Jack – Page 2 – Roccus Writing

Striper fishing report 5/13-5/15

The striper fishing along the shores of the inner harbor in Winthrop has slowed down a bit over the past few days, probably because of the offshore storms, which have really roiled up the water in some places and have made the outside shore relatively unfishable unless you can cast a flyrod
while riding a surfboard.

I fished a few hours each day and each day I caught fish, but they were widely spaced, one every twenty minutes or so. There was one stretch when I went almost an hour without a hit, this in an area that had been producing well on this stage of the tide only a few days before. I’ve had some surface action with a Gurgler but it’s been very spotty; the most consistent producer has been a chartreuse and white BeastMaster, which is very visible in the murky water. I think, though, that once the weather settles a bit, the fishing will certainly pick up. Looking at my records from last year, the fishing didn’t become consistently good until May 20th; maybe it’ll be the same this year. One thing’s for sure; the water temperature must rise by a few degrees before things really turn on. The temperature’s been up and down this past week but for the most part it’s averaged a chilly 50 degrees in most of the places I’ve fished. Brrrr!

Stripers and largemouths

The Stripers are here!

Stripers have been appearing in good numbers (and sizes) all up and down the northeast coast for several days now along with good numbers of baitfish: herring and silversides for the most part.

It seems like you can almost predict the date: May 8. Depending on weather of course. My logs from the past ten years show that one or two days before and after May 8 you can expect the stripers to be in the warmer parts of the harbor and in most of the estuaries. So get out your gear and head to your favorite striper spot and expect some good action, especially around the lower stages of the tide. If you have only six hours to fish and are wading, try to be on the water three hours into the drop until about three hours after the rise. You can, of course, find good fishing at other times but the fish are more concentrated when the water is lower–and of course it’s easier to access most fishable spots at this time.

I’ve only been out twice in the past few days (the weather hasn’t been all that cooperative; wind, cold, rain, etc. but the two times I’ve been out I’ve been successful. And thrilled to bits to catch the first (for me) stripers of the season.

Here’s a brief rundown of the past few days, my life in capsule form, so to speak.

Saturday, May 10

I had to cancel my first Striper Strategies class of the season because of a predicted storm (which never came, by the way; however it WAS cold and windy) and I stayed in to tie flies and catch up on orders and watch the weather forecasts, hoping that the next day would be warm enough to fish. I was impatient to get back on the water, especially since the night before I had done well fishing for stripers “under the lights”.

Sunday May 11 warmed up more than expected and turned out to be a really interesting day, actually a great day for fishing–at least until the wind picked up. I started fishing a little later than planned (couldn’t get up early enough to fish the dropping tide) and arrived at one of my favorite spots in the inner harbor about half and hour into the rise. It was my first visit of the season and for the first half hour I didn’t get a hit. It wasn’t until about an hour into the rise that the fish started showing up. The water was exceptionally clear considering how roiled up the outside water was and the fly I was fishing–a chartreuse/white BeastMaster–almost glowed beneath the surface. Most of the fish hit close to the surface, within a foot or two, and I was able to see almost every take. The fishing, to be honest, wasn’t fast, one fish about every fifteen casts, but what a thrill! The smallest was about 21″ and the largest 32,” a real beauty! I caught seven in all–this in about an hour and a half. I would have fished longer but the wind was picking up and my hands were getting cold; my shoulder was beginning to bother me as well. Not only that but I had a plan to fish for largemouth bass later in the afternoon and I wanted to get home and take a nap so that I wasn’t completely exhausted for the evening fishing.

Later in the afternoon, after my nap, my friend Dale Linder came by and we headed up to Putnamville Reservoir in Danvers/Topsfield. I hadn’t been there in fifty years and was looking forward to fishing for bass with a 5 weight rod. If you read my last blog entry you might remember that I’ve been looking over some of my log notes from fifty years ago. It was while doing this that I remembered Putnamville Reservoir and decided to revisit it, just for the fun of it–and maybe for the nostalgic element as well.

The fishing was about as good as I could have expected with the temperature in the low 50’s and the water colder than that. Wandering the shore line, I picked up bass wherever I found structure close to shore. They were all largemouth bass–though there are smallies here as well–and all eagerly hit the small Bass Gurgler I was fishing. None was large–the largest about a pound–but all were fun. Caught four bluegills and a pickerel as well. Dale was fishing a streamer and caught many more pickerel than bass. We didn’t have a lot of time to fish, a few hours, and it took a bit of hiking and wandering through the woods to discover some of the best places but in that short time I decided that it was a place I’d love to explore further, but I think I’ll wait until the water warms up a bit before heading up there again.

All in all it was a wonderful day of fishing. Stripers and largemouth bass. Who could ask for anything more? Well, maybe a trout or two thrown into the mix. But that’ll have to wait for another day.

Fifty years later, a day in May

bluegill

In my last blog entry I mentioned that I’d been reading over some of my past fishing logs. Really interesting reading there (to me, anyway). I read that on this date fifty years ago I fished Crystal Lake in West Peabody, Mass. and caught 53 bluegills and four crappies. All on Wooly Worms, three of which I lost in the trees or on sunken logs (can’t remember why, but I used to keep a record of the number of flies lost also).

Before I went to bed last night, I got to thinking about this lake and the more I thought about it the more I wanted to revisit it, to see if the fishing there was as I remembered it. I fell asleep calling to mind pleasant scenes from fifty years ago: the trail that led off up the hill through the pines and away from the railroad tracks, up up and then down into the damp boggy depressions that seemed always full of skunk cabbage but now and then a lady’s slipper; the fallen trees that lined the edge of the lake and made casting difficult–but not impossible– in most places. And the bluegills, big and fat and full of spunk. Crappies,too.

When I woke up, it seemed the perfect day for bluegill fishing, sunny and warm, with little or no wind. I had some orders to fill but if I could finish them and get to the post office before two I’d have the whole afternoon, the best part of the day.

As it happened I had an order for some Bluegill Gurglers and after tying up them up for a fellow in Indiana I tied some up for myself and by three o’clock I was driving north on Route 1 towards West Peabody and Crystal Lake. I had hitchhiked up this highway many times to fish Crystal Lake but today I couldn’t remember which exit to take and ended up taking the Rte 114 exit, one exit past Lowell Street, which was the right one. I realized my mistake when I crossed the Ipswich River in Middleton. I was tempted to change my plan and fish the Ipswich instead but I had dreamt about bluegills and Crystal Lake all night and I was determined to stick with my original intention. I turned around, got back on Route 1, and this time took the right exit.

Fifty years is a long time. And, as we all know, much can change in fifty years. And so it was with Crystal Lake–or at least the surrounding area. Suburbia had grown up around it. Where there were fields, now there were houses and shopping centers–and much more traffic than back then–and the old railroad tracks had been ripped up. But the lake itself looked the same for the most part–although slightly smaller than I’d remembered–and as I pulled on my waders, I was happy to see bluegills swirling in the shallows, probably on their spawning beds. It was a good sign.

I walked a short way through some bushes and made my way out onto a ridge that I remembered from long ago, back when it was mostly gravel but now mostly mud and silt, and made my first cast to the edge of some lily pads. I let the fly settle, twitched it once, and was soon into the first of many bluegills, all about the size of my hand and all very fat. Almost every cast was rewarded with a fish and after catching thirty or so, I decided to try another spot. Not that this wasn’t a good spot; it was, but I was eager to revisit some of my other favorite spots along the farther shore.

I waded back to shore and then took off up and over the hill to where there were some down-fallen trees in the water. I would guess that these weren’t the same trees but they seemed to be in the same spot where I used to catch a lot of crappies and so I tossed the little Gurgler out into the water along the edge of the trees hoping that some crappies still lived there. Sure enough, they did. I caught seven on seven casts before they finally quit (or maybe there were only seven there). They weren’t large, maybe a quarter-pound or so–but they were fun. And it had been a long time since I had even seen a crappie.

The shoreline was more brushy and timber-strewn than I’d remembered but it was possible to wade out a bit away from the shore and if I was careful I could cast parallel to the shore or with a roll cast hit some of the lily pads out toward the middle. As I edged my way along the shore I noticed some fish movement beneath some overhanging bushes, movement that looked to be made by a fish larger than the bluegills and crappies I’d been catching. Turned out it was. A largemouth bass, about three pounds, a beauty! What a surprise! I had never caught one in this lake when I was a kid. Maybe they were there but you couldn’t prove it by me. Working my way along this part of the shoreline I picked up three more by flicking my Gurgler in and under the overhanging brush.

By now the sun was beginning to set and I was getting tired from all the sloshing through mud and tiptoeing around and over fallen trees and branches and decided to call it a day. And what a day it was, even better than it was fifty years ago. My total for the day was– I still keep count and still keep records–was 77 bluegills, 4 bass, and 7 crappies. All on the Bluegill Gurgler. I lost three flies to trees. But found some old memories. And created a few new ones to recall. Can’t ask more of a day than that.

50 years a fly tyer

While biding my time and counting down the days until the stripers return–within the week now, I reckon–I decided to flip through the pages of some of my past fishing logs tonight, to see if the past held anything in store for me, so to speak.

I don’t know about you but I’ve been a compulsive record-keeper ever since I was a kid, at least when it comes to fishing logs. Looking back to the very first one–a small notepad complete with clipped-off anal fins of trout attached to the pages–I see that I’ve now been tying flies for over fifty years!

I knew that I had been at it for a long time, but fifty years? It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting between Ted Williams and Jack Sharkey at the old Sportsman’s Show at Mechanics Hall in Boston and Ted was teaching me to tie my very first fly (it was a Yellow Wooly Worm, by the way). That was certainly a great moment in my life, one that turned out to be in a way a defining moment as well, since in the years that have followed I’ve not strayed very far from my vise and for much of this time I’ve supported myself (if somewhat inadequately at times) by tying flies. So it’s fifty years now along that road and, although it’s been rocky every now and then, I wouldn’t trade my life for anyone’s. I may be poor in the pocket book but I’m the richest man I know when it comes to friends and to memories.

Speaking of memories, and looking again at my very first fishing log, I see that on May 4, 1958, also a Sunday, I fished Fish Brook in Topsfield, Mass. and caught four brown trout, all on Wooly Worms (yellow, size 8). A photo taken later that day in my backyard is pasted into the notebook confirming this. Back then I kept most of the trout I caught until I read an article that convinced me to release them back into the water–BUT before doing this to clip off the anal fin to save as a record of the fish caught. According to the writer the fish didn’t really need the anal fin, could get along quite well without it. It never occurred to me to wonder about the truth of this or what the trout thought about it but–after fifty years– my notebook is still bulging with dried-out anal fins. Brookies, browns, and rainbows. Times have changed, haven’t they?

One the things that hasn’t really changed all that much is the music I listen to when I’m tying flies, which is pretty much the same as the music I listened to back when I first started tying. Oldies, they’re called now. But back then they were new. I can, if I close my eyes, still see myself at my bedroom table tying flies to the music of the day. In 1958 it would have been songs like The Purple People Eater by Sheb Wooley, Witch Doctor by David Seville, All I Have to Do is Dream by the Everly Brothers, and Tequila by The Champs. The flies I was tying back then were on the whole very simple ones: Wooly Worms, Trueblood Nymphs, Bivisibles, Black Ghosts and Mickey Finns. These are the flies mentioned most frequently in my “log” from that year. Not mentioned is the fact that my first flies were tied not in a vise but were held in place by the jaws of a micrometer. I used two micrometers to accomplish this; one to clamp the other to the table top and one to actually grip the hook by screwing down the micrometer as tight as I could. Needless to say, these micrometers were never quite accurate again and my grandfather, whose micrometers they were, was more than a bit upset about this but, good sport that he was, he gave me some money to buy a real–but very simple– fly tying vise (it cost $1.67 and came from Herter’s; I still have the order form). Later I would graduate to a Thompson A, which held the hooks quite a bit better than did the one for $1.67.

I was going to write a longer piece about the many differences between now and then, about the trends and advances in fly tying that have taken placed during those fifty years, but I see by the clock on the wall that it’s almost three a.m. and I just realized that it’s not 1958 any more and I’m not 15 and I’m getting tired and so I’ll have to put this off and save it for another blog entry at some later date. But, you can bet your boots that it won’t be fifty years from now. Or will it?

News from Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggag
oggchaubunagungamaug

Listening to a radio program tonight while tying flies, I heard a voice (two actually) from out of the past. It was Ethel Merman and Ray Bolger singing a song about a lake in western Massachusetts that I hadn’t heard in over fifty years but which was one I enjoyed singing when I was a kid. A song with the simple but tongue-twisting title of “Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.” (In case you’re wondering, yes, I did have to look up the proper spelling). Just repeating this word over and over used to drive my parents crazy–which is probably one reason why I liked the song so much.

Another reason was that it reminded me of happy summer days fishing on this lake. This was, after all, where I had caught my first largemouth bass, first pickerel, and first horned pout (none on flies but that didn’t matter at the time). It was also where I learned to water-ski (well, sort of). It was a magical place with a magical name: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg (also called Lake Webster by the phonetically challenged).

Thinking about this lake, I decided to do a little research. Here’s what I found; well, some of what I found. From Wikipedia:

Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg (pronounced: don’t even try), a 46-letter alternative name for this body of water, is often cited as the longest place name in the United States and 6th longest in the world. Its 15 uses of “g” are the most instances of any letter in a word. The name also contains 9 instances of the letter “a” (not including the “a” in “lake”), more than any word in the English language.

This longest name means approximately “Englishmen at Manchaug territory at the meeting and fishing place at the boundary” and was applied in the 19th century when White people built factories in the area. “Manchaug” is derived from the “Monuhchogoks”, a group of Nipmuck Indians that lived by the lakeshore. Spelling of the long name varies, even on official signs near the lake.

I’ll bet you didn’t know this. I’ll bet also that you didn’t know that it’s still another week or so away from the arrival of striped bass in the Boston Harbor area. As I sit here counting the days until I can get back to the salt–weather permitting, of course–I’m wondering if the largemouth bass are now preparing their spawning beds on Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. I’ll bet that they are.

I am now accepting credit cards

By popular demand–and due to the diligent and exceptional efforts of my webmaster Mike Quigley–I’m now accepting credit cards. This is a big step forward for me, and an exciting one, since it makes ordering a lot easier for my customers (and hopefully gives my little business a boost as well).

So, to all my readers who prefer to pay with a credit card, I can now say, Welcome Aboard. And of course those who prefer to pay be check can continue to do so.

FAQs–Frequently Asked Questions

Just taking a break from writing up my newsletter for April. In it I try to answer some of the more frequently asked questions that have been put to me over the years. Since many of my blog-readers may not receive the monthly fly fishing newsletter, I thought I’d post the questions and answers here as well. If you’d like to receive a newsletter, by the way, please sign up for it on the home page.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. (and this is the most-frequently asked question)

Do you personally tie all the flies that you have for sale?

Yes, I do personally tie each and every one. Which is why I sometimes get behind a bit in filling orders, especially during the busy winter months (January and February especially), when I’m traveling a lot. If you order selections of flies, there’s generally no delay in getting these out; I usually have most of the selections on hand. It’s the orders for individual flies that take a bit longer since I often have very few individual flies in stock and must tie each one to order and I tie each individual order in the order in which they arrive. Since I’m a fairly slow and methodical tyer I may tie up only about three dozen flies on an average day (that is if my eyes and back don’t act up on me, in which case I’ll tie fewer). Eventually, though, all the flies get tied and everybody’s patience is rewarded. The best time to order individual flies or those flies not offered in selections is generally April through July and again in September and October, when I’m traveling less and I have more time to tie.

2. Do you have a shop?

No. Because of the web site, many people make the assumption that I have a shop or operate a large fly tying consortium but this is far from the truth. A laugh, really, since there’s just me, myself, and I to do all the tying, packaging, writing, and all the other chores that need to be done.

3. Do you make a good living doing what you do?

An honest answer to this is: Hell, no!–BUT I make a great life.

4. How long have you been tying flies?

I was taught to tie my first fly by the late, great Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox. This was in 1956 or 1957 (can’t remember now exactly which year). I was just a young lad at the time and Ted was my idol. At the time I had never seen a fly tied before but I figured that if Ted was interested in fly tying, this was something I’d like to know more about. I’ve been tying regularly ever since.

5. Where do your fly-tying ideas come from? Or, another variation of the same question, What inspires you to come up a certain pattern?

These are difficult questions to answer meaningfully. I’m an habitual experimental tyer and my tying area is often a chaos of materials. Out of this chaos, I am sometimes moved to create order. Ideas come to me most often when I’m bored with the repetition of tying a single pattern over and over again, flies that require no thought to their construction or design but only rote mechanical skill. It’s then that my mind is free to range over the possibilities that exist within all the different materials spread out before me. Once I focus on a particular material (say a pheasant feather), I try then to imagine all the particular uses to which that feather can be put. And so on.

It should be said at this point that I have hundreds of ideas in the course of a year–but only one or two of them ever turn out to be GOOD ideas; the others not so good, some downright foolish. But it’s the pursuit of the good idea–that perfect expression of a perfect fly, for instance–that keeps me involved, enthused, and searching–and occasionally satisfied. After many years of tying, the successes remain and the failures are forgotten.

Bonefish & Tarpon Unlimited

If you’re a tarpon or bonefisherman, you’ll want to learn more about Bonefish & Tarpon Unlimited, a group doing important work with these species and whose research and activities I wholeheartedly support–and urge you to support as well.

To quote from their home page, “Bonefish & Tarpon Unlimited was developed for a simple reason – to support research, education, and conservation of bonefish and tarpon. At BTU’s inception in 1998, little data existed on bonefish and tarpon, two of the world’s most popular saltwater gamefish.

BTU is made up of recreational anglers, guides, and marine industry leaders dedicated to increasing our knowledge of bonefish and tarpon biology so we may better manage these species and ensure the fisheries for future generations.

To visit their site, click on this link: http://www.tarbone.org/

I was introduced to BTU by Aaron Adams, author of Fisherman’s Coast and most recently Fly Fisherman’s Guide to Saltwater Prey
(both of which I recommend highly), who was representing BTU at the Flyfishing Show in Somerset, NJ this past January. After listening to his persuasive discussion of BTU and their work I gave him fifty bucks, signed up as a member, and got a really neat hat with a BTU logo on it as part of the deal. Aaron’s been doing a lot of important work with BTU and if you can help him out in any way, that would be great. He has a really interesting website also that I recommend looking into:

http://www.fishermanscoast.com

It has a lot of useful and interesting information on it about: about conservation, fish habits, flies, fishing tips, as well as writings about his own fishing excursions and a frequently updated blogwhere he shares whatever thoughts are on his mind. His website is called Fisherman’s Coast, subtitled Learn to Think Like a Fish.This is something we should all learn at some time in our fishing and Aaron’s writings go a long way towards helping us.

Pasta Fest!

As part of an afternoon-evening program/dinner, I’ll be giving a short talk on successful and unusual fishing tactics at the Greater Boston Trout Unlimited Pasta Fest on Sunday, April 6, 2008. This event is open to everybody. If you’re interested in having a good time and supporting the work of Trout Unlimited, come on by. You’re sure to have fun. I’m trying to convince my giraffe, Gerald, to come out of hibernation for the event (I know he loves pasta) but he’s been looking a little tired lately so I’m not sure he’ll be able to make it.

The event will be held Hibernian Hall, 151 Watertown Street/Rte. 16, Watertown, MA. For complete details, click on the link below:

http://www.gbtu.org/events/pastafest.html

Striper Strategies

In between tying flies and filling orders this past month I’ve been busily working on revising and rewriting Striper Strategies, which has been out of print now for almost a year. It’s been over ten years since the first printing and, judging from many readers’ requests, it’s time to bring it back.

Although the first edition was a fairly amateurish effort as far as production values go–with the pages folded and stapled together and somewhat murky photographs–it received a lot of good reviews from the flyfishing press and from readers. This time around I’m working hard to make it an even better book, with the added advantage of being ten years farther along on the road to understanding stripers. I’ve been re-writing much of it, including more (and better) photos as well as an expanded section on fly design and fly choices–and other topics. And no longer will it be stapled and folded and put together with glue and paste but will be paper-bound with an attractive color cover–maybe the same one as the old but this time in color (people seem to love that photo of me on my giraffed). I’m hoping to have the book ready in time for the coming season. Stay tuned.