MIKE'S 39-POUND COD

CONSERVATION: UN calls for reduction of high seas commercial fishing fleet.

LIVE BAIT FISHING: As a guy who, if he can help it, likes to fly fish, I enjoyed a lesson yesterday on the merits of fishing for stripers with live bunker. It's the simplest, most effective way to catch large striped bass. But it's not so simple. You have to find and catch the live bait. You have to keep it alive. You have to have the proper rod and reel (we used Penn Live Liner spinning reels with Ugly Sticks), and correctly rig it. Then you have to find the stripers, get the bait down to them, and know exactly the right moment to stick a bass as it runs off with your offering. So don't be a snob and dismiss its practitioners--particularly an expert like Tim Hermus (631/288-7171), who more than likely is catching bigger bass than you.
I made a comment on the boat yesterday that baitfish must be what people who do bad things in life come back as, for all the abuse they take. But menhaden, for all that, are one of the most important fish swimming in the ocean.

NEWS: An angler in Boca Grande catches a potential world record hammerhead. Here's some video.

MONTANA: The debate over river and stream access continues.

PANFISH: Fly fishing for bluegill et al. in Texas. With a 2w or a 3w rod, this can be a lot of fun.

STRIPERS: This is what happens when you drift live bunker. (Details to follow when I'm not so tired.) Special thanks to Capt. Tim Hermus (631/288-7171.)

SNOOK: Florida anglers can comment on proposed slot limit changes.

TARPON: Bow to the king.

TRAVEL: Fly fish Fiji.

STRIPED BASS: The Recreational Fishing Alliance is protesting the call to harvest striped bass in Federal Waters. I agree with the RFA. Is the government looking for another complete collapse? Will people have the stomach to restore the population if it crashes again?

FLIES: Top ten flies for the Eastern Sierras.

TRAVEL: Montana's Big Hole River.

MY BUDDY'S BASSET PUPPY
His name is Gary. With apologies to Howard Stern, I've taken to calling him Gary the Retard.

NEWS: The Baghdad School of Fly Fishing.
(Link via ESPN Outdoor News Hound.)

MY BROTHER WITH HIS FIRST OF THE TRIP

SMALLMOUTH SAVE THE DAY

PIKE TRIP UPDATE: We missed the optimum time by about a week. (It's a guessing game when you have to commit to a weekend months ahead of time. Last year we went a bit too early.) The pike had begun to disperse from the shallows so we never found a hotspot where they stacked up. We caught a lot of small males, or "jack pike," but did manage to hook into a few gators every day. Fat smallmouth, though, proved to be the real day savers. They were in shallow and tremendously aggressive.
Here's the one that haunts me. I had my nephew in the boat, teaching him how to cast, when we tucked into a lee. I decided to check out this rocky shoal that never really held fish in the past. I made a cast into less than a foot of water, and the biggest smallmouth I have ever seen followed my fly right to the dropoff. I put another cast in there, and he whammed it but missed, then chased it all the way to the boat. I ran out of room and he took off. It's been running through my mind on a loop.
For an anti-climax, I caught a bullhead on fly, a first for me.

NEW BLOG: A post on Ass Hooked Whitey this morning linked to this blog, Carp on the Fly. I've been dying to try fly fishing for carp, so it's great to have a resource dedicated solely to that pursuit. I just got back from my annual spring pike trip, where we saw several cruising carp that had to weigh over 20 pounds. What angler would see fish that big in the shallows and not dream of catching them?

ANTICIPATION: Tomorrow I will rise at 5:30 am, shower, and jump in the car to pick up my brother on Manhattan's Upper West Side. We'll bust tail on the highway for 6 1/2 hours until we reach the north country. We'll meet up with my Dad at our family cottage, and he'll have the boats ready for launch. By tomorrow afternoon, hopefully, we'll have flies in the water targeting hungry northern pike roaming the shallows.
This is one of my favorite trips of the year. (Traditionally we have 10-12 guys fishing with us, but this time the numbers are down to six.) We fish from sunrise to sunset, casting flies to post spawn pike as they hang in numbers along the shoals, flats, and creek mouths, hungry and pissed off.
I fish mostly an 8w with sinking line, and baitfish patterns big and small. My favorites are the puglisi yellow perch and smaller patterns like the eat-me. Saltwater deceivers work well, particularly ones with big eyes. Clousers work, and rabbit strip flies, with chartreuse, white or black being the dominant colors...I prefer fishing flies tied with super hair because the pike don't destroy them as quickly. You read a lot about guys targeting pike with floating line and surface flies or dahlberg divers, but where we fish the pike typically hold in 5-7 feet of water, so using sinking line is more effective. The tradeoff is that you don't get the explosive surface strikes.
Every year, I hope for an encore from the pictured 52-inch muskie caught by my brother's friend Crispin. In 2002, he nailed this awesome fish on an 8w when he cast a white rabbit fly under a fallen tree in about three feet of water. She still lives in one of the bays we fish. She hasn't struck a fly since, but she's followed several small pike we've landed right to the boat, then tailed off at the last moment. We know it's the same fish, because we see her there all the time. But she won't eat again. I guess a muskie doesn't reach that size by being foolish.

NEW BLOG: When this started popping up in my sitemeter referrals, I thought I'd been accidentally linked to a porn site. But Ass Hooked Whitey is actually an irreverent fly fishing blog.

FLY TYING: ArtsNFlies has a video on how to tie an EZ Sparkle Sand Eel.

VIDEO: Getting psyched for my trip to Boca Grande next month by watching some Tarpon clips.

INDIANA: Man catches a 29.3 pound brown trout in Lake Michigan. The article has a picture of this ridiculous hogger.

NORTH CAROLINA: Trouble with the Lake Norman striper stock.

GREAT LAKES: Changes in ecosystem affect alewives, and therefore salmon.

TROUT: On dry fly fishing.

KANSAS: Fly fishing there is on the rise.

NEWS: Carbon fiber demand may up the price of rods.

(Link via Midcurrent.)

CONTEST: Flies and Fins is running a raffle to win an Orvis Battenkill reel. It's a great forum for posting your fish stories.

MONTANA: A prime fishing spot is ruled to be "just a ditch." It's never a good thing when the public is deprived of water access.

(Thanks to the Outdoor News Hound for the link.)

MORE CARP: Lake Erie bow angler nabs a 54-pounder.

WEB STUFF: I don't know exactly what I'm learning from this, but the new Google Trends is kind of fun to play with. Denver had the most fly fishing search queries, but when I typed in just "fishing" it was Tampa. "Fishing Jones," it should be noted, did not have enough search volume to produce a graph.

PODCASTS: Here's a worthwhile listen, an interview with Midcurrent's Marshall Cutchin. It's 35 minutes long, so it's best to download onto the iPod and listen to it while you're driving somewhere to fish. Preferably for tarpon.

FISH STORY: Mark Powell, director of fish conservation at the Ocean Conservancy, has started a blog. I'm linking to a post a few guys I knew in college might be interested in, should they want to break out some of their old Dead tapes.

FLY FISHING: The rise of women guides.

STRIPED BASS: Took my first striper trip of the season this year, going with my colleague Chris on the "pre-work special" with Capt. John McMurray in Jamaica Bay. We started just after sunrise, and John had me casting a popper along the shoreline, while Chris worked a clouser off an intermediate sink line. Chris, who grew up trout fishing in Utah, got his first taste of saltwater action when a couple of schoolies blasted his fly.
For me, not much beats popper fishing. On my first attempt, we all watched as a big striper swirled on the popper and smacked it with its tail. Then it turned around and charged it. Watching this, I got buck fever and yanked the popper out of its mouth. I got redemption later when the fish pictured above absolutely slammed that popper. We took some video of the action and hopefully something good came of it.

BOOKS: An excerpt from Howell Raines' fly fishing memoir.

TROUT: This post is about the embarrassment of riches that is the Connetquot. I didn't have time to post earlier, but on Sunday I had the most ridiculous day of fly fishing for trout. I went to the Connetquot River on Long Island, which I've written about in the past. It is a picturesque setting in a State Park where you pay to fish an alloted beat for a set period of time. I fished the 4pm-Sunset time yesterday.
I never go to the Connetquot expecting anything but a good day. It is stocked with healthy rainbows, brooks, and browns, and the spring fed stream has enough life to sustain numbers of big fish. When the fish first hit the stream out of the hatchery they are not too swift on the uptake. You still have to present yourself well, you can't bluster around the stream or whack the river into a froth with too many false casts. But if you approach the stream with a semi-reasonable amount of stealth, and present a fly in a somewhat lifelike manner, the fish will reward you for it. And they get more educated as the season wears on.
Yesterday, I must have timed my expedition with the release of about 5,000 brook trout. I can't confirm this, but in every conceivable hole along the stretch of water I fished, I found fearless little brookies there for the taking. At some point, it got to be ridiculous, because I caught one on every cast. In fact, when I spotted some larger, more wary fish, I had to try as hard as I could NOT to hook the smaller fish to get a shot at the fatty.
I used woolly buggers to great effect. Towards the end I tied on a royal coachman to see what would happen and they hammered that, too. That dry fly action, as well as one very sporty rainbow that interjected, made the day. A day at which I stopped counting releases at 60. And I'm not posting that number as evidence of my prowess. If I had real skills as a trout angler, I could have had over 90. I missed that many strikes. So I don't look at this day with any real sense of accomplishment. But I'll tell you this, I look at it as a day that was a hell of a lot of fun.

CARP: Hatches Magazine has an article about pursuing them on fly.

SCIENCE: Reducing the Gulf of Mexico "Dead Zone."

TENNESSEE: Trout Underground has an extensive post about Tennessee trouting.

MAINE: Expanding pike population is a threat to salmon.

TRAVEL: Um...want to try crocodile fishing?

WYOMING: The brook trout's image problem out west. Funny how one man's treasure is another's trash fish.

BROOK TROUT: Posting this press release from Trout Unlimited...
New Data Shows Brook Trout Challenged Throughout Much of Their Eastern Range
New York Among Northeast States with Strongest Brook Trout Populations
ARLINGTON, VA – Brook trout populations have been eliminated or greatly reduced throughout more than fifty percent of their historical range in New York.  These results reflect the condition of brook trout across their entire Eastern range, according to an assessment released today by Trout Unlimited and a coalition of state and federal agencies.  
“Brook trout are the canary in the coal mine when it comes to water quality,” said Gary Berti, Trout Unlimited’s Eastern Brook Trout Campaign Coordinator.  “The presence of brook trout in a watershed indicates that water quality is excellent.  Declining brook trout populations can provide an early warning that the health of an entire stream, lake or river is at risk.”
The report, “Eastern Brook Trout: Status and Threats,” is the first comprehensive assessment of the status of brook trout in the Eastern United States.  These beautiful fish historically thrived in rivers and streams stretching from Maine to Georgia, but in many cases land use and other pressures have relegated the remaining isolated populations to the headwaters of high elevation streams. 
Even with the decline, New York is among the Northeast states with the strongest brook trout populations.  The state’s intact populations occur mostly in the Adirondack Park, Tug Hill Plateau, and in the Catskills.  Brook trout have been eliminated from almost 25% of their historical range in New York, and they are greatly reduced in another 27% of the watersheds that formerly supported brook trout. 
“While these results are sobering, we are already pursuing many opportunities for conservation of remaining high-quality habitat as well as restoration of brook trout populations,” said Jim Daley, Coldwater Unit Leader, New York Department of Environmental Conservation.  “Our collective challenge is to protect the best remaining habitat and restore as much of the rest as we can.”
“Brookies are quick to respond to positive environmental improvements,” explained John Braico, the brook trout coordinator for Trout Unlimited’s New York Council.  “We’ve already seen good results from our state’s pond reclamation efforts in the Adirondacks.  As we continue these and other efforts throughout the state and region, we’ll see wild brook trout returning to our streams and ponds.  And that is great news for all of us who love to fish locally with our families and friends.” 
This assessment represents the first stage of the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture’s collaborative efforts to restore brook trout habitat.  The Joint Venture was initiated in 2002 as a pilot program of the National Fish Habitat Initiative.  Participants include fish and wildlife agencies from 17 states, federal partners, conservation organizations and academic institutions.  The results of this assessment will be used to develop state-by-state strategies for brook trout conservation and recovery.
The full report, as well as state-specific data and maps, are available at brookie.org.

QUOTE: Came across this great quote in the Zane Grey book I've been reading off and on...

"Fishermen, no matter what supreme good fortune befalls them, cannot ever be absolutely satisfied. It is a fundamental weakness of intellect."

NEWS: Fishing to prevent anti-social crimes.

TRAVEL: Fishing In Finland.

TROUT: So much for "matching the hatch."

(Link via Moldy Chum.)

CAROLINA RED SHOWS IT SPOTS
(Photo from Capt. Gordon Churchill.)

NEW SITE: Idaho anglers might want to check out "The Den."

ALASKA: Taking stock of the discard found in the Kenai River.

TECHNIQUE: Sight fishing for spawning bass.

FLORIDA: Wading fly angler finds himself in a gator's jaws. This is the thing about freshwater wade or bank fishing in the sunshine state. Between the Gators, water moccasins, and bugs, it always makes for an interesting time.

(Thanks to JR Absher of ESPN Outdoor Newshound for the link.)