On The Water 3/18/06

1. Again, it’s an easy report to write because there’s not much fishing action going on throughout the region. Connecticut anglers would normally be stirring around in places such as Bluff Point, Groton, this time of year, in search of an early winter flounder bite. However, with Connecticut’s season closed until April 1, “Can’t do it Captain!” as Scotty on Star Trek would say. When it does open, don’t expect much. Regulations allow for 8 fish of a minimum length of 12 inches this season.
2. One guy I talked to the other day at a shop said he was going to do some sea-run brown trout fishing in a couple of spots such as the Niantic River and nearby coastal streams such as Oil Mill Brook but hadn’t been out yet. Sea-run brown fishermen tend to be a secretive bunch to begin with, so he may have notched a couple but was not saying. However, so far no one I know has been, and I haven’t been in the mood for taking a skunking lately and therefore have not tried myself. And I may not, seeing as how the pike are revving up in the Connecticut River at the present time.
3. At Captain Morgan’s of Madison, it was reported that a few anglers have actually been catching sea-runs at the Derby Dam and in the Hammonasset River. They are doing a tad better lately in the “Hammo,” as he puts it, but only catching a few small ones. No definition of “small,” but I suspect under two pounds.
4. The captain told us he’s seen some small bait in the Sound, in addition to the herring that show up in early March every year. He said there were birds diving on whatever it was and that they looked like sliversides or something small like that, but no verification.
5. The water temperature was up to 45 in Guilford during the warm spell. Unfortunately, it will probably drop a tad with the recent cold winds and evenings.
6. Captain Morgan has also had a few customers who were taking Atlantic salmon on spoons in the Shetucket River. There were salmon being caught at Derby Dam late in the fall, and one could assume there may still be a few stragglers and drop-downs around that area, but no one has reported a catch from this spot in quite awhile. He noted that the fish were taken on spinning gear and spoons with trebles replaced by free-swinging single hooks to stay legal.
7. I have found that appropriately sized Lunker City Texposer hooks are excellent single hooks because they have a long shank and a huge gap. That oddball 90-degree “bend” is the key. Once a fish is hooked, I’ve found that unless they tear free, they can’t shake this configuration loose the vast majority of the time. It is my favorite hook for about everything from bait to soft plastics.
8. In both river systems, spring freshets often push these fish down toward the ocean. In their natural life cycles, Atlantics would be heading out to sea at this time anyhow. Those fish that may have become stranded in fresh water after spawning a late fall spawn run back to sea, creating the “black salmon run” that many anglers fish in the north country every spring, so why not here?
9. Every year fishermen targeting schoolie stripers catch a few “drop down” Atlantic salmon from the Thames River, as well as the lower Housatonic. I have students every spring who nail a few of these fish around the Ponemah Mills Dam in Taftville, on the Shetucket River. In the past they were poaching and I told them so, unfortunately on deaf ears. Now with the regulatory changes that extend the zones downriver to the major rivers, it’s legal to target and even keep these fish, but the “free-swinging hook” rule still applies when fishing for salmon.
10. These fish in the spring are not the highly selective, dry-fly slurping pain in the butts that wild-run late-summer salmon can be. My buddy Eric caught one on a walk-the-dog-type lure he was casting for school bass in one of the major coves on the lower Thames two years ago; I’ve had them swipe at Slug-Gos and Mambo Minnows; and another friend caught one on a bucktail jig in Norwich Harbor. Catching them in tidewater is commonplace, but when they are caught in the Thames itself, they must be released unharmed on the long-shot chance they are wild-run fish that turned early and missed the Connecticut.
11. Joe Balint at the Fish Connection said the Thames striper action has been slow. Like last week’s report, this lack of catches has been primarily due to a reduction in angler participation. The hard-core have caught their fill of 16-inch bass by now and are patiently waiting for bigger and better things. But, this time of year there are often surprises in the mix. Remember, alewives are in all the major rivers, and I heard that the first ones were already showing up in Bride Brook over a week ago, which is typical. When the alewives show off Bride Brook, it’s two weeks before they make it to Crowley Brook in Poquetanuck Cove on the Thames, and the larger bass that wintered in the Thames are hot on their tails – literally.
12. Last year during the last week of March, I caught three bass between 32 and 34 inches one afternoon, much larger than the hundreds that had been taken throughout the winter in my boat. Last week my buddy Eric caught a 42-inch-plus 30-pound-plus hog during what he described as a slow pick. So typically there are some large fish around, but there is no way to target them unless you fish after dark. But that’s typical for the Thames River in March. You will work for the fish for anywhere from one to three or four more weeks, depending on water temps. But very shortly, especially if the degrees continue to pile up in the water and on land, the bass that stack up in Norwich Harbor all winter will begin to spread out downriver and provide the often super-hot, hundred-fish-per-man, per-tide kind of shallow-water action I wait for every spring.
13. The fish will mostly be small, but the sheer action is a ball on light tackle in five or six feet of water after dredging them up in 20 to 40 feet all winter, fishing vertically or casting and drifting with jigs. When this movement into the shallows takes place, it’s “Slug-Go time”! But not quite yet – we must suffer a little longer as the weatherman is calling for cooler temperatures as I type.
14. Yellow perch and pike action is picking up in the Connecticut River and in its major backwaters, calm spots, basins and coves. No specifics, but it is the proper time of year to saddle up and go perch fishing on the Connecticut and on other large rivers and ponds open to fishing that have yellow or white perch populations.