Mediocre Weekend

I had to go back to Binghamton this weekend to help assemble a garage with my family so I got out fairly early on Thursday to do some East Branch Perkiomen fishing.  I managed two smallmouth, a largemouth, and a bunch of panfish.  It felt good to be out again after a couple week hiatus from the long rod.  I tried a new foam beetle pattern that the panfish loved, but the larger fish were avoiding it.  Eventually, I switched to my trusty woolly bugger to pull in the bass. I had quite a few other decent hits but I managed to not land the fish.

Blooming Glenn Road covered bridge

Troll under the bridge

Big longear on the surface

Once I was home on Friday, I had some time so I hit up the Chenango River to see if I could get a few more smallies or even a walleye.  The spot I decided on required me to hike a few hundred feet through a stunning, 6 foot high, field of purple flowers. After arriving at the gravel pit and throwing a few casts out, I didn't like the clarity and moved down stream some.  This caused me to have to bush whack through some thick bamboo and driftwood.  Once making it out the other side I looked down and saw....

*Side story*  Two weeks ago Jackie and I were 1.5 miles upstream from the aforementioned location with her dog (aka my fishing partner).  We threw a toy in the river for him while this normally water loving dog refused to fetch it.  We watched the toy float slowly down stream while we could do nothing to retrieve it. *End of side story*

....THE SAME TOY WE LOST!!  While I was slightly excited to save 8 dollars, I was much more taken back that the toy beached itself in the spot, on the same side of the river, where I had happened to be meandering along two weeks later.  It must have been fate.  I cleaned it up and its as good as a moderately used dog toy that has been soaking in river water for two weeks... but it smells a little better.

Waiting for a ride home

Picture Perfect Purple

The must-have fish and rod picture

Swollen left leg

I managed to pull three better-than-stream sized smallies from the Chenango after forgoing the bugger and switching to a clouser minnow.  I may have a new favorite fly, but I'll need more field testing to be sure.  I guess that means another trip to the fly shop...

...of course I'll never get out again if this rain doesn't stop.

The love of my life...

has left me again to go back to school.  Twenty more months left and no more of this waiting.  We did have a nice last week together in Myrtle Beach and I managed to get a few hours of fishing in between the go karts, the searching for slightly less packed restaurants in the rain, and trying to catch some waves.  I have only started to salt water fish this last year or so and have never attempted surf fishing until this trip.  So I researched, bought a surf rod and appropriate tackle and learned how to catch the biggest fish of my life.  Once I got to the shore, I threw all that away and casted out the smallest kastmaster I had in hopes of catching some new species.  On my second cast I caught an 8" bluefish.  I spent the next two hours using that lure and a much larger kast master and wrangled in 3 more fish. I then spent the next hour after that identifying them... hopefully I got them right.

A needle of a needlefish

Baby jack

I also managed to grab a bunch of these little walking fishes

My fishing partner helped out for a little bit.   He's getting quiet adept at catching my fish before I do and re-catching them shortly after release.

Tiger pounce

Exhausted

I did see some fish about 6 inches long breaking on the surface at one point with dinner plate sized slabs of silver flashing underneath but despite my running to the tackle box, tying on new lures, chasing after the fish, and repeating, I couldn't get any to hook up.  

I did enjoy catching a couple of new, cool looking fish and fishing in a whole different way.  The rest of the week after I caught these fish I tried fishing but the waves were just too strong.  Hurricane Emily was only  over Haiti and the waves were getting bigger and more violent everyday.  It made me want to see what the full power of a hurricane could bring. But not that much.

 With Jackie back in school becoming a doctor, I'll have the next few months to myself which will allow me to spend more time with my second love... fishing.  Hopefully the posts get more frequent and more awe-inspiring.  Most likely, they won't, but there's still some water nearby I haven't yet tried, the spillway I have yet to tame, that kayak flounder trip I have been meaning to take, and that cruising carp I'm still stalking.