It's Pickin' Up!

My first of the season!

The season is getting going- better late than never. After record flooding and fairly high water levels in many Vermont streams and rivers things are finally pulling back together. More importantly- the fish are on!

I headed down to "the Creek" and found it surprisingly uncrowded. Very nice to see but indeed unusual for the past year or so. I did see one guy and quickly realized it was Tyler from Classic Outfitters. Just before I went over to talk to him I hooked up with my first smallmouth of the season- a spunky 18" hen with a round belly full of eggs. Pretty sweet!

Tyler "swinging" for gar

As I walked down to see what Tyler was up to, he said "Do you have any gar flies?" and pointed to a 3 foot fish in shallow water. He had it slash at a Zonker a couple of times but it stopped responding to it. I set him up with a Clouser I had that I thought might get the fish interested. I should know better and carry gar flies with me- this isn't the first time I have seen these critters around in May.  Despite my help the gar wouldn't eat. 

My first MC smallmouth this year (not the last!)

I got another nice fish- this one 19.5", a Master Class smallie! Just what I was after! After a couple of photos she went back in. My guess is that she was about 3 lbs or so. This fish is what a lot of guys will tell you is a "5 pounder". Five pound fish can be found but they are a rarity to be honest and they are usually at least 22" or 23" long.

I got into another fish close to where the first one came from. Another gorgeous fish at 17" and it jumped quite a bit. Not two minutes after releasing that fish I had a bump... I thought it was a small fish when it first showed until it tail walked over a branch... this was a good one! It went in the air a couple of times and I brought it in. Another fat female but this one was a bit longer- 20.5"! This fish was pushing 4 lbs too. Very pleased about that!

That is a piggy! (I do mean the fish)

I told Tyler what I was doing and showed him the technique I was using to get their attention but for whatever reason they weren't responding for him. He did get a couple of nice bass on Sunday but sometimes these early fish can be fickle with color and presentation. The first fish that show up are female and they can be a bit more difficult than the males. They have a preference for different flies than the later fish do. If you want to find out what those flies are you will just have to hire me to take you out!

And so it begins....

GASS BAG- the Primitive Post

Well, yes, sometimes that is exactly what I am (especially after certain meals).... but what I am referring to are the Gar Anglers Sporting Society and the Bowfin Anglers Group. Yes, it is true that there are indeed websites catering to those of us who have an unnatural inclination toward the primitive fishes swimming in our local waters! Lake Champlain is the easternmost natural distribution for both the longnose gar (Lepisosteus osseus) and the bowfin (Amia calva) and has impressive populations of both species. 

A nice gar during the spawn

The longnose gar is a fun fish to target. They get big, are easy to see in the water, and will readily take a well presented fly. I fish for them from May until September using rope flies on 8 to 10 wt outfits. A few years back Lawrence Pyne asked me to take him out to fish gar and film it for Vermont Public Television. We got a few nice fish in some tough conditions and the show was a hit (and I will put up a link as soon as VPT has the show back on their website). I don't want to give away all my gar secrets, but it does take some practice to be successful. A gar fly is semi-hookless (here in VT there has to be a hook point so I use size 20 dry fly hooks in the body of the fly) and if you set the hook, you lose the fish! 

Close up of the gar's mouth

The longnose gar is a Mississippi drainage fish that likely entered Lake Champlain via the Great Lakes then the St. Lawrence after the last glacial period. The environs of Champlain were very conducive to this primitive fish- providing many shallow, weedy backwater bays and slow moving rivers that these fish love. The gar was well known to the Abnaki who used its scales as arrowheads. Samuel de Champlain definitely saw them and wrote in his journal (this has been taken as early evidence of "Champ"):
"... there is one [fish] called by the natives 'Chaousarou', which is of various lengths; but the largest of them, as these tribes have told me, are from eight to ten feet long. I have seen some five feet long, which were as big as my thigh, and had a head as large as my two fists, with a snout two feet and a half long, and a double row of very sharp, dangerous teeth. Its body has a good deal the shape of the pike; but it is protected by scales of a silvery gray colour and so strong that a dagger could not pierce them."Just awesome fish. 

Master Class bowfin on Lake Champlain

The bowfin is the last of its kind. The family Amiiade  is well represented in the fossil record from all around the world from as early as the Jurassic Period. Just think, at one point there was a bowfin species that reached 8 feet long. If there were a fish like that in Champlain, I don't think I would be fishing out of a canoe let alone wet wade! Eastern North America is the last holdout for this primitive family of fishes. Characterized by a gular plate (throat plate), slightly heterocercal tail (similar to a shark, but less pronounced), and its namesake long dorsal fin. These predators love shallow weedy wetlands and feed on pretty much anything that gets in its way, although they seem to have a preference for aquatic crustaceans.

Look at the teeth on that puppy!

Angling for the bowfin on Lake Champlain is a relatively simple afair. They take a variety of flies, are easily sight fished, and put up a great fight. The weedy environment that they live in often requires a fairly heavy tippet on an 8 wt rod. There are times however that a 6 wt rod and lighter tippet can make this angling a whole lot more fun. It is not too difficult to get a take, but getting a good hookset in their bony mouth can be tough. A really good hook makes all the difference in this regard. I put many anglers on Master Class bowfin this year. As a matter of fact the bowfin is the most numerous fish species in the Master Angler Program largely because of me.

Great fish on a 6wt!

To my knowledge I am the only successful fly fising gar guide in Vermont. (another guide service does advertize gar as a target but no one in that guide service has yet to catch one- truth in advertizing???). Along with the gar, I brought guiding for bowfin on the fly on Lake Champlain to Vermont. I know I am not the only guide who does this, but in all honesty I taught most of the other guides how to do it. I will have gar and bowfin flies for sale on my website shortly for those of you who might be interested and I will definitely be guiding for them in this upcoming season. Please get in touch with me if you are interested- I would love to help you chase down some primitive fish!