James first shad

Even one of the younger members of our crew got into shad today. Picture of James with his first shad in the Delaware.  He landed three total. Its always nice to have the youngsters with us.

Shad fishing the Delaware 4/29/10

We are down in NJ chasing turkeys and fishing for shad. Turkeys haven't been very cooperative but the shad are trying.  Below is a picture of my dad's friend with his first ever Delaware river shad. Off to sleep as we have another early morning.

Sent this from my Motorola Droid as a test.  Pretty cool.

Sharing the Passion

As I stated in my blog welcome that one of my goals with this blog is to share my love and passion for the outdoors and I am proud to announce I've brought two new members into my outdoor passions.  A few weeks back I was doing a little practicing with my fly fishing gear in the company pond and one of my coworkers stopped to watch and started asking questions.  Well it didn't take long before I had him convinced to give this a try.  I handed him my fly rod and with a little instruction I had him casting out the fly and retrieving it along just as one of those cooperative little bluegills decided to make it interesting by hitting the fly.  So what started out as conversation ended up with my coworker catching his first fish on a fly rod.  Now that I had him hooked...get it?... I gave him some information on a upcoming free beginner fly fishing class that our local fly shop was having and suggested he stop by and check it out.  Well he did and ended up leaving the shop fully outfitted and ready to go.  So for the past week or so we've been out at the company pond practicing and getting ready for opening day which is on April 17th.  He is learning fast and enjoying himself and that is what sharing this passion is all about.

My second lucky victim just happens to be my daughter. My daughter already fishes, loves to camp and spend time in the outdoors and has even joined us on some of my hunts, but she decided that she wanted to actually try hunting herself.  So we spent the past month working on the home study Conservation Education Firearms Safety course which is required for her to get her license.  She then attended the 8 hour field day portion of the class where she participated in some field exercises designed to stress firearms handling and safety as well as the shooting portion of the class which allows for hands on experience shooting both a shotgun and .22 rifle.  Now my daughter has shot both of these many times before so shooting, safety and firearms handling isn't new to her.  I am also a certified instructor so she has been drilled in Firearms safety and gun handling from a very early age, but the actual part of hunting will be new to her and she is so excited, well except for the getting up early part.  She completed all the requirements of the course and received her Hunter Safety card in the mail last week so she can now purchase here license and permits.  Her first hunting trip will be on April 17th which is a special youth only hunter training day designed for youth hunters to participate in turkey hunting while being mentored by a licensed adult, which will be me and my hunting partner.  The youth hunting days are a fabulous idea and offer a great opportunity for youth hunters to get out and get experience before the pressure and crowds of an open season kick in.  So in preparation for this day we will be discussing the techniques of turkey hunting, shot placement, safety and patterning her shotgun so she becomes aware of her effective range and the capabilities of her firearm.  We've also done a little scouting and the turkey's have cooperated by being where I expected them and doing what I expect. 

She got a good look at one real nice long beard the other evening and even took some pictures of him and now my daughter has claimed him for herself.  I'm sure she thinks this will be as simple as picking out a pair of shoes, but she will soon see.  I know I can't wait for that morning as I look forward to sitting side by side with my daughter all snuggled up against a tree waiting for the sun to rise and the sound of the first gobble of the morning to rattle our bones.  I think I am more excited then she is.

Welcome to the Passion, now go share yours with someone.

Some links of interest.

National Wild Turkey Foundation
International Hunter Education Association
CT DEP Fish and Wildlife

Spring Practice

Bright, sunny and temps in the high 60s are the daily forecast around here.  Seems more like summer than spring, but in New England just give it time and it will change.  So before the weather changes it is time to get outside and get your spring practice in.  Spring practice in what you might ask, well it all depends on what you like to do and it really doesn't matter either.  Just use these days to work off all the rust from the long winter.  If that means, getting yourself reacquainted with your hiking boots and GPS, then maybe some quick Geocaching trips are in order. If it includes swinging a bat and shagging fly balls, well then break out the old mitt  gather up some friends and hit the park.  If fishing is your thing, then get out your tackle and hit an open pond, lake or stream to work out all the kinks.

This spring practice time offers you the opportunity to get out and take some test runs with your gear that sat all winter or longer before going off into a full fledged adventure.  How many times have you encountered that early spring day and your grab your gear in a frantic rush to take advantage of the early spring weather only to find your batteries in your GPS were dead, or your baseball gloves pocket is broke or you search frantically in your fishing vest for some tippet material only to find the spools empty.  Or worse, a hole in your waders... It may feel like spring but the water in the streams around me are barely breaking 40 and the last thing you want to do is find yourself hours from the car only to find you have a leak in your waders.  brrrrrrrrr,

Well,   I took advantage of the spring practice this week to hit up the little pond at my office where I could work on my fly fishing skills during my lunch break.  The pond at work offers some challenges with the trees and bushes which will cause me to work on my roll casting, as well as offer some open space where I can work on my false casting and distance casting.  Ofcourse, practicing my casting accuracy is part of this ritual spring practice.  It allows me to work on everything from my streamer fishing to my dry fly presentation of achieving that ever so softly drop onto the water of a dry fly.  All I can say was WOW, I'm rusty.

The pond also offers up the opportunity to practice my hook setting , fish fighting and landing techniques on the the large population of Bluegills or sunfish as I affectionately called them when I was growing up.  I'm sure if you have ever fished, then bluegills were something you caught at one time or another and for a small little fish they can be a challenge and loads of fun.  As we grow older and take on new fishing challenges the poor little old bluegill gets forgotten.  Fishing for bluegills can be a lot of fun for the kids and a great way to introduce new comers to fishing.  They are abundant in almost every pond, lake and even some small creeks and it doesn't take a lot of special or expensive equipment or technique to catch, but don't mistake this as them being easy to catch.  Try a light action rod with a light line for some real fun.

Bluegills will spawn from late May into August and during this time, male bluegills will build and defend plate-shaped nests along shorelines and in the warmer water. The females lay eggs in these nests and the males fertilize the eggs, guards them from predators and keep them silt-free by fanning over the eggs with their tails.  The spawning beds are a good sign that you have found quality bluegill waters

Bluegills can be pretty finicky at times so having the right offerings is a must. When it comes to bait of choice (Flies, jigs, live bait), think small because bluegills have very small mouths. If bluegills are hungry a they will bite anything that will fit in their mouths and this could lead to non stop fishing fun for everyone.  Bluegills can be real skittish so make sure to be quiet, walk softly and try not to be seen when approaching your fishing waters.

Now take advantage of the nice weather and get some spring practice in.  I know I will.

Tips on Catching Bluegills


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First fish of 2010

Well I had some things to take care of yesterday morning and decided to skip work and get some fishing in before running out to pick up my daughter.  I packed up and headed out to a local TMA - Trout Management Area - located in Northeastern CT.  The Cole Wilde TMA is located in Tolland and Willington on the Willimantic River.  The TMA starts at the mouth of Roaring Brook off Route 32 and ends downstream at the bridge on Route 74.  This section of water is designated as Fly Fishing only and is also a Catch and Release area meaning all fish caught must be released back into the river.  Many of the TMAs throughout Connecticut are open year round and most are Catch and Release or in some cases limited harvest.  This offers some good fishing opportunities to those willing to brave the cold water and weather throughout the winter.  The majority of Trout waters are closed as of the end of February and open back up for opening Day on the third Saturday in April.

I arrived at the river to find another fly fisherman with the same thing in mind.  As I put on my cold weather waders and prepared my gear I watched the other fisherman and noticed he had hooked a trout which was a good sign for sure.  I was hoping that the I would time my fishing with some sort of bug life hatching so I could work on my "match the hatch" skills.  Matching the hatch basically means trying to figure out what bug life is in the water and in the process of hatching into a flying insect.  The fish will key on the bug life and changes going on under water and start to feed on these insects so our job as a fly fisherman is to figure out what is going on and trying to offer a fly that matches the bugs the fish are seeing and feeding on in the water.  Much easier said then done for sure.  Before i started fly fishing I always thought that it meant drifting a floating fly on top of the water and a fish will just come flying up from the depths and devour it, atleast that is what I had seen on TV and in Magazines.

I've learned so much over the past 3 seasons of fly fishing and one important item is that the majority of a fishes food lives under the surface and actually in the lower 3rd of the water column.  These insects all start out as some type of creepy crawling type of bug normally refereed to as a Nymph or Larva where they spend their time hiding in weeds, attached to rocks, under rocks and sticks, where they remain until they are ready to change into adults.  Some insects even form a layer of protection like a cocoon out of sand, gravel and even sticks such as these cased caddis shown in the picture to the right. These nymphs live on the bottom of the stream until it is time to tun into an adult and they start to work their way to the surface in what is know as as an emerger stage.  During this emergence, the nymphs are much more active as they fight their way to the surface which is what the fish are keying in on.  As they emerge to the surface they actually stop just under the surface and begin to molt into an adult where they will break through the surface and fly away, well that is if a fish doesn't get hem first.


So with all my new found knowledge and having plenty of room to experiment with my fly fishing technique I decided to start out with a technique called nymphing.  Nymphing is basically presenting flies that represent the nymph or larva stages of the bug in the lower part of the water column along the bottom of the stream.  There are many different nymphing techniques so I won't get into much detail.  I was using an indicator - some type of float that rides the surface of the water that is supposed to help you detect when the fish takes your nymph.  Well for over an hour I worked a few small sections of water where I knew there was fish and as far as I could tell, I didn't get a single nibble.  I started to see some adult stoneflys on the surface of the water and even watched a fish rise once or twice.

I only had about an hour left to fish before I had to leave so I switched over to Old Faithful - An Olive Woolly Bugger.  As I have written in another post, they claim there is no wrong way to fish a Woolly Bugger and it is a great fly that represents so much from a baitfish, leeches to nymphs.  It didn't take me long with old faithful to hook and land my first trout of the 2010 season.  It was a nice rainbow trout about 10 inches in length.  It put up a wonderful fight considering the water was barely reaching 39 degrees.  I brought the fish to net and removed the barb less hook from his mouth and took a picture of him and released him back to fight another day.   That one little trout made my whole day and brought a huge smile to my face.  I continued to work the bugger in the same general area.  sometimes I would just left it dead drift along in the current, sometimes I would strip it in to give it a swimming action and sometimes I would just twitch it along as it drifted and swung in the current.  I ended up catching 4 more fish, 2 more rainbows and 2 browns all of which brought a smile to my face and released back into the stream as I thanked them for their participation.   All in all a wonderful day to get a little fishing in.

I did miss 3 fish, but what do expect from a long winter off.

CT DEP Fisheries - FAQ
CT Fly Fisherman's Association