ABA Fly Fishing Journal

Breaking Camp and Heading North

2008-03-31T21:54:00.005-04:00

The last weeks of March are a great time of year. Being a fly fisherman and a baseball fan, I can't help but feel the parallel excitements of both trout and baseball seasons "officially" beginning. Here is a highlight fish from this years spring training on the water.

Guide Trip Report: 1/19/08

2008-01-19T22:06:00.000-05:00

Hit the Gorge today with Dave from Princeton. This was Dave's first trip out with the fly rod and he managed to kep the good January fishing rolling from yesterday. Conditions were pretty much on par with what I reported yesterday, 37 degree water temps and flow on the decline.

Dave started of the morning by getting a nice brown that I will officially estimate was 14" about 2 feet from my net before it came unbuttoned. Damn, that was a nice fish!

Dave rolled one or two more before this respectable rainbow came to net.

We finished up our day not long after Dave landed this 15 inch brookie.

Why I love January

2008-01-18T22:40:00.000-05:00

I fished the S. Branch by myself today and it turned out to be one of those days that further supports my preference for winter trout fishing here in NJ. What you lose in insect activity and surface feeding you surely make up for in other ways. Such as having the stream to yourself (which I think counts double in a densely populated area with not a ton of quality water), non pressured fish, and fish friendly water temps.

Anyway, haven't shared any fish pics in a while so I made it a point to take some shots today. I landed a nice mix of eye catching wilds and rod bending Pequest bruisers.

Nice example of marking variation in wild browns
Camera 1

Camera 2

Larger Browns

Largest Stocker Bows

This fish was an honest 18", as I did tape it.

Same fish, fueled and ready for takeoff.

Water temp was 37.I forget in the morning. EB Stone was the fly of the day.

~James

Prime Week to Fish!

2008-01-06T22:46:00.000-05:00

We have a January heat wave moving through this week with daytime highs forecasted to be close to 60! If you can get out and fish in these resultant rising water temps, DO IT! Fish will no doubt be on. All the recent precipitation has also kept stream flows up nicely, which will help protect fish once old man winter decides to put the hammer down once again.

Weather Forecast | Weather Maps | Weather Radar

Guide Trip Report: 12/30/07 South Branch

2008-01-04T12:34:00.000-05:00

Wrapped up my guiding for this calender year this past Sunday with a morning on the South Branch with a three generation trio. Dave, David and John joined me for a half day in fairly tough conditions. The river was up,(over 300cfs) cold, (38-39) and temp had dropped over the past few days. The dropping water temps are by far the most difficult of those three condition factors due to the concept of conditioning. It's not true that trout shut down under 40 degrees. I have had many VERY good days on the water with temps hovering in the mid 30's. The key to fishing temperatures below a trouts comfort zone is: HOW LONG has it been at the given temperature. Once conditioned to the lower temp, they will resume their normal, albeit slower (winter)feeding tempo. The practical fishing problem comes when the water takes a sudden dip or spike in temperature, fishing will then be tough for a day or two.

Dave, David and John were troopers and managed to hook three fish between them by lunchtime when we parted.

I hung around for an hour or so after lunch and managed a few hookups myself on midges fished behind various attractors.

Here's quick video of a pretty fish from that afternoon.

Just wanted to wish everyone.......

2007-12-24T11:13:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas!

Salmon River Report 12/8-12/10

2007-12-18T14:52:00.000-05:00

This report comes a week late but is honestly the first chance I have gotten to sit down and type a blog entry.

Headed up to Pulaski to fish the Salmon river two Fridays ago along with my father Jim and long time fishing buddy Mike Larkin. Flow held steady at 750cfs for the weekend and reports had been fairly consistent.

After a breakfast stop at the Home Town Diner for some jalapeno bacon, we began our day mid-river. Within the first ten minutes of fishing, my father landed a decent little 2lb skipper and Mike rolled what looked to all of us to be an average 7-8 pound fish.

For a December morning, great start! We gave that area another hour or so and then headed up river and jumped into Fraziers run. We collectively covererd that water thourouly with several different patterns and didn't touch a fish. Before dark we slid up to the lower wire hole and saw one angler hook up, but for winter, the prime lies were occupied with other fisherman.

Woke up on Sunday to air temps in the high teens/low twenties and knew it was going to be a day off Stanleys Ice off paste and cold fingertips. Started at the Pineville pool and watched a gentleman snag three or four steelhead. He got lucky and landed the smallest one. Again, we didn't have any hook-ups although we had some confidence there was at least a few fish in front of us. Headed up to the Muskrat hole and on his first drift Mike landed a perfect little Atlantic Salmon smolt. Later on we fished from the Altmar bridge down to the Schoolhouse pool itself but continued to come up empty for the rest of the day.

The best thing about a day like this is just being out there, battling through the elements, knowing some Knob Creek and a good meal awaits at days end. Here's a taste of the conditions. Love it!

As we head out on Monday morning I have yet to touch a fish and am hoping for a little 11th hour magic as we are set to get on the road by mid day. Headed back up river to an area that is often a early winter "ace". Good water that may contain both wintering over fish as well as fish just hanging around on their way further up river. After about an hour I'm IN! Nice fish that takes a glo-bug, comes up to the surface after staying down at first, gives three violent headshakes and my glo-bug comes flying back in my face. F!!!! Continue to work upstream and not more than twenty minutes later, fish-on again. Now based on rough weekend I felt certain that I would land this fish, but low and behold after a minute or so of a fairly non-spectacular fight, fish off. Like the ball through Buckner's legs, I knew at that moment that a steelhead to hand was not meant to be on this trip.

After my trip up this past April, I should have seen a fish less trip coming. After landing 20-30 fish in three days the law of averages exercised it's sobering power.

Couple stream shots.

Guide Trip Report: 12/1/07

2007-12-02T11:59:00.001-05:00

Brian from way down in Woodbury, NJ joined me for a half day of late fall fishing yesterday. With air temps in the 20's and a mid morning water temp of 36 degrees, there wasn't much fall about yesterday. It was a full blown winter fishing day complete with stiff frozen waders and an icy guide here and there.

In four hours of fishing Brian ended up going 1 for 4. In my opinion hooking four trout is not to shabby for someones first NJ trout experience on a cold December day. Nice work Brian, you will get back those three fish you lost many times over!

Heres a release video of Brian's rainbow.

(No, we did not plunge this trout back into the water Albie style! :)

Guide Trip Report: 11/21/07 KLG

2007-11-22T19:17:00.000-05:00

John and Thomas joined me for a day of Thanksgiving eve fishing. Despite north Jersey's early snowfall at the beginning of the week, the South Branch was at 43 degrees and a nice 90 cfs flow. A nice crisp morning, (just how Tom likes it) with not too many leaves in the water. As you can see below, it didn't take long for John and Tom to dust off their no-indicator nymphing techniques and start bringing fish to net.

A solid stocker rainbow Thomas landed.

One of John's nice wild browns.

And the release.

By days end, John and Tom fought and landed a mix of wild and stocked fish with a few nice fish lost briefly after hook-up. John decided to hit one more spot after Tom had to head for home, just as the light was getting low. He was happy he did, as it resulted in the nice rainbow pictured at the top of the report.

New Hatches magazine article!

2007-11-16T21:58:00.000-05:00

I wrote the first installment of what will eventually be a multi part piece on reading water. If you've ever fished with me, you know I am a big water reading guy. It is the cornerstone to my approach for trout, and I feel you can never over emphasize it's importance.

This article takes a skill we all possess at an expert level, color discrimination, and uses it as a basic tool for finding the(so called)magical 10% of water the fish are holding and feeding in.

Check it out, and let me know what you think. Always looking to revise things for the future.

http://www.hatchesmagazine.com/page/month/344

Fish in Frame

2007-11-12T08:55:00.000-05:00

My father and I were out on Saturday morning and both got into some decent fish. Here is a release video of a healthy rainbow. After playing around with this camera for a few weeks now, I am getting A LITTLE better at keeping these underwater shots in frame.

This fish took a fly that I call a "Quicker John" Essentially my quick-tie version of the Copper John. No epoxy, no flash and no bead head. Everything else from the original pattern is there. A much "quicker" tie that you don't mind losing. And if you don't need the weight of the bead and epoxy,it fishes just as well, IMHO.

Guide Trip Report: 11/3/07 KLG

2007-11-05T10:12:00.000-05:00

Josh from Englewood, NJ came out for a full day of fishing on the South Branch. An experienced saltwater fly fisherman, Josh was looking to expand his arsenal of techniques in the trout world, and specifically hone his approach to fishing nymphs. A secondary goal was to learn some of the Ken Lockwood Gorge and maybe even land a few trout!

By all accounts Josh had a very successful day. Water temp was 48 degrees in the AM and flow was around 80 cfs. A gusty wind was putting some leaves in the water, but all in all a beautiful day. I don't think we fished a stretch of water 20 yards or greater without Josh at least rolling a fish.

By days end, Josh had landed about 10 fish and had lost several more. One really nice aspect of Josh's catch was that the majority were wild fish (browns).

Some nice wild fish from Saturday:

Of course, a fat, rod bending stockie sprinkled in here and there is nice as well :)

Being mindful of the leaves in the water, we tried to stick with some patterns that had non-leaf/debris characteristics to them. This is an important fly choice factor over the next couple of weeks. (I am going to try and do a fly pattern post dedicated to this sometime this week)

Broke the new camera in and took some cool underwater videos as well.
Here is a rainbow after release. Still need to get a feel for framing subjects underwater, fish finally cooperates.

Releasing a small wild brown.

Here's Josh landing his best (sizewise) fish of the day.

Guide Trip Report: 10/21/07 South Branch

2007-10-23T15:09:00.000-04:00

Scott H from East Brunswick, NJ joined me for a morning trip on the South Branch. Water was flowing at a prime 90cfs with a water temp of 56 degrees. Perfect! After a "warm-up" run or two Scott had refined his drift and landed several nice bows. I hyjacked his rod for a demo drift and brought a plump brown of about 14 inches to hand as well. Oops!

"Where are the pictures?" More like "Where is my camera?!?" Well....to make a long story short, Bonnie and I lost it! Somehow between it's journey from her car to our house it went missing. We turned the entire house upside down looking for it to no avail. So, instead of sitting around and waiting for the miracle return of an already 5 year old camera, I upgraded to the fully waterproof Pentax W30. UPS tracking says it it supposed to arrive today!

This camera has been reviewed really well and I look forward to using it. With an improved macro function and all of the underwater capabilties, this camera will definitely make a positive impact on this blog's media.

5:22pm update... Still no UPS lady. Yes, we have a UPS LADY!

Death from Above!

2007-10-13T22:05:00.000-04:00

Photo: www.osprey.org
***This account is from 10/13, just posting it late***

Had a first today on the South Branch.

About mid afternoon I was working my way upstream when I see a large bird fly downstream about 25 feet off the water.
"Great Blue Heron" I said to myself as I continued to fish. But as the bird past directly by me, I saw it was not a Heron, but a large Osprey.

I think to myself, "OK... that's neat, haven't seen many of them along the South Branch over the years." And then continue on fishing.

About two hours later I am about a quarter mile upstream nymphing a run when I hook into a very solid fish. After dogging me in the run for about 30 seconds the fish drops back into some skinny water as it blows the hole.

This fish is MOVING and probably gets a good 20 yards away from me as I begin to give chase. As I start downstream to recover line I take my eyes off my line and fish to negotiate myself around some obstacles. While I'm looking down I hear the kind of splash made if you threw a bucket full of water into a stream. I look up and the Osprey has landed on my fish in the riffle below. I was stunned! It, (the osprey) clearly didn't get a good grip because I can see the bird moving its legs as it tries to get a better grip on the fish, wingtips touching the water as they remained in full horizontal extension.

By now, about five seconds have elapsed and I have visions on the fish AND MY LINE going airborne! Do I break the fish off? Hope the Osprey gives up? The last thing I wanted to do was have the Osprey take off with the fish and then drop and kill it because my pulls the fish away.

So...I decide to put pressure on the fish in hopes to do...something. I apply pressure and the fish breaks off, while simultaneously the Osprey takes flight......fishless.

I make my way down to the scene and no signs of a injured fish, although I'm sure the fish is scarred, in more ways than one! Never got a look at the fish, but the fact that the Osprey and I went 0 for 2 trying to land it makes me think it was a fine specimen.

**Note** Picture at top of post is not THE bird. Just a good Osprey w/trout shot from the web.

Our camera is currently AWOL. As was the case on this day. Here is a quick video of a pretty brown caught prior to the Osprey incident.

New Jersey trout streams get national credibility!

2007-10-02T13:06:00.000-04:00

If you missed Tom McDonough's article from the July '07 issue of Fly Fisherman, you can now check it out online.

http://flyfisherman.com/northeast/tmjersey/

Garden State Trout is a good primer for anyone out there new to our state or our sport. For the more experienced, there is also some nice photos and historical tidbits.

Check it out.

Models were right!

2007-09-11T12:12:00.000-04:00

(Ooops! I meant to capture the current radar as a saved image from when it was raining. Instead, I now have a live live link to Northeast radar)
The forcasted rain is happening and we should see a nice bump in stream flow over the next 24 hours. The cool air on the other side of this front will make for some great weekend conditions for fish and fishermen alike.

24 hour forcasted precip. (Current!)

Open Days for Guiding This Week

2007-09-10T13:29:00.000-04:00

Due to a cancellation later this week, I now have four days in a row available to guide if anyone is looking to fish.

These dates are:

Thursday, 9/13/07 (Full or Half Day)
Friday, 9/14/07 (Half Day AM only)
Saturday, 9/15/07 (Full or Half Day)
Sunday, 9/16/07 (Full or Half Day)

Water levels are currently low, but a cold front is forcasted to move through by Wednesday, bringing rain (possibly heavy)and cooler temps. This weather could make the end of this week an excellent time to fish some cool,falling water. But as always with mother nature, we won't know for sure until our head gets wet! (Or some later computer models come out:)

Check out this Accuweather blog for some details:
http://www.accuweather.com/news-blogs.asp?partner=accuweather&blog=meteomadness

If interested, shoot me an e-mail: jamesacapes@comcast.net

Guide Trip Report: 9/1/07 KLG

2007-09-02T19:13:00.000-04:00

Boy, what a beautiful day it was yesterday on the water. Air temps in the 70's, water temps below 65 and not a cloud in the sky! Richard from Asbury, NJ joined me for a day in the KLG, during which he landed his first fly rod caught fish as well as first trout ever.

After we spent some time discussing fly selection, the nature of the South Branch, and all of the cons of using strike indicators in water like the KLG, we set out to fish. Richard had a decent stocked brown to net in the second run he fished.

After lunch, Richard landed a beauty of a holdover brown. About 14" and fat. I certainly didn't catch a fish this nice my first time out!

Water was 63.8 by mid afternoon which is great to see. We really got through the month of August without any prolonged thermal distress to the fish.

Not a whole lot of anything coming off or falling in the morning. A few Tricos early, then sporadic midge, black caddis and Iso's throughout the day.

We stayed subsurface the entire day and by the time we called it quits Richard landed a half dozen, LDR'ed a few and missed a bunch of strikes. All in all a great first day for Richard on the South Branch. We were fishing two fly rigs and could really see how both flies can play off one another to our advantage.

Video Test:
I had to get a message to Bonnie, but could not get service from my car while we ate lunch. So... I took my phone out on the water to a place I know I can always get service. While the phone was in my hand I took a quick stream side video of the stream and Richard nymphing below "the cave". (Some of you out there may know this spot) Anyway, I noticed Blogger now allows videos to be placed in blogs. If this works, I will try to get video up on my reports on a regular basis.

(Well....video ok, audio.... not so much.) (Actually, the banging sound you hear is the steel going up for the new KLG parking deck! ;)
Another decent brown and the release.

BTW... If you live in the Highland Park area, be sure to stop by Richard's UPS store on Raritan Ave(Route 27) for all of your shipping/receiving and packaging needs!

Guide Trip Report: 8/23/07 BFB

2007-08-25T13:17:00.000-04:00

John from Hoboken and Tom from Livingston took advantage of this past week's unseasonably cold, wet weather and came out with me for their third trip of the season.

As pointed out in an earlier blog post, the Big Flatbrook area got left out of alot of summer thunderstorms this season and essentially ran at 30 to 40cfs (low) all summer with virtually no bumps in flow. This week, the Flatbrook finally got a decent bump in water and we decided to seize the moment.

As usually for late summer on the BFB, a lot of fish have been taken out and the ones that have made it through have become much more selective since their humble Pequest beginnings.

Lots of Isonychia shucks around and all fish caught were fat. We could tell the recent bump in rain had really infused the stream with a lot of food for the fish and they (the fish) had gone on a binge.

Nice Iso. shuck specimen

Fish were taken on some small caddis dries as well as midge larva fished in the film and beneath. Lots of selective surface feeding all day long.

All in all a nice day on the BFB. (especially for late August)

Here is Tom, playing the first fish of the morning from the Showcase.

(Tom also landed a nice forearm trout later in the morning :)

John's well fed brown to conclude the afternoon.

Guide Trip Report: 8/17/07 S. Branch

2007-08-18T11:21:00.000-04:00

I had the pleasure of guiding Kevin from Chester, NJ yesterday morning on the South Branch. Kevin's goals were to develop a sound approach to reading pocket water and fine tune his presentation skills in such water.

Kevin was a devotee of the classic wet fly swing and quickly made some adjustments to fish situations were short line nymphing would be more effective.

We called it a morning by 11 o'clock and by that point Kevin had hooked six fish, bringing four of those to hand. We had success today on a variety of subsurface patterns including some Isonychia soft-hackles, caddis and midge larvae. Kevin's confidence level in fishing small midge patterns was definitely raised by mornings end.

Here is a crappy shot(my fault) of a holdover rainbow Kevin caught. Approx. 13 inches and very skinny.

Spent a hour or so fishing by myself in the afternoon. With this past week of thermal relief, fish are starting to creep out of some "hunker-down" mode. This can be seen by fish holding locations, activity level and aggressiveness.
Here are two nice examples of South Branch brown trout reproduction from yesterday.

Late July Forecast: Deck, with a chance of Delaware

2007-08-08T15:44:00.000-04:00

I took the last two weeks of July to step away from fly fishing and complete a home project that Bonnie and I have wanted to do since we moved in, build a deck. Since our backyard was a wet, muddy ski slope, I decided to go with a big deck, as a muddy ski slope isn't good for much other than mud skiing, an extreme sport we both gave up years ago.

So...we went with a 14'x20', rectangular deck, all built with pressure treated lumber. By far the worst steps were digging and filling nine, 12"x36" footings. My father and I now know that wielding a two-man auger is not for the faint of heart. Forty-five, 80lb bags of cement made for another long sweaty day as well. Bonnie was a huge help throughout the entire build and had the patience to install all of those black railing balusters you see in the picture above.

But in the end we are very pleased and look forward to using all this new relaxing/eating/entertaining space.

Of course, you can't build a deck every day!

Took a couple trips to the Delaware, fishing spots as far north as the Delaware Water Gap and as far south as Lambertville. Picked up your typical mixed bag on both trips, using clousers, hellgramite patterns, big stoneflies and assorted buggers.
Unfortunately, had sunny days to fish which didn't help, especially combined with clear water.

A few DD's. (Delaware Dinks)

Which one of these is not like the other?

2007-07-12T14:15:00.000-04:00

The overnight rain turned out to be less than expected, but what did come through yesterday afternoon made a huge impact on all, or I should say, most of our main Northwest Jersey trout waters.

South Branch got the most by far.

Musky is looking good.

Pequest got a nice bump.

But look at poor Flatbrook. It continues to just miss the much needed summer thunderstorms.

Take some water temps and have at it.

A Good Start

2007-07-11T18:39:00.001-04:00

Very respectable thunderstorms moving across the state this evening with more to come throughout the night. Although this won't immediately drop water temps, it will improve flow and thus aeration in the NJ streams. This will help the fish out by raising dissolved oxyen levels and adding some cover over their heads. Once the front moves completely through, air and water temps will be dropping nicely. The trout game COULD be a safe bet for morning fishing by the weekend. But... lets see how it plays out over the next 24 hours before we start changing plans.

Hopefully the rain keeps coming.

Fire and Ice

2007-07-10T21:45:00.000-04:00

Here are some pics I took of the KLG back on February 11th of this year. This was during the two week period when almost every moving body of water in the state was locked up with ice. As far as the South Branch goes, it was the most anchor ice I had seen in recent memory. (click on them and check them out at full size)

After suffering through another day with over 90 degree air temps, I think the trout would sign up for a few days like this right now. Especially the S. Branch trout, dealing with 40cfs.

No fishing for me today, spent a good part of the day trying to get caught up on some fly orders. Hoping to hit the Delaware for bass tomorrow.

Hindered by the Heat

2007-07-09T13:49:00.000-04:00

I just checked the forcasted high for today and it is 99! This weeks weather has flat out stoped our pursuit of trout for what looks like the entire week. Two guided trips have been put on hold as even early morning fishing is out with the extreme temps and high humidity.

Since I have guided more and more over the last few years, I have become obsessed with mid to long range weather forecasts. I find the meteorologists out at Accuweather do an outstanding job of interpreting the models and thier online blogs (with video) really help a meteorlogical layperson (such as myself) make sense of weather patterns and have really educated me in a lot of ways. If you fish, (which you probably do if you are reading this) I stongly suggest your check out Accuweather.com and in particular these two blogs:

Henry Margusity
http://www.accuweather.com/news-blogs.asp?partner=accuweather&blog=meteomadness

Elliot Abrams
http://www.accuweather.com/news-blogs.asp?partner=accuweather&blog=abrams

Both of these guys focus on the Northeast and do daily and sometimes multiple updates a day. A great resource.

So...while the sun blazes away, if you are going to stay in state, head to the salt of take advatage of a warmwater fishery on the fly rod. Personally I hope to spend a few hours on the Delaware this week chasing smallmouth, stripers, and the assorted other fish that are often by-catches when you fish the Delaware throughout NJ.

Speaking of the salt...

So far this year, Sandy Hook has been less productive from the beach than in past years. (For me at least) I try to fish incomi g tides at dusk into dark , and as a rule, at the very least, you can count on cocktail blues and short fluke. I have fished the hook twice in the last two week with those conditions and have done very poorly. Will definitely keep at it though.

The last trip down was to fish second, and to attend a birthday get-togther first. This birthday celebration was for no other than ABA's webmaster and close friend Tom Kerese's 30th birthday. Needless to say the company was much better than the fishing. Tom is a devoted tip of the Hook guy and will gladly educate you on the "rules for the tip", just ask him.

Heres a pic of Tom and I from the Hook last week.