Just to name a few.

Last Saturday I wanted to scram on down to a creek I really think is pristine. The creek is just outside of Letchworth State Park, about an hour from home. I got an early start and it still was midway into the feeding hours for trout. When I saw them rising I knew it would be a good morning. With no thought of what trout might be nipping at, I went with a caddisfly. Before long I was taking photos of  this 14 inch trout. Released it back to feed, I caught several more. Then the action just stopped. I tried a few other stoneflies and nymphs but no luck. I waded down stream and caught another nice brown hiding under a tree fall in fast water. Large yellow stonefly nymphs work good for this.

The morning light caught my eye on this photo.

Later in the day I found this bad boy in the Genesee river.

I filled my day with fishing, what else is there?




The saturday before last I explored the Canandaigua Outlet, in Phelps, NY and just caught this Chub.

And this Racoon.

Evening out in the kayaks

Kim and I went kayaking in the evening and I brought along just a spinning rod and one Rebel Pop-r lure.

With a few hours of daylight left, I landed these nice bass The largest was 17 inches.

First week of July

Fourth of July

The Fourth of July was hot this year. People were passing out from the heat at the parade. While they were watching our public servants pass by, I was in a stream watching small mouth bass dart from under my feet. The stream is the best place to cool off on a hot day. Wading without waders keeps your feet and legs cool. The shade of streamside trees protects your head from the searing heat. These are the days of summer when I love to fish for the always hungry rock bass and smallies. 

  This stream was stocked with trout this year. I hoped to locate them. It did not take long to find rising creek chubs hitting on brown caddisflies so that's what I started with. I practiced my fly placement and strike reflex. I soon got bored of these 6“ minnows and moved downstream into some very nice flat water. Here, I could get some distance with my backcast.
















 I tied off a black-nose dace and started pulling out a few smallmouth, not big, but fun on the fly.

I continued downstream and fished all morning. Each swell in the river bottom held one or two bass. I found a patch of grass and caught a bass that had obvious scaring from a previous encounter with a larger fish, possibly a pike.
While free wading, I spooked a black bass, maybe 12 to 14 inches in length.

By the afternoon the action shut right down.

I hiked back to my vehicle and reviewed each of my photos.

 Each photo renewed the enjoyment of catching fish where I wanted and when I wanted on Independence Day.

The last week of June

That's Marvin in the background with his new
White river flyrod from Bass Pro shop

In late June, I was able to fish a couple of days with my brothers. Wednesday was pouring rain for most of the day. I spent the morning trying to fish for bass on Sodus Bay with my outboard motor boat. It was raining when we got started and the wind was really churning up the surface. So we stopped at one of the inlets to the bay and fly fished using poppers. Other than just practicing in the wind, this proved unproductive.

When we finally got the boat in the water the rain had stopped. Marvin and I fished with shiners and crawlers for a couple of hours with no luck. As it often happens, I was out of my element when it comes to fishing large bodies of water. Give me 5 feet of river and I can catch fish. Give me 40 feet of lake and I'm at a loss where to find fish.

So when the rain started filling our boat, we packed up and decided to check out some small creeks that flow though Wayne County.

Most of the creeks are just drainage ditches in a dry summer. We found one that I know flows rather heavy in the spring and fall. This stream has a few pockets where fish hide. So I directed my brother to use a popper to coax something out into the open. After a few small creek chubs, we ended up hooking a rock bass and small sunnies.

We'll toss that one back!

When Saturday rolled around I determined I would bag a bass with my kayak and fly rod. It was around 7:00 am when my brother and I got started. 
The temp was already hot when we got out on the water. We found shade along the east banks of the small reservoir we were fishing. I was using a small popper and Paul was using a spinning rod and lures. I caught some sunfish right away on top water. It was about 9:00 before I caught a small bass. 


   Paul did not have much of any success, so we traded rods and right away he was getting hits, and soon a small bass. With the spinning rod I just was playing games with some wary fish. I then put on a Rebel Pop-r top water lure and tossed it behind me. Around 11:00 I began to paddle back to the shore to exit the water. Then I heard a splash behind me. I lifted the pole and hooked a nice 17-inch Largemouth. It felt good to get out on the water and land a big fish.

Great morning with Paul

What Summer was like last year.

Summer has begun and as I look back over my blog and last summers photo albums,

I realize that my fishing has suffered from working to much.

Here is a look at the few outings I did manage squeeze into my busy 2017 summer.

 Now through September will attempt to get back into some great fishing. This afternoon I registered my trailer and boat. Tonight I repaired a fly rod, cleaned some fly line and restrung a reel for left hand retreival. As I mentioned in my April 1st blog, my fishing had suffered from a right shoulder injury. My shoulder has now healed.... Praise God... I will now be training my left arm to cast better than my right. Rain is in the forcast for this weekend. I hope to get out in between downpours. I'll be fishing most of next week with my brother.

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Saturday was opening day of bass season in New York State. The day started with beautiful sunshine and no wind. It was my first real chance to do some serious kayak fishing with Ben.
We decided our best chance to land some really big bass would be the wide waters of the Erie Canal. This canal connects many small inland creeks and the Finger Lakes outlets with Lake Erie and the Hudson River. The Erie canal is filled by spring rain runoff. After the state opens the locks on May 1st most of the spillways are loaded with spawning Walleye, Pike, Smallmouth and Largemouth bass, also including white Perch and Shad. This is a main waterway these fish use to get to the smaller creeks. The Wide Waters provide habitat and food for non-resident bass to hold all year long. After the canal is drained in the winter these fish move out with the receding water. Ben and I were not sure what our catch might be, but our intent was to land some bass on opening day. Ben started with casting lures and I planned on catching bass with a trusted frog popper on the fly rod. 

We got an early start at 6:00 A.M. and Ben started catching bass around 8:00.
I was not even getting hits.
I did manage a few tie ups with the trees on shore. It was a learning experience using the fly rod in the kayak, but less difficult than one would think. We had been fishing in 4 to 7 feet of water near the shoreline with only a couple of fish on. As the sun began to invade the shadows, I changed my tactics. We paddled to the opposite side of the wide waters near the boat docks. I found a patch of lily pads in 2 to 3 feet of water with a weedy bottom. I fished around some downed timber and hooked a nice bass. This too was interesting how the fish would pull me and my kayak as I reeled it closer. Being so proud of taking one on the fly, I turned around only to see Ben also had hooked one. I paddled over so as to get photos of our double catch and netted them both in the same net. Ben's bass was 17 inches and mine filled the bottom of the net with a 15 inch length. Ben had the greatest success with 5 landed and a few lost, including one much larger fish than the ones we had netted. I caught one other 8 inch bass. I was glad to have accomplished what I had set out to do.

Double in the net.

Using the fly rod and poppers was the ticket for a fun morning kayaking on the Erie Canal.

And like the song goes….. 

Low bridge, everybody down,

Low bridge, we must be getting near a town

You can always tell your neighbor,

You can always tell your pal,

If he's ever been fishing on the Erie Canal.                      

Later that day…. In the afternoon I scouted out a few of my traditional fishing holes. The lack of rain these past few weeks had reduced the water flow in my favorite summer creek quite a lot. I tried a few streamers and dry flies, which produced nothing more than a creek chub. 

And again as my opening day progressed, I made plans to meet up with my friend Kevin for some evening fly fishing. We only had a couple of hours, so we met at a small fish pond. The pond holds sunfish and bass through the winter. Kevin wanted me to teach him how to fly fish. So I started with some basics, telling him about different weight rods. I explained fly lines and how the weight of the line is what gets the fly to where you want it to go. I explained how to string a rod and found out he is a southpaw. So right off the bat he was at a disadvantage because my reels are all wound for right hands. None of this talk was going to catch fish. So we tied on a dry fly and I started him on reacting to fish strikes.

At waters' edge I got Kevin to hold the fly just above the water so that one of the multitude of little bluegills would hit on it. Before long they were jumping out of the water for the fly. His first bluegill came after a few delayed hook sets, his second soon after. We took a photo opp, and I dropped the thee inch fish into the water. 
To our surprise, a monster largemouth bass darted out from under some cover and swallowed the dazed fish. That got the adrenaline pumping. I took another rod that had the frog popper from the morning and swapped rods with Kevin. He dropped the popper in the water near the bass, and with my expert advice started twitching it. 

Within minutes I heard, "I got it!!"

The fight was crazy confusing trying to direct Kevin to use the right hand reel and keep tension on the rod and well, you know what I mean.So he landed it and I took some photos of Kevin's first largemouth bass on the fly. The fish measured 17.5 inches. After this, we continued with some casting instruction until just about dusk. There were no more bites that evening, unless you consider the one that hooked Kevin for life! He got the fly fishing bug really bad.

Wouldn't you if the third fish you caught was a lunker like this one?