with a plastic worm into the underwater grasses just below where I stand I switch to a Pop-R, cast it as far as I can, and twitch it on the surface. When the strike happens, it is pitiful – not even a splash, just a disappearance of the topwater plug. I set the hook and it’s a good bass. My line is only 6-pound, and so I climb over the rail, lie on my belly on the wall, and reach down to lip the bass so the line won’t break while lifting him up onto the grassy platform. A couple of pounds – 14 inches, maybe a half inch more.
I look up towards the skyscraper in the distance; I know exactly which one it is. I wish my friend were watching with binoculars, but he’s out of town today.
I have only an hour, so I fish fast. No other bites on the Pop-R, so I switch to a Zoom fluke and catch another bass – this time a smallmouth. And it is small – maybe 9 inches.
I walk upstream along the wooded shoreline, onto a wooded peninsula that is carpeted with flotsam and mucky, muddy high-water stuff. This is an area of overhanging and overarching trees through which I twist and poke my rod and drop a big Senko into shoreline shadows. Nothing. I wish I had more time to give this a thorough going-over.
But I’ve done what I set out to do: get an up-close, line-wetting look at what has been a longtime Bali Hi.
Penn’s Landing (downtown Philly)
I have an hour between appointments and I’m parked right here in the huge lot on the Delaware, so I think why not. My favorite kind of water: urban, surrounded by city hum, folks hurrying by, and sort of nasty looking. At least compared to Yellowstone.
But where do you start on a spot like this? I guess you’d call this entire stretch a huge concrete wharf – perhaps a dozen feet above the river’s surface. No fishing platforms, a rail over which you sort of have to climb and lean in order to cast a line, and no stumps or overhanging trees or underwater weeds or gravel bars or anything at all that looks fishy.
Plus, the river is ripping quickly with an incoming tide. So no time for a lure to sink to the bottom – however far down that might be. But still, it’s water, and water means a fishing opportunity.
There are some pilings, and pilings create structure and they create eddies and that means a place to drop a soft plastic lure which I do. I like to look for largemouths whenever possible and thus the pilings strategy. Nothing. No bite, not even a “funny feel” that I can say might be a bite.
And then, a hundred yards down, I discover gold. A long rectangular “cove” – all concrete border of course – into which tugs and other boats come and dock and unload. Still the high rail, but un-currented water. A backwater! And that’s what you look for for bass in big rivers like this.
The water clarity is about an inch – alright, maybe a foot or two – and there is all sorts of stuff floating on top: paper products, logs and limbs, ropes, you name it. Stuff that the river gathers along its shorelines and then swirls into its backwaters. Stuff that provides cover and habit for fish! At least that’s always my thought.
I throw a Pop-R for three minutes (my business meeting is approaching) without a hit. Then I switch to a finesse worm with a sixteenth-ounce jig head and twitch it along the bottom. Within a couple of minutes I feel something funny that may have been a sluggish nudge from a bluegill or something.
Then I drop my plastic worm in the midst of a bunch of tightly-packed flotsam that is backed up into the corner of this inlet and let it sink to the bottom. (Golden Rule: bass often hang out beneath flotsam that’s backed into a corner.) On the second jiggle something hits and my rod bends it double and I am suddenly attached to a pretty good bass. It is a brief but fairly complicated struggle given that I am using only 6-pound line and the bass zigs and zags around various limbs and logs, but I finally work him out and up into my hand. He weighs a good two pounds, maybe more, and in spite of him having whiskers and no scales and spikes on top and on the sides, I’m definitely counting him as a bass. I take my photo – Philly’s big buildings in the background – and in spite of what the photo indicates, Janet says she’ll back me on it being a bass.
My bottom line is always the same: give me a few minutes and a chunk of water and I’m compelled to give it a try.
Another bottom line: even though I fished briefly at that parking area at Penn’s Landing, I saw no evidence that anyone else fishes there: no discarded line, no discarded tackle packages, not even one tiny smidgen of the stuff that disreputable anglers leave behind.
For 10 years my connection to this fishing spot had been from one of the top floors of one of Philadelphia’s skyscrapers where I annually met with a colleague who loves to fish and who would point to this spot and say, “I’ve heard that people catch fish there.”
From up there this spot looks about as urban and paved and yucchy as possible. But down here at ground zero it’s not bad. It’s dawn and drizzly and I’ve walked down the hill from my public parking spot just outside the west entrance to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The river stretches before me, a generous parade of fish splashing the surface. I stand on the grassy area just above the dam. This is sort of a platform and the river is five feet below. There’s a rail, but it’s easy to cast over. The river is gorgeous: I see shallows, rocks, underwater vegetation, currents and glides. And just upstream – within easy casting distance – are overhanging and fallen shoreline trees that are just perfect for bass. (The www.takemefishing.org Web site talks about this spot and says there are bass here.)
Last evening I came by to check out the parking and saw a dozen anglers – none with any fish – mostly using bait, not lures. But now it’s Monday morning and there are no other anglers. Cars whiz noisily to work on the across-the-river highway.
After a few fishless casts with a plastic worm into the underwater grasses just below where I stand I switch to a Pop-R, cast it as far as I can, and twitch it on the surface. When the strike happens, it is pitiful – not even a splash, just a disappearance of the topwater plug. I set the hook and it’s a good bass. My line is only 6-pound, and so I climb over the rail, lie on my belly on the wall, and reach down to lip the bass so the line won’t break while lifting him up onto the grassy platform. A couple of pounds – 14 inches, maybe a half inch more.
I look up towards the skyscraper in the distance; I know exactly which one it is. I wish my friend were watching with binoculars, but he’s out of town today.
I have only an hour, so I fish fast. No other bites on the Pop-R, so I switch to a Zoom fluke and catch another bass – this time a smallmouth. And it is small – maybe 9 inches.
I walk upstream along the wooded shoreline, onto a wooded peninsula that is carpeted with flotsam and mucky, muddy high-water stuff. This is an area of overhanging and overarching trees through which I twist and poke my rod and drop a big Senko into shoreline shadows. Nothing. I wish I had more time to give this a thorough going-over.
But I’ve done what I set out to do: get an up-close, line-wetting look at what has been a longtime Bali Hi.
Penn’s Landing (downtown Philly)
I have an hour between appointments and I’m parked right here in the huge lot on the Delaware, so I think why not. My favorite kind of water: urban, surrounded by city hum, folks hurrying by, and sort of nasty looking. At least compared to Yellowstone.
But where do you start on a spot like this? I guess you’d call this entire stretch a huge concrete wharf – perhaps a dozen feet above the river’s surface. No fishing platforms, a rail over which you sort of have to climb and lean in order to cast a line, and no stumps or overhanging trees or underwater weeds or gravel bars or anything at all that looks fishy.
Plus, the river is ripping quickly with an incoming tide. So no time for a lure to sink to the bottom – however far down that might be. But still, it’s water, and water means a fishing opportunity.
There are some pilings, and pilings create structure and they create eddies and that means a place to drop a soft plastic lure which I do. I like to look for largemouths whenever possible and thus the pilings strategy. Nothing. No bite, not even a “funny feel” that I can say might be a bite.
And then, a hundred yards down, I discover gold. A long rectangular “cove” – all concrete border of course – into which tugs and other boats come and dock and unload. Still the high rail, but un-currented water. A backwater! And that’s what you look for for bass in big rivers like this.
The water clarity is about an inch – alright, maybe a foot or two – and there is all sorts of stuff floating on top: paper products, logs and limbs, ropes, you name it. Stuff that the river gathers along its shorelines and then swirls into its backwaters. Stuff that provides cover and habit for fish! At least that’s always my thought.
I throw a Pop-R for three minutes (my business meeting is approaching) without a hit. Then I switch to a finesse worm with a sixteenth-ounce jig head and twitch it along the bottom. Within a couple of minutes I feel something funny that may have been a sluggish nudge from a bluegill or something.
Then I drop my plastic worm in the midst of a bunch of tightly-packed flotsam that is backed up into the corner of this inlet and let it sink to the bottom. (Golden Rule: bass often hang out beneath flotsam that’s backed into a corner.) On the second jiggle something hits and my rod bends it double and I am suddenly attached to a pretty good bass. It is a brief but fairly complicated struggle given that I am using only 6-pound line and the bass zigs and zags around various limbs and logs, but I finally work him out and up into my hand. He weighs a good two pounds, maybe more, and in spite of him having whiskers and no scales and spikes on top and on the sides, I’m definitely counting him as a bass. I take my photo – Philly’s big buildings in the background – and in spite of what the photo indicates, Janet says she’ll back me on it being a bass.
My bottom line is always the same: give me a few minutes and a chunk of water and I’m compelled to give it a try.
Another bottom line: even though I fished briefly at that parking area at Penn’s Landing, I saw no evidence that anyone else fishes there: no discarded line, no discarded tackle packages, not even one tiny smidgen of the stuff that disreputable anglers leave behind.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Little Lehigh River
Sunday, 6/10/2007 – Little Lehigh River, Allentown, PA
I was told that while I’m in Philadelphia, I just HAVE to get over here to the Little Lehigh. Bingo.
I haven’t seen a ton of trout streams - maybe a half ton - but I’ve never seen one like this. About as wide as a competent double haul, and as deep as a cane rod spare tip, the Little Lehigh is bordered for miles and miles by grasses and trees and fields and woods and flowers and a proudly manicured walking/jogging pathway. With a dozen or so public parking areas nestled along its distance, the Little Lehigh is a beautifully accessible and beautifully beautiful trout stream filled with rapids and pools and grasses and rocks and trout. Plenty of trout. You’ll see them.
When you go you just HAVE to stop in at the Little Lehigh Fly Shop which is snuggled into a tiny thousand-year-old stone building just yards from the river. Proprietor Rod Rohrbach – in business since 1993 when he abandoned commercial banking – will look at you and, if asked, will provide advice over his busily fly-tying spectacles. His pet trout – monsters – swim in the indoor spring-fed stone trough at the back wall of the shop.
His blue-chip, no-exception, first-choice, year-round, all-condition fly recommendation for the Little Lehigh is something called “Al’s Rat” and he’ll give you a typed page that tells all about it.
Rat doesn’t mean rat; it means microscopic flea. I got a few of the large size: #22. (For non fly-anglers, a #22 is approximately 1/16th inch long in its biggest dimension including the hook.) Rod said to really catch more fish I should go all the way to #28 (much smaller) for which I had no intention or ability.
And I had to get a leader with a tip fine enough to thread through that #22 hook. I’ve been around fly fishing long enough to know the drill, and so it wasn’t surprising or a big deal to discover that my line – once I started casting and fishing - looked as if it had no fly at all on the end of it. You can’t see these tiny midges (tricos) on the end of your line; it’s a matter of true faith. Faith that can move mountains is one thing, but faith that can devine a #22 Al’s Rat on the end of your line takes faith to a loftier level.
The river is absolutely stunning and I saw plenty of trout and walked plenty of miles and drifted Al’s Rat through plenty of currents and pools. But if I ever got a strike I didn’t know it. Three hours of this – and also of seeing plenty of other anglers with spinning rods and lures big enough to actually see – and I decided to spend my final half hour with my bass rod. I didn’t have any line smaller than 6-pound (I would have been comfortable using 2-pound if I’d brought some), so I tied on a 4-inch plastic worm that I’d bitten off to 2-inches and started casting it into the swiftest, deepest stuff I could find. Perhaps if the trout were surprised by its sudden swift drift they wouldn’t think long enough to realize it was fake.
It worked. Well, I didn’t actually catch anything, but I did have two rainbows on for a few seconds – around 12 inches each – and got definite strikes from a half-dozen others. I do like to actually catch fish, but going fishless on a stream like this is a real pleasure and I’d do it again and again and again. What amazed me was this being a perfect-weather Sunday afternoon in June and this little river wasn’t crowded. Tons of room to spread out and even be out of sight of other anglers if you care to walk along the path a ways.
Four stars!
I was told that while I’m in Philadelphia, I just HAVE to get over here to the Little Lehigh. Bingo.
I haven’t seen a ton of trout streams - maybe a half ton - but I’ve never seen one like this. About as wide as a competent double haul, and as deep as a cane rod spare tip, the Little Lehigh is bordered for miles and miles by grasses and trees and fields and woods and flowers and a proudly manicured walking/jogging pathway. With a dozen or so public parking areas nestled along its distance, the Little Lehigh is a beautifully accessible and beautifully beautiful trout stream filled with rapids and pools and grasses and rocks and trout. Plenty of trout. You’ll see them.
When you go you just HAVE to stop in at the Little Lehigh Fly Shop which is snuggled into a tiny thousand-year-old stone building just yards from the river. Proprietor Rod Rohrbach – in business since 1993 when he abandoned commercial banking – will look at you and, if asked, will provide advice over his busily fly-tying spectacles. His pet trout – monsters – swim in the indoor spring-fed stone trough at the back wall of the shop.
His blue-chip, no-exception, first-choice, year-round, all-condition fly recommendation for the Little Lehigh is something called “Al’s Rat” and he’ll give you a typed page that tells all about it.
Rat doesn’t mean rat; it means microscopic flea. I got a few of the large size: #22. (For non fly-anglers, a #22 is approximately 1/16th inch long in its biggest dimension including the hook.) Rod said to really catch more fish I should go all the way to #28 (much smaller) for which I had no intention or ability.
And I had to get a leader with a tip fine enough to thread through that #22 hook. I’ve been around fly fishing long enough to know the drill, and so it wasn’t surprising or a big deal to discover that my line – once I started casting and fishing - looked as if it had no fly at all on the end of it. You can’t see these tiny midges (tricos) on the end of your line; it’s a matter of true faith. Faith that can move mountains is one thing, but faith that can devine a #22 Al’s Rat on the end of your line takes faith to a loftier level.
The river is absolutely stunning and I saw plenty of trout and walked plenty of miles and drifted Al’s Rat through plenty of currents and pools. But if I ever got a strike I didn’t know it. Three hours of this – and also of seeing plenty of other anglers with spinning rods and lures big enough to actually see – and I decided to spend my final half hour with my bass rod. I didn’t have any line smaller than 6-pound (I would have been comfortable using 2-pound if I’d brought some), so I tied on a 4-inch plastic worm that I’d bitten off to 2-inches and started casting it into the swiftest, deepest stuff I could find. Perhaps if the trout were surprised by its sudden swift drift they wouldn’t think long enough to realize it was fake.
It worked. Well, I didn’t actually catch anything, but I did have two rainbows on for a few seconds – around 12 inches each – and got definite strikes from a half-dozen others. I do like to actually catch fish, but going fishless on a stream like this is a real pleasure and I’d do it again and again and again. What amazed me was this being a perfect-weather Sunday afternoon in June and this little river wasn’t crowded. Tons of room to spread out and even be out of sight of other anglers if you care to walk along the path a ways.
Four stars!
Jamaica Pond
Saturday, 6/9/2007 - Jamaica Pond, Boston
A big urban circle surrounded by willows, sycamores, grass, joggers, walkers, chipmunks, and 7-figure homes and condos, this deep 68-acre body of water claims to be the oldest reservoir in the nation – long-ago provider for Boston’s residents. Today it’s a well-heeled urban duck pond. And it’s surrounded by shores that are indeed easy to fish from.
The www.takemefishing.org Web site says there are bass and trout and even salmon in this lake, but to tell the truth, it doesn’t look very fishy to me. Its shorelines are manicured and paved and accessible, and the nicely graveled path and benches that encircle the lake are peopled with a moving smorgasbord of strollers and runners, walkers and talkers, coffee drinkers and snack eaters. My first casts into the featureless near-shore waters with a 4-inch finesse worm are fishless.
My strategy is the same as with any new water: cover as much territory as possible as quickly as possible changing lures as often as possible in an effort to crack the code as soon as possible. So I walk quickly along the path pausing every so often to cast. A Pop-R, a Rat-L-Trap, a hard plastic jerkbait, even a Senko. Nuttin honey.
A couple of rowboats move slowly out in the middle. (There is a rental concession.) No fish jump or splash or dimple the surface anywhere on this smooth windless day. This appears to be a dishpan lake – shallow shorelines dropping off into a deep bowl in the middle. No shoreline fallen trees, no sandbars or gravel humps, nothing to which bass might relate.
And then I see it – underwater grass. One side of the lake is herniated into a sort of bulge. It’s obviously shallower than the rest of the lake because with my polarized lenses I can see grass beds. And there are diving, fish-eating waterfowl here – six of them scattered about – all diving and coming up and pointing their beaks towards the sky and shaking their heads.
I throw my finesse worm into a particularly thick weeded area and catch a fat bass – not quite 12 inches – but then no more strikes. I keep my eyes on the diving birds and finally see an actual fish in one’s beak. It’s not a bluegill as I had suspected, but a narrow minnow of some sort. So I tie on a Zoom fluke, fish it with a slow swimming motion, and I’m in business. I guess I catch a half-dozen bass or more in the little time I have left – two of them pushing 3 pounds – all among this weedy area of the lake. I get a walker to take my photo holding the largest. “Looks real to me,” was his comment.
I see 6 other anglers around the lake. None claims to have caught anything. Perhaps they’re fishing for trout. I walk the rest of the lake without any additional strikes – and without additional underwater grass.
An old gnarly man who could pass for homeless, but isn’t, passes me twice as he walks limping laps around the lake. The first time he greets me with, “Are you fishing or are you just practicing?” He doesn’t give me time to respond. “Like lawyers, they practice,” he concludes as he walks on with a smile.
An hour later he passes me again – after I’ve caught several bass – and says, “Where’re all your fish?” Again, no time for my response. “In your pocket? Ahhh, you’re a faker!” And he walks hurriedly on.
A big urban circle surrounded by willows, sycamores, grass, joggers, walkers, chipmunks, and 7-figure homes and condos, this deep 68-acre body of water claims to be the oldest reservoir in the nation – long-ago provider for Boston’s residents. Today it’s a well-heeled urban duck pond. And it’s surrounded by shores that are indeed easy to fish from.
The www.takemefishing.org Web site says there are bass and trout and even salmon in this lake, but to tell the truth, it doesn’t look very fishy to me. Its shorelines are manicured and paved and accessible, and the nicely graveled path and benches that encircle the lake are peopled with a moving smorgasbord of strollers and runners, walkers and talkers, coffee drinkers and snack eaters. My first casts into the featureless near-shore waters with a 4-inch finesse worm are fishless.
My strategy is the same as with any new water: cover as much territory as possible as quickly as possible changing lures as often as possible in an effort to crack the code as soon as possible. So I walk quickly along the path pausing every so often to cast. A Pop-R, a Rat-L-Trap, a hard plastic jerkbait, even a Senko. Nuttin honey.
A couple of rowboats move slowly out in the middle. (There is a rental concession.) No fish jump or splash or dimple the surface anywhere on this smooth windless day. This appears to be a dishpan lake – shallow shorelines dropping off into a deep bowl in the middle. No shoreline fallen trees, no sandbars or gravel humps, nothing to which bass might relate.
And then I see it – underwater grass. One side of the lake is herniated into a sort of bulge. It’s obviously shallower than the rest of the lake because with my polarized lenses I can see grass beds. And there are diving, fish-eating waterfowl here – six of them scattered about – all diving and coming up and pointing their beaks towards the sky and shaking their heads.
I throw my finesse worm into a particularly thick weeded area and catch a fat bass – not quite 12 inches – but then no more strikes. I keep my eyes on the diving birds and finally see an actual fish in one’s beak. It’s not a bluegill as I had suspected, but a narrow minnow of some sort. So I tie on a Zoom fluke, fish it with a slow swimming motion, and I’m in business. I guess I catch a half-dozen bass or more in the little time I have left – two of them pushing 3 pounds – all among this weedy area of the lake. I get a walker to take my photo holding the largest. “Looks real to me,” was his comment.
I see 6 other anglers around the lake. None claims to have caught anything. Perhaps they’re fishing for trout. I walk the rest of the lake without any additional strikes – and without additional underwater grass.
An old gnarly man who could pass for homeless, but isn’t, passes me twice as he walks limping laps around the lake. The first time he greets me with, “Are you fishing or are you just practicing?” He doesn’t give me time to respond. “Like lawyers, they practice,” he concludes as he walks on with a smile.
An hour later he passes me again – after I’ve caught several bass – and says, “Where’re all your fish?” Again, no time for my response. “In your pocket? Ahhh, you’re a faker!” And he walks hurriedly on.
Whitehall Reservoir
Saturday, 6/9/2007 – Whitehall Reservoir – less than an hour from Boston
It’s raining and thundering and I’m the only angler at this strikingly beautiful 575-acre lake. There’s amazing shoreline everywhere along which I throw lures for bass hoping I don’t get struck by lightning which is abundant.
This lake is deep and clear and I should probably use a boat – available for rent – to give it a fair try, but the nasty weather keeps me shorebound and keeps my visit short. (My raingear leaks and I’m wet and cold.)
The quick version of this outing is that my soft plastics never get a bite even though I throw them into some prime spots. But I do get 4 bass to hit a Pop-R. I see two of them clearly – both nice fish, at least 3 pounds each. But I land only one bass – a largemouth that is one inch longer than the Pop-R which is itself a rather short lure. All bass anglers have caught tiny bass on big plugs, but this is the smallest I’ve ever caught on a Pop-R. It’s nice to set personal records.
I walk the shoreline all the way to the wide earthen dam – perhaps two hundred yards wide – on top of which is a path leading to the opposite shore. If the lightning and thunder would just go away I would walk over and explore. But instead I crouch near the dam and cast among some visible rocks.
A pickup truck pulls up abruptly and two young men get out. They don’t see me. They aren’t wearing raingear and they walk quickly to the middle of the dam where the regulator controls are located. They’re getting wet. One of them carries some sort of metal gadget about the size of a grapefruit, and he kneels down and fiddles with it for five minutes while the other one stands there and looks about. Neither sees me. They’re both getting wet from the rain that continues.
They have no fishing rods, the park is empty except for me, and I wonder what they’re doing. Are they terrorists, and is the gadget a bomb that will blow the dam and flood downstream residents? All sorts of thoughts pass through my mind.
The kneeler suddenly stands without the gadget which he has left there on the ground. The two of them turn back towards their pickup truck and both of them simultaneously see me crouched there on the bank. They suddenly break into a run – as fast as their legs will move – all the way to their truck. I brace myself for the explosion. They climb into the truck, close the doors, and drive off. I memorize the license number. And then I see the side of the truck – a state park insignia painted on it. They’re park employees doing some sort of routine maintenance or testing or whatever. For some reason I’m disappointed.
Even worse weather persuades me to depart. But I am glad I found this lake on the www.takemefishing.org Web site, and I hope to give it another try in the future.
It’s raining and thundering and I’m the only angler at this strikingly beautiful 575-acre lake. There’s amazing shoreline everywhere along which I throw lures for bass hoping I don’t get struck by lightning which is abundant.
This lake is deep and clear and I should probably use a boat – available for rent – to give it a fair try, but the nasty weather keeps me shorebound and keeps my visit short. (My raingear leaks and I’m wet and cold.)
The quick version of this outing is that my soft plastics never get a bite even though I throw them into some prime spots. But I do get 4 bass to hit a Pop-R. I see two of them clearly – both nice fish, at least 3 pounds each. But I land only one bass – a largemouth that is one inch longer than the Pop-R which is itself a rather short lure. All bass anglers have caught tiny bass on big plugs, but this is the smallest I’ve ever caught on a Pop-R. It’s nice to set personal records.
I walk the shoreline all the way to the wide earthen dam – perhaps two hundred yards wide – on top of which is a path leading to the opposite shore. If the lightning and thunder would just go away I would walk over and explore. But instead I crouch near the dam and cast among some visible rocks.
A pickup truck pulls up abruptly and two young men get out. They don’t see me. They aren’t wearing raingear and they walk quickly to the middle of the dam where the regulator controls are located. They’re getting wet. One of them carries some sort of metal gadget about the size of a grapefruit, and he kneels down and fiddles with it for five minutes while the other one stands there and looks about. Neither sees me. They’re both getting wet from the rain that continues.
They have no fishing rods, the park is empty except for me, and I wonder what they’re doing. Are they terrorists, and is the gadget a bomb that will blow the dam and flood downstream residents? All sorts of thoughts pass through my mind.
The kneeler suddenly stands without the gadget which he has left there on the ground. The two of them turn back towards their pickup truck and both of them simultaneously see me crouched there on the bank. They suddenly break into a run – as fast as their legs will move – all the way to their truck. I brace myself for the explosion. They climb into the truck, close the doors, and drive off. I memorize the license number. And then I see the side of the truck – a state park insignia painted on it. They’re park employees doing some sort of routine maintenance or testing or whatever. For some reason I’m disappointed.
Even worse weather persuades me to depart. But I am glad I found this lake on the www.takemefishing.org Web site, and I hope to give it another try in the future.
Cochituate Lake’s Middle Pond
Saturday, 6/9/2007 - Cochituate Lake’s Middle Pond (west of Boston)
The State Park gates open at 8:00 a.m. on this drizzly Saturday. I decide to walk the shoreline rather than rent a boat from among the multi-colored rowboats and canoes and kayaks stacked near the dock. There is plenty of room to fish in all directions and I start with a Pop-R on the surface right there at the paved ramp area.
The ramp area is quite long with room for 10 or more simultaneous launchings, although no boaters are here on this June Saturday – probably the weather. This lake connects to the North Pond via a canal and thus contains the same species, from bass to Atlantic salmon. I’m after bass.
I see underwater weeds everywhere and thus determine that this lake is much shallower – and bassier – than the North Pond. The lake is flat this morning and I watch swifts dart busily across the water. I start with a Pop-R and on my first cast parallel to the shoreline paved ramps a bass silently engulfs it. He leaps once clear out of the water and I soon unhook and release him: 14 inches. A good start, but the Pop-R goes fishless in a dozen more casts so I switch to a finesse worm.
I turn and walk along the shore to the sandy swimming area over to the right where nobody swims this morning. The drizzle and the air temperature (I’m wearing a jacket) will keep swimmers away today. One thing I’ve learned from a lot of years of fishing in public waters is that swimming holes, when not used, often have bass. This swimming beach bordered by a rope tethered to a row of poles parallel to the shore and the distance of a long cast. Outside the rope, on all sides, grow underwater grasses which reach the surface. Within the roped swimming area are no grasses. How do they mow them?
And there are ducks and geese here: a dozen mallards and 14 Canada geese. They part as I walk among them.
And sure enough, even though the swimming area appears featureless, I start catching bass on a finesse worm – one after another, perhaps 8 in the next hour, all 12 to 15 inches, all displaying a full leap upon being hooked, all healthy and well marked. And when I cast my worm outside the swimming area, into the underwater weeds, I catch nothing.
The strangest thing I’ve seen this morning is there in the sand next to the water: my last name, Bryan, written into the sand with a stick. And I’m the first one here this morning. Next to it is the name Catherine and next to that is Limena. I’ve never known – or heard of – a Limena. I’ll have to ask Janet.
A juvenile cottontail rabbit scampers from shoreline brush and scoots along the sand and into another brushy area. A short bit further a black-striped chipmunk does the same.
A couple of other shoreline anglers arrive and set up shop on the short piers along the ramp area, watching their set rods baited for trout. Nobody catches anything while I’m there.
After I leave the swimming area I catch an occasional additional bass – all on the finesse worm although I try several other lures including my big Senko which I was certain would attract bass but didn’t. One of the trout anglers whistles briefly in amazement as I lift a 15-inch bass within a couple of casts of his pier.
I see that there is a walking trail leading into the woods in both directions, and I bet it is accompanied by lots of good fishing spots. I wish I could stay all day.
The State Park gates open at 8:00 a.m. on this drizzly Saturday. I decide to walk the shoreline rather than rent a boat from among the multi-colored rowboats and canoes and kayaks stacked near the dock. There is plenty of room to fish in all directions and I start with a Pop-R on the surface right there at the paved ramp area.
The ramp area is quite long with room for 10 or more simultaneous launchings, although no boaters are here on this June Saturday – probably the weather. This lake connects to the North Pond via a canal and thus contains the same species, from bass to Atlantic salmon. I’m after bass.
I see underwater weeds everywhere and thus determine that this lake is much shallower – and bassier – than the North Pond. The lake is flat this morning and I watch swifts dart busily across the water. I start with a Pop-R and on my first cast parallel to the shoreline paved ramps a bass silently engulfs it. He leaps once clear out of the water and I soon unhook and release him: 14 inches. A good start, but the Pop-R goes fishless in a dozen more casts so I switch to a finesse worm.
I turn and walk along the shore to the sandy swimming area over to the right where nobody swims this morning. The drizzle and the air temperature (I’m wearing a jacket) will keep swimmers away today. One thing I’ve learned from a lot of years of fishing in public waters is that swimming holes, when not used, often have bass. This swimming beach bordered by a rope tethered to a row of poles parallel to the shore and the distance of a long cast. Outside the rope, on all sides, grow underwater grasses which reach the surface. Within the roped swimming area are no grasses. How do they mow them?
And there are ducks and geese here: a dozen mallards and 14 Canada geese. They part as I walk among them.
And sure enough, even though the swimming area appears featureless, I start catching bass on a finesse worm – one after another, perhaps 8 in the next hour, all 12 to 15 inches, all displaying a full leap upon being hooked, all healthy and well marked. And when I cast my worm outside the swimming area, into the underwater weeds, I catch nothing.
The strangest thing I’ve seen this morning is there in the sand next to the water: my last name, Bryan, written into the sand with a stick. And I’m the first one here this morning. Next to it is the name Catherine and next to that is Limena. I’ve never known – or heard of – a Limena. I’ll have to ask Janet.
A juvenile cottontail rabbit scampers from shoreline brush and scoots along the sand and into another brushy area. A short bit further a black-striped chipmunk does the same.
A couple of other shoreline anglers arrive and set up shop on the short piers along the ramp area, watching their set rods baited for trout. Nobody catches anything while I’m there.
After I leave the swimming area I catch an occasional additional bass – all on the finesse worm although I try several other lures including my big Senko which I was certain would attract bass but didn’t. One of the trout anglers whistles briefly in amazement as I lift a 15-inch bass within a couple of casts of his pier.
I see that there is a walking trail leading into the woods in both directions, and I bet it is accompanied by lots of good fishing spots. I wish I could stay all day.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Lake Cochituate North (second visit)
Saturday, 6/9/2007 – Lake Cochituate’s North Pond (second visit)
It’s dawn and I’m back at the Cartop Boat Access to fish until the 8:00 a.m. gates open down the road at the State Park. No float tube this morning – just shoreline, this time in the other direction.
It’s misty and foggy and the opposite shore melts into grayness. The whole dawn universe is gray with a verdant border separating water from air. A bird-egg-blue canoe glides in the distance. A bullfrog greets me with four guttural blasts. A squirrel scampers up the oak in front of me and hides on the other side, his tail peaking out. A snapping sound announces another squirrel up above. Then a third.
I find some bass. There is a grassbed a long cast from shore and a first cast with my Pop-R produces a 15-incher. Then another one on a sinking, fluttering Senko. And a final one on another Senko. All in the 14/15-inch range.
Way out in the middle I see a fish jump – no, leap – clearly five feet out of the water. Silver and sleek, it looks like a Florida mullet.
Then in the other part of the lake – way, way, way out in the middle – I see lots of splashing. A school of marauding bass! The splashing slowly approaches my area of the lake and eventually I see elbows. It’s a swimmer – a freestyler going methodically from somewhere to somewhere smack in the middle of this huge lake.
The blue canoe passes him going the opposite direction.
When I depart the canoer is loading. “That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” he offers. “I asked him if he’s okay, if he needs help, and he said he’s fine.” Neither of us knew the swimmer’s origin or destination.
The canoer also has an answer to my leaping fish: Atlantic salmon. They’re stocked in here and they jump just like that. One of his friends caught a 27-pounder! The http://www.takemefishing.org/ Web site is absolutely correct about their presence after all.
It’s dawn and I’m back at the Cartop Boat Access to fish until the 8:00 a.m. gates open down the road at the State Park. No float tube this morning – just shoreline, this time in the other direction.
It’s misty and foggy and the opposite shore melts into grayness. The whole dawn universe is gray with a verdant border separating water from air. A bird-egg-blue canoe glides in the distance. A bullfrog greets me with four guttural blasts. A squirrel scampers up the oak in front of me and hides on the other side, his tail peaking out. A snapping sound announces another squirrel up above. Then a third.
I find some bass. There is a grassbed a long cast from shore and a first cast with my Pop-R produces a 15-incher. Then another one on a sinking, fluttering Senko. And a final one on another Senko. All in the 14/15-inch range.
Way out in the middle I see a fish jump – no, leap – clearly five feet out of the water. Silver and sleek, it looks like a Florida mullet.
Then in the other part of the lake – way, way, way out in the middle – I see lots of splashing. A school of marauding bass! The splashing slowly approaches my area of the lake and eventually I see elbows. It’s a swimmer – a freestyler going methodically from somewhere to somewhere smack in the middle of this huge lake.
The blue canoe passes him going the opposite direction.
When I depart the canoer is loading. “That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” he offers. “I asked him if he’s okay, if he needs help, and he said he’s fine.” Neither of us knew the swimmer’s origin or destination.
The canoer also has an answer to my leaping fish: Atlantic salmon. They’re stocked in here and they jump just like that. One of his friends caught a 27-pounder! The http://www.takemefishing.org/ Web site is absolutely correct about their presence after all.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Lake Cochituate’s North Pond
Friday, 6/8/2007 – Lake Cochituate’s North Pond – west of Boston
I have just 90 minutes before sundown to wet my first ever line for Massachusetts bass in a lake I’ve never before seen but have recently discovered on the http://www.takemefishing.org/ Web site. The site says there are bass in here, and also Atlantic salmon which I assume is a mistake. The water is clear and deep and calm beneath a warm, cloudless sky, and so I start with a shad-colored suspending jerkbait that can be deadly in clear water.
The main gate to Cochituate State Park – just down the road – is already closed for the day when I arrive, but I find this “Cartop Boat Access” road and that’s where I am fishing. I see only one boat on the lake: a ski boat without skiers. Three shoreline anglers sit almost motionless in a row of canvas camp chairs a hundred yards down the shoreline.
Within minutes I am in my float tube and flippers. A throw-rug-size school of small fish dimple the surface a hundred yards out and I propel myself within casting distance. Nothing with the jerkbait. I switch to a finesse worm on a sixteenth-ounce head. Nothing. I count as I let it fall to the bottom – 50 feet.
I flipper my craft shoreward to a tiny cove next to the parking area and cast the worm to the periphery of a fallen tree. A good strike but no fish. Two more of the same.
I bite the worm in half – from six inches to three inches – re-hook the shortened version, and –promptly hook and land a leaping 14-inch largemouth. Purple-black markings on deep yellow-green body. The clearer the water the more defined the coloring.
A whole multi-hundred-acre lake on a June Friday afternoon near Boston, and my tube is now the only watercraft. A full palette of greens along the shorelines – no visible homes, just woods.
In a nearby tree I hear a bird that’s not from Virginia – a solo tweet like a brief tin flute. Again and again. A ground squirrel scoots along the shore, hops onto a log, poses, and scampers uphill.
Another 14-inche bass – identical coloring to the first – grabs the worm. So do three more before the sun sets.
In the back of the cove are weeds and I hear a deep-throated bullfrog bellowing among them. This place is too vacant for an after-work Friday – too close to Boston to be so vacant.
Another ground squirrel darts along, and further downshore a tree squirrel, three times as large, comes down to take a look.
I am throwing 6-pound line and I wish for a big bass or a big something else to grab the worm and scream the drag. But it doesn’t happen.
Back at the car as I deflate the tube another car pulls up and the driver gets out and photographs an orange-pink sun on the horizon nestled among evergreens and backlighting a gnarled stump in the foreground. I ask him if he’ll do me a favor and hand him my camera which I pose with tube and rod.
The nametag on the check-in lady at the motel says “Patt.” Two Ts. She says that three Pats work there and they have to be able to distinguish them so she gets the double Ts while the other two get Pat and Patty. Patt says she’s started using the double Ts by accident on other things including setting up her new home computer sign-on name yesterday. She says it with a smile.
I have just 90 minutes before sundown to wet my first ever line for Massachusetts bass in a lake I’ve never before seen but have recently discovered on the http://www.takemefishing.org/ Web site. The site says there are bass in here, and also Atlantic salmon which I assume is a mistake. The water is clear and deep and calm beneath a warm, cloudless sky, and so I start with a shad-colored suspending jerkbait that can be deadly in clear water.
The main gate to Cochituate State Park – just down the road – is already closed for the day when I arrive, but I find this “Cartop Boat Access” road and that’s where I am fishing. I see only one boat on the lake: a ski boat without skiers. Three shoreline anglers sit almost motionless in a row of canvas camp chairs a hundred yards down the shoreline.
Within minutes I am in my float tube and flippers. A throw-rug-size school of small fish dimple the surface a hundred yards out and I propel myself within casting distance. Nothing with the jerkbait. I switch to a finesse worm on a sixteenth-ounce head. Nothing. I count as I let it fall to the bottom – 50 feet.
I flipper my craft shoreward to a tiny cove next to the parking area and cast the worm to the periphery of a fallen tree. A good strike but no fish. Two more of the same.
I bite the worm in half – from six inches to three inches – re-hook the shortened version, and –promptly hook and land a leaping 14-inch largemouth. Purple-black markings on deep yellow-green body. The clearer the water the more defined the coloring.
A whole multi-hundred-acre lake on a June Friday afternoon near Boston, and my tube is now the only watercraft. A full palette of greens along the shorelines – no visible homes, just woods.
In a nearby tree I hear a bird that’s not from Virginia – a solo tweet like a brief tin flute. Again and again. A ground squirrel scoots along the shore, hops onto a log, poses, and scampers uphill.
Another 14-inche bass – identical coloring to the first – grabs the worm. So do three more before the sun sets.
In the back of the cove are weeds and I hear a deep-throated bullfrog bellowing among them. This place is too vacant for an after-work Friday – too close to Boston to be so vacant.
Another ground squirrel darts along, and further downshore a tree squirrel, three times as large, comes down to take a look.
I am throwing 6-pound line and I wish for a big bass or a big something else to grab the worm and scream the drag. But it doesn’t happen.
Back at the car as I deflate the tube another car pulls up and the driver gets out and photographs an orange-pink sun on the horizon nestled among evergreens and backlighting a gnarled stump in the foreground. I ask him if he’ll do me a favor and hand him my camera which I pose with tube and rod.
The nametag on the check-in lady at the motel says “Patt.” Two Ts. She says that three Pats work there and they have to be able to distinguish them so she gets the double Ts while the other two get Pat and Patty. Patt says she’s started using the double Ts by accident on other things including setting up her new home computer sign-on name yesterday. She says it with a smile.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
James River in Richmond
Friday, 6/1/2007 – James River, downtown Richmond
The http://www.takemefishing.org/ Web site says that Ancarrow’s Landing on the James River offers great shoreline fishing for families, but the site fails to mention that it also offers the strange and unusual.
My fishing buddy Bob Edwards is a person of integrity. Former director of communications for the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, as far as I know he has never been accused of falsehood – even though he’s a dedicated angler. All of which introduces an unbelievable catch that I made – and that Bob witnessed right there in the boat with me and will swear to – in the most urban and most public of fishing spots in Richmond, Virginia.
We put in at Ancarrow’s landing in downtown Richmond – the area where Christopher Newport’s boat was stopped by the Fall Line exactly 400 years ago when he explored upstream from Jamestown having arrived with our nation’s first Colonists. Ancarrow’s has a great launch ramp and lots and lots of shoreline from which anglers catch bass and catfish and bluegill and, in season, stripers and shad and white perch.
Our boat had drifted a few hundred yards downstream and we reached a spot at which we catch occasional bass and stripers, and I made a long cast with a small, deep-diving crankbait and promptly reeled in a 21-inch rainbow trout. A beautifully-colored fish with rich red gills and a frantically flapping body that successfully impaled one of the treble hooks into the end of my finger. I quickly measured and released it and marveled. (And put a bandage on my finger that wouldn’t stop bleeding.)
Now you have to realize that this is June below Mason-Dixon and I’m fishing in warm tidal water from which are pulled occasional croakers and flounder. A rainbow trout? If Bob hadn’t seen and witnessed, I wouldn’t mention it to anyone. (After the trout we caught two stripers and a smallmouth.)
The next day I telephoned Gary Martel, head of fisheries for Virginia’s Department of Game & Inland Fisheries, and he confirmed that their official records – including anecdotal tales – list no trout of any kind having ever been caught in the tidal James. Upstream a ways – in the non-tidal portion among the rapids and boulders – a trout is caught every 10 years or so after a flood, the theory being that it came downstream from upriver trout tributaries. But on the day of my rainbow catch, it had been months and months and months since the last high water.
Gary also told me that an Atlantic salmon was caught several years ago in the Appomattox – even stranger than my trout. As Janet’s father used to say, “The first guy doesn’t have a chance.”
The http://www.takemefishing.org/ Web site lists thousands of places to fish all over the nation and gives tons of tips and strategies and tells what species of fish are in what waters, but nowhere does it give advice on rainbow trout fishing in the tidal James or Atlantic salmon fishing in the Appomattox.
But when you visit Richmond and want some downtown, down-home fishing, visit Ancarrow’s and drop a line. Who knows what might bite?
The http://www.takemefishing.org/ Web site says that Ancarrow’s Landing on the James River offers great shoreline fishing for families, but the site fails to mention that it also offers the strange and unusual.
My fishing buddy Bob Edwards is a person of integrity. Former director of communications for the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, as far as I know he has never been accused of falsehood – even though he’s a dedicated angler. All of which introduces an unbelievable catch that I made – and that Bob witnessed right there in the boat with me and will swear to – in the most urban and most public of fishing spots in Richmond, Virginia.
We put in at Ancarrow’s landing in downtown Richmond – the area where Christopher Newport’s boat was stopped by the Fall Line exactly 400 years ago when he explored upstream from Jamestown having arrived with our nation’s first Colonists. Ancarrow’s has a great launch ramp and lots and lots of shoreline from which anglers catch bass and catfish and bluegill and, in season, stripers and shad and white perch.
Our boat had drifted a few hundred yards downstream and we reached a spot at which we catch occasional bass and stripers, and I made a long cast with a small, deep-diving crankbait and promptly reeled in a 21-inch rainbow trout. A beautifully-colored fish with rich red gills and a frantically flapping body that successfully impaled one of the treble hooks into the end of my finger. I quickly measured and released it and marveled. (And put a bandage on my finger that wouldn’t stop bleeding.)
Now you have to realize that this is June below Mason-Dixon and I’m fishing in warm tidal water from which are pulled occasional croakers and flounder. A rainbow trout? If Bob hadn’t seen and witnessed, I wouldn’t mention it to anyone. (After the trout we caught two stripers and a smallmouth.)The next day I telephoned Gary Martel, head of fisheries for Virginia’s Department of Game & Inland Fisheries, and he confirmed that their official records – including anecdotal tales – list no trout of any kind having ever been caught in the tidal James. Upstream a ways – in the non-tidal portion among the rapids and boulders – a trout is caught every 10 years or so after a flood, the theory being that it came downstream from upriver trout tributaries. But on the day of my rainbow catch, it had been months and months and months since the last high water.
Gary also told me that an Atlantic salmon was caught several years ago in the Appomattox – even stranger than my trout. As Janet’s father used to say, “The first guy doesn’t have a chance.”
The http://www.takemefishing.org/ Web site lists thousands of places to fish all over the nation and gives tons of tips and strategies and tells what species of fish are in what waters, but nowhere does it give advice on rainbow trout fishing in the tidal James or Atlantic salmon fishing in the Appomattox.
But when you visit Richmond and want some downtown, down-home fishing, visit Ancarrow’s and drop a line. Who knows what might bite?
Photo: John Bryan (me) with exact-size cardboard copy of his James River Rainbow.
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