Sayonara Winter

Another ice season is in the books. I didn't get out nearly as much as I did in years past, but each outing was an adventure. The peak of my season was a road trip to Lake George with some of the best ice I've ever stepped foot on. I love ice fishing as much as the next guy, but it's hard not to be looking forward to open water and warmer weather. Here are a few photos to remember this winter by. 

All About The Bait

Below is a letter of mine that was published in today's Connecticut Post about strengthening protections of important forage fish like menhaden and river herring.

Rebuilding fish population a long-term project

As a recreational angler who grew up on Long Island Sound, I appreciate and count on responsible management of our fish populations. So I tip my cap to Leah Schmalz of Save the Sound for her recent op-ed about reauthorizing the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act ("A federal opportunity to rebuild New England's fisheries," Sept. 28). The MSA's efforts to end overfishing and rebuild depleted fish populations are beginning to work, but much more needs to be done.

What really strikes a chord with me as an angler is the MSA's emphasis on protecting our forage fish, which are the little fish that big fish depend on for food. It doesn't take a marine biologist to correlate good fishing in Long Island Sound with a strong presence of important forage fish like menhaden and river herring. If things like overfishing, bycatch and habitat destruction keep depleting the ocean's forage fish, then the fishing here in the Sound for our game fish that rely on them for food -- including favorite quarry like striped bass, bluefish, weakfish and fluke -- will suffer greatly.

Rebuilding fish populations is a marathon, not a sprint. It may take years or even decades to undo the harm we have done, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't act now. I hope to someday see my children and grandchildren experience the tug of a big striped bass in Long Island Sound just like I've been fortunate to have had. That's why I urge Connecticut's U.S. senators and representatives to lead efforts to reauthorize and strengthen the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

Kierran Broatch
Milford, CT

Like Cordwood

Yesterday I took a ride to a Connecticut tidal river that pours into western Long Island Sound. The target species was fresh Atlantic herring that recently arrived here from offshore, as they do each winter. I can only imagine the challenges these silvery, foot-long fish encounter during their journeys at sea, only to come inshore and get pummeled by mergansers, seals and anglers like me.

Catching them can be fun and easy if your timing is right. The tide preferred by local herring sharpies is high outgoing, which happened to coincide with the warmest part of the day yesterday, though it was still bitter cold. Chemical hard-warmers helped keep me in the game, as did not touching the wet fish while shaking them off the hook. The mainstay method of catching herring on a rod and reel is with a Sabiki rig, which is basically a long leader with several little dropper hooks with glow beads and flash. At the bottom of the rig is usually tied a lead bank sinker that gives the desired casting distance and gets the offering down to the strike zone.

There were four of us on the rocks today, all strangers working in rhythm to fill our buckets. The process consisted of casting upstream on a current seam, letting the weight hit bottom and slowly reeling in. As the lead sinker bounced along the rocks and sand, the rig worked its magic in the current and herring latched on like it was their job. The fish tried like hell to dislodge the hooks from their paper-thin mouths by doing somersaults on their way in, but when one herring would pop off, another would grab hold. They were stacked like cordwood and we often caught multiple herring at a clip. I counted several doubles, a few triples and my eastern European neighbor had a lucky retrieve with four herring on at once!

I was a little unprepared today showing up with only one Sabiki rig. Not having a local tackle shop open near me due to the holidays, I decided to risk it and go anyway. Of course it didn't take long for my lone rig to get snagged in some riprap while pulling in a brace of herring. The line broke as I could still feel them trying to wiggle free. Thankfully a good Samaritan fishing next to me told me to grab a new rig out of his truck and I was soon back in line bailing fish. I owe him a hot cup of coffee for sure! I kept the good karma rolling by giving hand-warmers to one of the foursome that was going back and forth to his car to warm up. The small token was just enough to keep his fingers operable in the raw conditions.

The regular who spared an extra rig kept telling me the bite would slow down as the tide dropped, but it never happened. After a busy couple of hours, I bid my new jigging friends farewell and left the fish biting. I finished with a total of 54 morsels up to 13-inches long; by far my best day of that type of fishing. And while I won't be eating any of them, I never met a fish that didn't like herring! They will serve as fresh bait for a long time to come.  

Salty Stirrings

Things are definitely picking up in Long Island Sound and in her tidal tributaries.  Despite the desperate need for rain, alewives, blueback herring and shad are running up rivers and streams to their native spawning grounds.  Early arriving striped bass, bluefish and ever important menhaden are now showing up throughout Connecticut waters.  A large number of holdover stripers have dropped into the Sound from their wintering grounds.  Blackfish and winter flounder seasons just kicked off last weekend and from what I can tell, tog reports are great at local breakwalls and winter flounder limits of two aren't hard to come by in harbor channels.

Rigged eels and eel-skin plugs are two of the deadliest tools a striped bass anlger can use.

As far as fishing goes, my mind has been pretty focused on trout for the last several weeks, especially now with the annual Hendrickson hatch underway.  The Jeep is loaded with freshwater fly rods and ready to head north at a moment's notice.  However, the urge in me to saltwater fish is growing by the day.  Many of the striped bass to be caught here right now are smaller than the trout I'm targeting, but their much larger brothers and sisters are on their way.  Wild reports of good bass blitzing on bunker schools are streaming out of New Jersey and one can only hope that could happen here soon. 

Admittedly, I haven't done as much as I could have to prepare for the coming saltwater season.  I've been out a few nights after holdover schoolies, acquired a few new toys over the winter, but still have to tie leaders, change rusty hooks, rig Slug-Gos, and a long list of other things that I put off while trying to force an ice fishing season.  However, tonight, I took a small step in the right direction.  From the bottom left corner of my fridge, I grabbed the large Tupperware container that my wife tries to forget is there.  Inside I shook loose two rigged eels and a handful of eek-skin plugs from their winter slumber within a kosher salt-filled den.  The skins were dry and hooks a tad rusty, yet overall they survived the offseason well.  Some of the skins are getting gnarly, though in their defense, a few are entering their fourth year of service.  Over the next few weeks I will dust off my gear and get my act together for what I know is coming.

For now, I am hopeful that herring, bunker and shad keep showing up in droves and the big bass and blues soon follow.  Then the table will be set again for some memorable saltwater fishing.  Here's to an awesome 2012 season!  Good luck and stay safe!

Soon...

Strike While The Iron's Hot

Our local waters are loaded with life and fishing very well at the moment. Fresh with sea lice, migratory striped bass have returned to the area and are corralling pods of Atlantic menhaden in the shallows. Like clockwork, bluefish have also joined the party. In addition, thousands of alewives and blueback herring are dropping out of tidal rivers while schools of silversides and sand eels round out the baitfish smorgasbord.

Now would be a good time to log some hours on the water before summer sets in. Water temperatures remain cool enough for nice bass to be taken close to shore in broad daylight. As long as all this food sticks around, the shallow water all-you-can-eat buffet will continue. And as the water warms up, it will be time to start playing the night game a little more. Bottom line: go fish!

Keepers On The Fly

Over the last month or so, impressive numbers of river herring have made there way into many waterways along the Connecticut coast. According to weekly Connecticut DEP anadromous fish reports, some streams and rivers this spring are hosting the most herring since modern record keeping, which should also bode well for hungry striped bass hot on their tail.

I have been fortunate to tangle with some small striped bass this year, but nothing of any size yet.  Last night I got my chance when a friend and I did a bar-hop of fishing spots. We scouted many new and old haunts, but one thing was consistent at each stop--thick amounts of big juicy herring. Boils and surface crashes could be seen and heard in the distance. While retrieving our nine-inch flies, we even noticed herring trying to mate with the artificial offerings. 

Just before midnight, during the low outgoing tide, three solid stripers smashed our herring imitation one after another. Aided by the swift river current, the feisty fish put up some good battles on the fly rod and were all released in good health It turned out to be a hell of an outing and tonight we'll go back for more.   

Herring Time

A friend and I stopped by a harbor in western Long Island Sound today and secured a healthy amount of Atlantic herring for the upcoming hardwater season. A light-tackle rod and reel with a Sabiki rig is all that's needed to catch this forage fish, which venture each winter from the Atlantic Ocean to several river mouths along the Sound. The long, slender baits were vacuum-sealed and packed in the freezer for targeting targeting northern pike through the ice. The herring were perfect size, mostly 10-12 inches, and should be hard to resist while dangling under a tip-up in a trophy pike lake. For now, think cold!