Weakfish and Croaker - 8-9-13

Good action on Jamaica Bay near Silver Hole on weakfish again. I caught 7 weakfish to about 21". I left my camera at home, so only got a couple of pics on the phone.

The bay is filled with croaker. I probably caught about 30 small croaker during the trip. Lots of big norfolk spot around as well. The spot are averaging about 11".

The weakfish action should continue to improve. I don't think I'll be able to hit it again until September.

The north wind made the water dirty at Silver Hole. Next time, I'll try the south side of the bay on a north wind.

Return to Trout Town

I headed up to Pepacton for the third time this year with Walt and Frank from KFA-NY. We had pretty good brown trout fishing . We all caught browns. I caught 5 browns including 3 keepers, keeping my limit with 2 17" trout. I also caught a nice 17" smallmouth. Walt had a banner day and between the three of us, we totaled over a dozen browns. 

No fish stories about big trout breakoffs this time. It was a solid trout bite, but far less quality than June. 

The fish were deep for the most part - 6 colors of leadcore did the trick.

We didn't get the cloud cover expected and needed. The partly cloudy weather didn't do the trick. The water surface temp still 74 degrees despite nights in the high 50s.

For the last two trips, the key to catching has been understanding that these trout behave like pelagics in this massive reservoir. Unlike the first two trips in June, the browns are no longer associating with shoreline structure and drop-offs and appear to be constantly in motion. Every brown I caught was in the thermocline at 100' - 170'.

Frank and I made a big strategy mistake. I marked a massive school of fish up and down the water column on a steep shelf near the dam. Frank wasn't marking fish, so we figured that they were alewives rather than trout, but knew that a huge school of alewives would definitely have brown trout on it. As expected, there were trout feeding on them. I saw a pod of larger browns come up hard from to the surface to slam struggling alewives. Frank saw a little mini blitz as well. But, we couldn't get trout to bite around the school and probably wasted a couple of hours working it too long. Later in the day, I was only getting hits away from my marks in open water. The trout act very nomadic as the day goes on and the sun gets higher. 

Unlike the alewives, the browns don't appear to be schooled up. They are spread out across the reservoir in very small pods and not feeding too aggressively, which is expected with the bright days and heat of summer. Many of these pods are congregated near the dam. As I said earlier, there was some feeding on the upper portion of the water column as well. I had several hits letting out my lead core line. It wasn't only brown trout on the alewives, but smallmouth bass. I caught a 17" smallmouth trolling through a the school with lead core in 150' about 40' down. 

With the trout moving around so much, the key to success was covering huge expanses of water, so be prepared to cover about 10 miles of total trolling if you are there for the day. Also, the action has been in the middle of the reservoir in the open water. 

One of my goals this season is a NYS Catch & Release Citation for a brown trout so I've got at least one more trip left in me. I'm hoping that the big trout have one more heavy feed when the water cools off later this month before the approaching spawn changes the bite for the remainder of the season. 

Back to Saltwater . . . .

Croaker! 

Average 10" norfolk spot

I hadn't fished much saltwater during the months of June or July. I finally got out on two 3 hour morning trips last weekend. The first day I targeted fluke at Rockaway Inlet. The second morning, I headed east into Jamaica Bay to do some backwater scouting for weakfish from some of my GPS locations from the prior season.

The fluking was excellent in the inlet. I found a deep slough adjacent to the channel and caught a limit of keepers with the biggest fluke at 25". The big fluke got off my grappler so I did not get a picture but I got a nice pic of a 23" that I caught. I caught all the fluke on Spro bucktails near the top of the flood.

The second day, I found weakfish in the backbay along with a variety of other fish, including the exotic croaker. The croaker was a surprise as I have only encoutered them occasionally in Florida. It was a small one at 11". The day started out well. I drifted into a 20' flat and caught a really nice 22" fluke. It took some drag and gave me a dogged fight. I also caught a couple of nice weakfish at 26" and 27". Another surprise was a 13" sea bass. There are also tons of spot, but of the bigger variety. It seems to be same population as last year, but they have grown about 3 inches. The average size was 10", and I caught 11" spot as well.

In total, I caught 5 species: weakfish, fluke, sea bass, croaker, and spot. I caught 7 total weakfish, which is very good for July, a much better start than last season, which was the best summer run I've fished. The spring fishing was really good as well, so I'm encouraged about the rest of the season. For the next two months, most of my saltwater fishing will be targeting weakfish around Jamaica Bay and the Great South Bay. There was a strong run last year and I anticipate that this year may be better. Off to a good start!

Adirondack Trout Fishing

We travelled north to the Adirondack Mountains for our summer vacation this year and spent  the trip in both Saranac Lake and Lake Placid. I had the opportunity to wake up early and fish some mountain ponds for char. The Adirondacks have three species of char - brook trout, lake trout (makinaw), and splake. The splake is a cross between a brook trout and a lake trout and displays attributes of both parents. Some of the ponds in this area have wild splake supplemented by stocking, so the fishing can be excellent. Splake are one of the rare hybrids that aren't sterile.

I have been traveling up to the Adirondacks for most of my life, and especially over the last 15 years.  Each trip, I experiment with at least one new pond. It helps to broaden my horizons and really gain knowledge about the best fishing in the area.

I primarily targeted splake and lake trout and the fishing was excellent in spite of the hot weather. I looked to fish lakes that were accessible by kayak or canoe only, so almost every pond I fished could only be accessed by trail. My kayak cart was essential to fishing these ponds. Most of these ponds are only opened from April to October, so the limited access and short season leads to extremely good fish populations.

Initially, I was looking to jig for splake. My strategy was to search for pods of alewives or smelt and begin jigging. I found the pods of baitfish, usually on the bottom for smelt, or along the bottom third of the water column for alewives. I only caught one fish on the jig the entire trip - a nice 24" splake, but I snagged more baitfish (smelt and alewife) than splake.

The first time I snagged an alewife, I began trolling with it and caught a 22" splake immediately.

On another trip, I snagged a large smelt, but it keeled over and floated to the surface. While I was re-rigging in 70', a 21" splake came up and took it off the surface and started to run with it. I hooked it, and a crazy surface battle ensued, where the splake took off towards the bottom and I disengaged my reel to let it run. It dragged me around the pond for a couple of minutes but I landed it.

Despite some success with the livies, my best fishing was the result of trolling Suttons. Although the surface temps in these ponds was around 72 degrees, they are all fed by cold springs and the water gets cool quickly only a few feet under the surface. I found that  the zone to look for splake was in 20' to 25', which normally coincided to the location of alewife or smelt schools. Trolling speed was often critical, and 2.0 mph worked best, sometimes I would need to speed up and slow down to trigger a hit. A zig-zag trail would also often induce a hit.

I learned much about lead core fishing this trip. Importantly, I don't view my reel as a conventional anymore, but look at it more like a fly reel, and I disengage the reel as I troll and control the drag with my thumb. This allows me to absorb some shock when I get a hard hit at the beginning of the strike. I learned this lesson the hard way. One morning, I hooked into a fish while trolling. The fish gave the typical head shake when hooked, but when the hook couldn't be shaked, the fish panicked and bolted for the surface. It leaped out of the water and I saw it was a nice landlocked Atlantic salmon, most likely over 22" - the momentum of the leap away from the boat coupled with the lack of drag on my lead core led the salmon to break my 6 lb fluorocarbon line. So, it was an important learning experience.

This was helpful, as I caught many splake in the 25" class and even a 33" lake trout. The lake trout was released and qualifies for a NYS Catch & Release Angler Achievement Award. My largest splake was over 31". I erroneously released the large splake believing that it was a lake trout only to learn from the regional biologist that it was likely a splake. It really hurt when I got home and saw that the NYS record for splake was 31" long. Although it was a disappointment, I now know that these ponds can produce splake in that size class. The knowledge I obtained from learning the fishery the last two years will assist me greatly to catching an even bigger splake in the future.

The battles with the large laker and my biggest splake were very memorable. They both fought similarly hard. After getting hooked, they both bolted to deep water. I disengaged my reel, as I was towed away from the edge of the shallows to the deeper portions of the lake. They both took me down from 3 colors of core to 7 colors of core and went on several runs. Each time that the fish would become winded after a long run, I would nudge her towards the surface. These were both fast and powerful fish. It was almost like hooking a motor boat. I was almost taken to my backing!

The splake moved with the alewives from day to day, but stayed consistently along the edges of steep drop-offs adjacent to medium-depth flats (20'-25'). The sharp drops to up to 35' were the best producers, but the splake were holding shallow. Splake could often be seen pushing the alewives to the surface. The splake were always near the alewives.

All and all, a great trip. I'd like to get up there again next month and hopefully for Columbus Day as well. Next trip, I intend on targeting brookies more, and the final trip will be prospecting more for big rainbows. There are so many ponds and lakes in the area, and the number of cold water species is so diverse, an angler could travel to this area for decades and not cover every good water. The Adirondacks are definitely a paradise for the kayak fisherman.

Special thanks goes to Tim MacNamara, who hooked me up with one of his Paddle Cams for trip. This allowed me to take some solo pics and may have been the MVP of the trip, because now I have some pics that will last a lifetime to memorialize the great fishing. It took really good pics and is now a must have gadget for me on my fishing trips!