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Date: July 02, 2006 at 12:43:28
From: ken, [pool-70-109-212-115.prvdri.east.verizon.net]
Subject: From the fishing reports page
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Date: July 02, 2006 at 12:30:12
From: ken, [pool-70-109-212-115.prvdri.east.verizon.net]
Subject: Last night I sat on the edge of a dock and
Watched over a hundred stripers eating tiny 1/8 to 3/16" crabs for hour after hour.
I have been hunting a school of bass that were doing this in a place where I could watch them easily and see down into their world.
I found one last night and I wish you all could have been there. (no fishing rods allowed however)
Sometimes you just have to watch and not try to catch.
Only men with self control can do that.
There were millions and millions of crabs floating along in the current. They are very tiny and hard to see. They also can swim like the dickens and race upstream in a heavy current and across stream and some just sit there and float along. Some are deep and some are sitting right on the top.
I have a fine mesh net so I can put that in the water and catch them and - I did - all night in many, many places and the crabs were everywhere and in the same astronomical numbers and there were bass on them in many of those places.
Mark my fishing buddy and I were on the prowl and kept moving from place to place looking for th3e right spot to watch them eat and then we found the perfect place.
Hundreds of bass, a light, a dock to sit on and fish right under us and out to where the light faded.
They were moving back and forth and were not rolling but remained upright as they fed.
They very seldom broke the surface, about one every ten minutes did, but all of them were shifting back and forth flying through the water like seagulls over the peak of a rooftop in the wind.
Some of them were keepers and many were in the five to eight pound range and some were less than 5 lbs. There were no tiny bass.
They looked like a school of salmon holding under a waterfall milling and swimming. They were using their pectoral fins like wings and flying like birds not swimming with their tails.
They were like vacuum cleaners, their mouths opening an closing like the strobe blink of a flashlight.
They would rise to about a foot under the surface and shift from left to right and from right to left their mouths winking as they intercepted the crabs one at a time.
Amazing.
Logic says they would not feed on them that way but there they were - feeding that way. Mouths opening and closing eating like the Pak Man of the early video game.
The crabs are tiny as I said and have a yellowish amber translucent glow to them. Light passes right through them and any fly tied to match would have to be tied on a size 16 hook or smaller at present. They do grow daily and soon a size 14 will do the job.
I am refining some patterns today.
This is as fun as it gets for a fly fisherman with trout fishing experience. I think - not - fun at all for a "Primitive,) (Yup, I really said that) cast and stripper.
This is like the trico hatch with billions of critters being eaten with such grace and ease that it is awesome and beautiful.
As Mark and I sat there the fish became more and more energetic and we both prayed that no fishermen would come and disturb the fish by throwing plugs or flies and upset the order of their feeding.
They were very aware of us sitting there and if we stood up or moved they would alter their feeding pattern and get agitated.
We would become still and they would resume feeding naturally.
There were lots of schools of small menhaden everywhere and that presence is waxing and will soon capture everyones attention along with bringing in the tuna.
Funny thing is the tuna will be soon be feeding on these crabs in the offshore weed lines.
:-)
It is not all slam bang whack em and stack em.
That is not the whole story of salt water fly fishing by a long shot.
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