Housatonic River - First Stripers of the Year - January 12, 2013

"Tin Can" hatch on the Housatonic River
near Shelton, CT. 

With the prediction of 50 degree weather, I decided to take a morning on the Housatonic River in Connecticut. I wasn't expecting too much more than exercise, and was pleasantly surprised with the striper fishing.  

Morning drift ice on Housatonic River. 

Soft plastics were the order of the day, and I caught most of my stripers on a 4" sluggo. In total, I caught 20+ stripers.

Got a late start, so I was only able to fish for two and a half hours after an hour and fifteen minute drive. When I got to the lot, I took one of the last parking spaces - the lot was packed with cars from everywhere from New Jersey to New Hampshire. Winter fishing on the Housy is an event. I got on the water by 11:30 am and joined the fleet of boats that was upstream of Sunnyside School. I was greeted by a substantial amount of drift ice, which I tried to keep away from my mirage drive, and made the launch difficult.

As soon as I launched, I started to mark thick clouds of stripers in the channel. Where the water dropped from 9' to 30', my fishfinder was almost blacked out - striped bass were on the screen thick for the bottom 20' of the water column. This was a huge school of stripers that spanned no less than the width of the channel, and was at least 100 yards long. The biomass was thick, and it appeared like an ominous storm cloud on the fishfinder. 


The stripers blanketed the bottom 15' of the water column

 


Of course, if the water was 55 degrees, the stripers would have been impossible to avoid catching, but in 35 degree water . . . . the fish were lethargic and the percentage of feeding stripers was low.

In any event, I caught my first striper of 2013 less than 5 minutes into my trip - a fiesty little schoolie.

A winter striper. 

Well, even in the low water temps, the fish bit well yesterday. I caught another half dozen in short order, and then the bite changed a bit as the tide dropped.

High tide was at high noon, and slack tide was short, since it was the morning of the new moon. As the tide changed, the big school of fish moved slowly downstream and we followed them with the "tin can hatch." Oftentimes of the Housy, boats will congregate closely together as they fish a school - this is referred to as the "tin can" hatch. 

Beat up sluggo.  



Over the next hour we harassed this big body of stripers, and everyone was catching fish. The stripers were almost corralled, and a bunch of us were picking off stripers from the sschool.  


The retrieve was the key to success. At the beginning, I was using a slow weak retrienve, as would be expected for fishing extremely cold water - this did not work. There were two gentlemen in a bass boat that were bailing schoolies on every cast - so I modified my retrieve to match. . . . . and it worked.

I started to let the jig sink to the bottom, which was about a 40 second count, and then jerk the bait hard once, let it sink for a couple of seconds, and jig it hard two more times, and repeat as the lure rose through the water column. Soon, I was catching stripers on every cast . . . . even as the battery on my fishfinder ran out. I was moving my jig quickly - and I was surprised that they striper were so aggressive in cold water.

. 

The wind was negligible, gusting from the northwest at about 5 knots. As such, it was easy to fish plastics.

I followed the Tin Can hatch to the bottom of Wooster Island, where the massive school was still moving downstream. But with my late start, I stopped fishing at 2 pm and made the mile and a half trip back upstream against a moon tide and snow runoff, all the while avoiding ice drifts. By 2 pm, the fog started to roll in hard, and it was quite thick by the time I got to the launch.

At least I left them biting . . . . thats winter fishing in New England. There are very few 50 degree days in January in the northeast.

It was good meeting fishing with Sean from NEKF, who also caught some fish. Sorry to have missed the other NEKF guys that were making the long drive from Massachusetts that night to look for bigger stripers. Kayakers were out in full force, and there were at least 7 kayakers fishing the river.





Housy near top of tide.



Housy upstream of Sunnyside. 



Little sluggos were the ticket today. 

A picture of the fog rolling in at 2 pm. 



After a few minutes, the fog set in heavy and
visibility was a big problem.

First striper of 2013. 

Elizabeth River, Chesapeake, VA - Citation Speckled Trout and Redfish

Elizabeth River near Chesapeake, VA

Prior to the new year, I made the long trip down to Chesapeake, VA to fish the famous "Hot Ditch" of the Elizabeth River for speckled trout. I fished for three mornings beginning December 29. Every winter, speckled trout make their seasonal migration up the Elizabeth to spend the winter. Upstream of Chesapeake Bay, there is a power plant that periodically discharges warm water into the Elizabeth. This warm water stimulates the feeding of the speckled trout, red drum, and striped bass that spend the winter in the river. Oftentimes, large schools of specked trout will congregate near the discharge area. Other fish will spread through the canals and main channel of the Elizabeth system.

Hot Ditch of the Elizabeth River

Although there is a red drum winter fishery in the Elizabeth, the drum are far outnumbered by the speckled trout, a close cousin of the weakfish that we catch on Long Island. These speckled trout are a silvery, smaller relative of the weakfish with almost an identical body type. In certain areas of the Elizabeth, the biomass of speckled trout can be as thick as the wintering stripers in the Housatonic River in CT, especially in the cove southeast of the power plant. Otherwise, the fish are spread out, but you can find schools of fish holding along the edges of dropoffs in the main river. The Hot Ditch is a channel carved into the estuary around the power plant where the water drops to 15' around 4' flats. This area always holds fish even when there is no discharge. On the main river, the specks held in good number around the mouths of coves, and inside the coves themselves. I also marked fish feeding around the feeder creeks that emptied into the Elizabeth, with an outgoing tide providing a smorgusborg of feeding opportunities.

Main channel of the Elizabeth River. 

Now, for the report.

Day 1 - 12/29: In terms of weather and conditions, this was the end of a low pressure system turning into a high pressure system and the morning after the full moon. I launched from a side road between the two bridges on the Elizabeth River at 8 am to cold, torrential rains. This coincided with the last two hours of the flood. The air temp was 42 degrees and the water temp was 47 degrees. To my surprise, I was the only kayak on the river. Later that day, there would be one other boat. To begin, I made my way from the feeder creek to the main channel. As soon as the water dropped from 8' to 24', I marked specks along the edges. The wind was blowing from the northeast at 17 knots. Initially, I tried casting but the wind was moving me too fast, and even with peddles, I couldn't hedge the wind enough to get a feel for my jig. As a result, I decided to try a searching pattern and troll two rods with small rapalas. Well, the wind tangled my lines on the troll, and I wasted about a half hour re-rigging. After this, the wind and rain in the main river became to much, so I decided to go try the Hot Ditch, where I had had some success with spike trout in February, 2011.

First speckled trout of the trip - 17". 

On the way there, I passed an island and had a solid hit. This encouraged me as I made my way to the ditch. After trolling around The Ditch for a few minutes, I got a hit on my rattlin rap - fish on! After a spirited fight, I got the fish to the boat and saw that it was a nice speckled trout, so I grabbed the net. I landed the fish and my first fish of the day was a nice 18" speckled trout, which was larger than any trout I caught on my prior trip to Virginia. 

Full colored, healthy Virginia speckled trout. 

So, I continued to focus on this area by trolling - navigating the ditch by my GPS tracks. Although I had a couple of other hits, the morning was slipping away fast and I really wanted to fish the feeder creeds of the main river during outgoing tide.

As such, I moved back to the main river around slack tide and started to troll along the western shore to the feeder stream that empties into the river on the west side. . . . although I got a few taps, I caught nothing . . . . and then saw a cove with barges in it . . . . it looked interesting, so I crossed the river and went into the cove. As soon as I got into the mouth of the cove, I started marking fish, and the farther I went into the cove, the more fish I marked - they were moving fast, but these were solid marks of speckled trout, so I decided to cast some plastics at the school, since I was in the lee of the wind a bit. Despite the good marks, I could not get the speckled trout to eat. By now, it was 11 am and I barely had any time left, so I thought I would focus working the dropoffs along the main river in 8' to 10', right at the dropoff.

By now, the tide was dropping fast, and I left the cove and headed north . . . . after a minute or two - I get a hard hit - WHAM - feels like I am stuck . . . . but I'm not - fish on again! This time, I could tell it was a really big fish, and I had trouble moving the fish initially - for the first couple of minutes, the fight was a tug of war that felt like the fish was winning - I didn't make much headway, and a couple of times, I just couldn't move the fish on my medium weight mojo - the fish felt heavy! After this, the trout came to the surface and started to shake its head out of the water - and I saw her - she looked big! I dropped my rod into the water to stop her from throwing the hook, and she went down again  . . . . . but my yak had moved away from the edges and out into the main channel . . . . so she went down deep and the fight became verticle - she made a couple of drag screaming runs down towards the bottom, but I continued to fight her and then the fish went under the kayak . . . . and I was afraid she would get tangled in my mirage drive, so I got my back up and made her feel the hooks, but the fish was determined, and made a couple of good runs before it surfaced . . . . so she finally surfaced, and then . . . . I got really nervous because specks have the same mouth as weakfish, and you have to make sure to keep the tension on your line when you attempt netting . . . . I did this, but fumbled the net backwards, and got her in, and brought her up! I was stoked! With the way this fish fought, I really thought this was a 30" class fish, but it turned out to be a solid 25".

25" speckled trout. 

Later, I weighed the fish at Ocean's East 2 Bait & Tackle in Virginia Beach. It weighed 5.25 lbs which qualified for a State of Virginia Trophy Citation. The citation was witnessed by Kayak Kevin Whitley, which made it even more special. 

After I caught the fish, I headed back in at 11:30 am. Luckily, there was one other boat out there with me that took a picture of me with the fish. Although none of these pictures was good, at least I got something!

Virginia Citation Trout - 5.25 lbs - Trophy Size

Total catch for the day - 2 keeper speckled trout - 25" and 18" respectively. Not bad for a yankee!!

To qualify for a speckled trout citation in Virginia, the fish must weight at least 5 lbs. For a catch & release citation, the fish must be at least 24".

Day 2

An unexpected surprise from the Elizabeth River

The second day, I met up with my old KFA-NY buddy Dennis Wise. Dennis and I fished often together from 2010 until he moved to Virginia Beach in the late summer of 2011. Dennis taught me some really productive patterns in his home waters of Reynolds Channel / Jones Inlet / South Oyster Bay. We had fished stripers hard on both the north shore and south shore of Long Island, and even broke through ice to catch stripers on the Housatonic River in Connecticut once. It was really great to hang out with him and fish with him for some exotics around his new home in Virginia. We had always talked fishing our home waters, but it was awesome to talk strategy with him about speckled trout in his new home. 

Dennis Wise

Dennis and I got to Chesapeake Yachts pre-dawn . . . . . a high pressure system had moved in since the previous day and the wind was blowing to 20 knots . . . . by the end of the morning, it would become a tide on wind situation where the wind was blowing almost consistently at 30 knots. This would make it almost unfishable from our kayaks later in the morning. The conditions were compounded by the fact that a severe cold front was also moving into lower Chesapeake Bay.

First Virginia Redfish

But, the beginning of the morning was somewhat still. One of our other brethren from KFA-NY, Gene Kenney had nailed a few nice redfish fishing the pilings of the interstate the prior week, so we headed out towards the Ditch to begin our morning. Dennis planned to present some scented soft plastics to the redfish around the pilings and oyster bars below the Ditch, I was looking to troll the edges of the Ditch itself for speckled trout. So, we temporarily went our separate ways. 

Under-slot redfish from the Elizabeth River, VA

On my first troll towards the power plant, my rod bent and I thought that I had a nice trout - very solid fight, with good pull . . . . got it next to the boat and I saw a different body shape, scales, and the "spot" on the tail . . . . it was a red drum! I netted the fish and subsequently measured a 16" redfish. This was special, since it was my first redfish since 2008 and my first Virginia redfish. 

So, I continued to troll the same route. With my back to the wind, I started to jig the rapala as I trolled . . .  and hooked up again. With the wind at my back, I turned the kayak, but the momentum of the boat made for a nice fight, and I netted A little later, trolling with my back to the wind, I landed a second trout, this time, a 16" fish that I released - again on the rapala. 

On this trip, the trout took my rapala at with various presentations - often it would be sinking after the cast, or it would be taken as I jigged the rapala as I trolled, but it was never hit if I just trolled straight, and most of my hits were on the ledges, or trolling through schools that I marked on my fishfinder. The common denominator seemed to be that they would hit at the time the lure moved from stationary to a forward moving, rattling target. 

First speckled trout of the day - a keeper at 15.5" but this fish was released to fight another day.

After checking my rapala for debris, I casted again, and let the rapala sink . . . . as soon as it started moving, I hooked up and caught a nice 17" speckled trout, as I caught and landed this fish, I was lucky enough to have Dennis move into the area, who had just caught a nice redfish by the bridge. He was nice enough to take a couple of pictures of me with the speck. 

18" speckled trout caught in the Hot Ditch

On this day, I focused around the Ditch. It was too snotty to fish the main channel of the Elizabeth and I also wanted to hit Frustration Cove with Dennis, who had a few friends from Pirates of Lynnhaven dunking minnows with the bobber brigade. So when the wind became too biting, we left the Ditch and hit Frustration Cove . . . . frustration if you are fishing artificials, but usually quite productive fishing livies. 

I trolled along the edges of the channel on the way out to the Cove, using an erratic motion, and caught another nice trout, that gave me a good fight. After landing it, it measured at about 18". 

3rd speckled trout of the morning - caught and released.

Needless to say, I got the best marks of the trip on my fishfinder at Frustration Cove - literally a big biomass of fish moving around the bottom 5' of the water column, and the cove is about 20' - these fish were really moving around fast, but in tight schools. I hit into a couple of fish . . . . but it was unclear if they were biting or I was hitting them with my jig. 

We didn't catch anything back there, and Dennis and I wanted to at least try the main river, so we left, and with wind and tide at our backs . . . . it was a fast ride out to the main channel of the Elizabeth . After we arrived, we dealt with whitecaps, did a quick troll, and went back to the launch - with wind against tide, it was tough. 

Final speckled trout of morning.

I totaled 4 speckled trout from 15" - 18" that day and 1 under-slot redfish. Great for three hours of fishing on a brutally cold and windy day. 

The water around the Ditch was about 5 degrees warmer than the main channel or Frustration Cove. 

Dennis Wise fishing in Frustration Cove

Those are the marks in Frustration Cove - those are
speckled trout you see on the screen. At times, the schools
5' thick. 

These were my two largest trout of the day.
I caught four keeper speckled trout that morning
but only kept the two largest 18" trout.

Day 3 

Only speckled trout of the last day and final fish
of the trip

Got to the launch to 24 degree air temps, with another high pressure system. The water temp was lowered to 41 degrees in the main channel, and about 45 degrees at the Ditch . . . . main channel was unproductive with only a couple of hits - I got a 16" trout at the Ditch on a rapala - no more fish the rest of the morning at quit at 11 am after an 8 am launch - less wind but brutally cold and the front shut off the bite. 

Special thanks to Dennis Wise and Marty Mood, who really guided me in understanding some of the nuances of this fishery. 

This was one of the most rewarding fishing trips of the year, and a great way to end 2012. The citation speckled trout was one of my proudest accomplishments of season. The area around lower Chesapeake Bay is an amazing fishery - everything from speckled trout, to redfish, to stripers, to sheepshead. A kayak is a great way to explore this fishery, and each season offers something different. Plus, there is enough fishable water down there that you can explore new areas for years. 

A frigid Virginia.