Advice needed - recommended saltwater flies for Cape Cod in mid August?

[SlowNDeep]

[quote author=Kurt link=topic=771.msg4468#msg4468 date=1185548011]
...This forum, although I'm new here, seems to have a good bunch of guys, ...[/quote]

Oh, we have our moments

[JUICE]

Def have out blow outs. Very happy with the way things have been going though. The good karma put that beast on aaron's line

[Kurt]

FOLLOW UP...

Hi, guys...just a word of thank you for all the advice. I really appreciate your input. Although I'm an extremely experienced freshwater fly guy of way too many years, the saltwater isn't something I can get to often enough to really learn what I need to learn to get the most of it. However...

I had a blast this week in Cape Cod. Very few disappointments, and very few of my goals were not fulfilled. Within 5 minutes of getting rigged up and trying an adjacent estuary spot along the main road, I missed a strike from a large (to me) and visible striper on a Clouser, and had two swirls shortly after on a white Gurgler. Seemed to be few fish there, and the local guy there told me he'd been catching them each evening on a huge topwater plug and spin gear, but for the last two weeks he couldn't touch a fish (I saw why the next evening, btw).

Right by my hotel was an upper tip of an feeder to one of the bays, and instead of traveling to a beachy place (that had been my plan, but it was a family trip and it was too late by the time everyone else had their fill of stuff to do), I ran down to try there because I could see some baitfish flying in the air here and there.

I caught a striper on my first cast (white Gurgler), and lost two more within 5 minutes or so, all schoolies that seemed to mostly run 18" up to 24" or so.

Then, so much bait came in that my fly was ignored. Just like that. If I'd have not hooked those three fish so quickly I'd have thought it was impossible to hook one. They ignored everything I had with me (I tried just about every fly; Decievers, Clousers, Gurglers, hard foam plugs in two sizes, sand eels of various types). First thing that was obviously a problem was that the bait was WAY smaller than the flies I had and hooks I'd bought. I couldn't recognize what they were (I'm a rookie there, remember), but the next evening I hooked a few on my flies (not in the mouth, but through the body on my streamer patterns). Baby bunker, and I didn't really have anything even close in size. I struggled through, and as it darkened, I figured out a trick that I've done at night in freshwater, and it worked in this bay, too. I put on a Tabory black deerhair Slider (I've used those for years in freshwater too), cast it, popped it once, and then just slowly dragged it across the top of the water. I caught quite a few stripers like this that evening, and it worked every evening after dark as well.

Next day I tied on my smallest hooks I'd bought (still too big, though) a lousy version of a Crease Fly in white, and that brought strikes and worked, too. I've been messing with those for about a month in freshwater, and they don't work for me there, and I can't get them to lay in the water right or fish right, and have no clue why. Some are too heavy if I coat them with epoxies etc, and they splash down too hard. They don't seem to pop very well for me, either. I've filled the head cavity, and not filled the head cavity (seen it done both ways on the web) and neither seems right or works for me. If I make them lighter and don't "fancy them up" too much, then they're not heavy enough and float on their sides and don't seem to fish right either. But in this instance, with fish charging bait, they'd take the Crease Fly doing it's job wrong and flopping all over instead of popping. I'm sure it must have seemed to be trying to escape.

But there wasn't enough hook clearance, and I lost every striper I hooked on that fly, and took it back off after 4 lost fish.

The remaining nights, the tides were wrong and the wind changed and began blowing HARD up into the area and messed things up for some reason. But the last night I waited it out, and I was glad I did.

I don't know how many stipers I caught, mostly on black Decievers and black Tabory sliders, but it was a LOT. What a blast! For some reason, much larger fish moved in that night than I'd seen all week, and I hooked quite a few really nice ones of around 30", and the biggest was 32". If I can find a way to show a couple of pics, I'll try.

I never did book a guide. I almost did, but I decided to hold off and mess about myself this time, since I knew we'd be returning (my family loved the place).

Seems that PA people don't visit there much, for some reason. Everyone here goes south for "beachy" vacations. We saw only one or two PA plates there in our week. A fellow who worked at one of the touristy information centers told me that they keep track of everyone who logs in there (he asks everyone to), and the count at his spot for the last 5 years was 200 from PA. It was around 9-10 hours with a couple of stops for us, and we had decent traffic. I crossed over near the mouth of your beloved Housatonic...I'm sure you've got stripers there...are you guys doing that? I'd be there constantly! I suppose it's 3 or so hours from northern CT?

I don't know if I could walk away from our massive Clarion browns, or the loads of wild trout streams around me, but if I ever do, there's a good chance it will be someplace with striped bass. My level of obsession would be off the charts. There's something magical about throwing a fly into those places where you could hook just about anything, and it could be just about any size. Few boundaries. Really cool stuff.

Also, it was really nice to jump into something and just TRY, without being able to control the tides, or my understanding of them, and knowing that most of the time that I'd be doing probably the wrong thing at the wrong time, probably in the wrong place, and still do really well. I guess I've been at the trout thing for so long, spent so many years honing each skill for each style, and it's hard to find anything left there to explore. I know that probably sounds egotistical or jaded or something, and I don't mean it to be. If you do something this long for wild fish, always analyzing and trying to attain newer heights, you probably will.

So it was really nice to so highly out of my element and mismatched, and to come out of it highly satisfied.

Thanks to anyone who read this, too! I know it's lengthy, but I thought it might help to show my gratitude and excitement for that sport and for the guys who helped.

PS...hotel was nice...maid SUCKED...locals very nice...tourists SUCKED (world revolved around each of them; there was a LOT of worlds there)...food great...why aren't there more fly shops? I couldn't believe it! You can go to many WAY inferior beach places, and find a ton of information in the tourist racks on fishing there, conditions, shops, etc. Cape Cod, for a place with SO MUCH GREAT opportunity...the lack of shops shocked me. I visited the Orvis shop there (really nice folks, btw), but other than that, we tried about 8 stores, some even advertising fly fishing gear, etc., and if you found one with 20 flies in it you were lucky. I realize that it's seasonal. Someone on Martha's Vineyard told me that the place virtually shuts down in October, so that's a tough existance for a shop. Guides end up working every day, and you give up your own fishing and fish through others. And then the seasons change, and you get a spell that compromises everything you do and makes you rethink each day why you do it. I know how that goes, because I'm a guide too.

Anyway...I digress. The amount of fishing I drove past (LOADS of it must exist along the CT seaboard) was unbelievable. What a world of fishing you have there. If it was me, I'd spend less time chasing stocked trout there and more time in that salt! No offense intended...I realize that it's not possible to sustain wild trout everywhere. Please don't take that wrong.

Tight lines to all!

[Salter]

Kurt,

Great report! Glad you got into bigger Stripers your last night. Night time is the RIGHT TIME during the dog days of August if you want more than schoolie sized Stripers....

Michael

[Kurt]

Thanks, Michael. I loved it. Miss it already. :'(

[Troutbum from Griswold]

Great to see another troutbum turning salter! Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy trout fishing. However, I am truely a salter. I now trout fish during the lulls in the salt and will hit the rivers a few times in the Spring and Fall. Plus, I guide and instruct for the HRO so I am on the rivers then. I grew up on trout and troutfishing will always have a place in my heart and I still really enjoy it. The salt however, has become my favorite and I now do mostly saltwater. To me, nothing beats it. My fishing buddies told me that once I started to go salt, there is no going back. They told me that you get turned quite quickly. I didn't believe them at first but once I started fishing the salt 3 years ago, THEY WERE 100 % RIGHT! Love everything about it. The environment, gear, and most importantly, THE FISH! Catching big fish in the salt is of course awesome but even a schoolie sized striper 17-22 inches will bend a 9 or 10 wt like there is no tomorrow. They fight hard until they are landed. Again, I love BIG FISH and catching them at any time is great. My personal favorite sized fish are 18-27 to 29 inches. They fight hard, are scrappy and hit the fly like a truck! Nothing beats casting, stripping in a fly and feel that hard hit and tug on the other end! Sometimes it feels like someone has just tied on a cinder block to your line! Catching Stripers, Blues, Albies, Bonito (Hope this year is my year to get an Albie or Bonito) is ALL GOOD! Glad you had a good experience on the Cape. I only live 2 hours from Chatham so next year can you say DAY TRIPS!!!!!!!! I love the fact that I live in New England because I have some of the best troutfishing in East and it is truely a saltwater flyfisherman's paradise which I am extremely happy about.

[Kurt]

I can see all these points you've made very clearly. I think I lived it, a few days ago.

Trout fishing has been my life, I suppose, and probably always will be, but I've always gone 100% into learning everything I could for every style of fly rodding I could...even spin gear at times, in the interest of learning and understanding. I get obsessed about smallmouths, largemouths, pike, and on and on. I've caught hundreds, literally hundreds, of carp on flies. Walleyes on streamers, and even one on a deerhair Whitlock bug once, whenever I get a shot at them.

But it was hard to leave that place, knowing it may be a while until I get a shot again. Possibly I can strangle out a couple of days on Long Island or something this fall to make the addiction worse...it surely won't appease anything...lol...a fantastic client of mine, Stan Stein, advised me at length to hit Montauk last fall, and I never made it.

I've been mulling the possibilities...say, on the Cape, or Martha's Vineyard, or Provincetown, etc., playing music to survive, etc. I'd miss my trout guiding here for sure, and it would take a drastic adjustment. I guess I'd teach fishing in a different place, that's all. I already do travel around to instruct, so that's not so much different, I suppose.

I digress. Possibly the best thing about it was the MYSTERY...what might be, under there...the fact that it's all constantly moving underneath, with tidal influence...are they there or not? What's under there? So cool. You're a lucky guy.

Several of us should hook up to fish sometime in the salt. What a blast that would be.

[Salter]

I've been mulling the possibilities...say, on the Cape, or Martha's Vineyard, or Provincetown, etc., playing music to survive, etc. I'd miss my trout guiding here for sure, and it would take a drastic adjustment. I guess I'd teach fishing in a different place, that's all. I already do travel around to instruct, so that's not so much different, I suppose.

If you ever choose to live on Cape Cod you will be living in a fishing Paradise! Trust me.. I grew up on the Cape. The saltwater fishing is out of this world... and yes there are lots of great trout ponds with BIG hold-over Brown Trout like these two both caught in the same pond last Oct. Nov. and talk about warm waterfishing well I will leave that for another thread!


My Pal Alec Stansell with a big hold-over Brown



First Trout caught on my new Pickard cane rod last fall, 19 1/2 inches.



All the best
Michael

[Kurt]

Pretty browns, for sure.

I put a handful of photos from my trip last month into a slideshow on Photobucket. Click the image below to see. Hopefully it's ok to add this. If not, feel free to delete and yell at me.

Once again, thanks to all who helped me. I really appreciate the advice.

Kurt

[Dave]

Kurt, those look great! I like the picture of your mangled thumb. . .that's a good thing! What part of the cape did you end up fishing?