Dear Ms. Franke and Striped Bass Board Members,

As a fly fishing guide, angler, and conservationist whose livelihood is tethered to the success of the Atlantic striped bass, I'd like the opportunity to comment on potential management options.

For the most part, I stand in agreement with the ASGA (American Saltwater Guides Association) on their stances as expressed in their letter on this topic: That no targeting closures would be inequitable, hard to enforce, and are based on faulty assumptions; That no harvest closures are also inequitable, disproportionately affect those operating in states with shorter seasons, and can allow states to cherry-pick closure periods that minimize their impact; that adjusting a slot limit to preserve what is left of 2018 year class; and that commercial and recreational reductions should be as close to equal as possible.

However, I'd like to go a step further as well. If we stand to lose a viable striped bass stock, and withstanding six years of extremely poor recruitment that doesn't seem unlikely, every business that relies on striped bass as a robust, healthy fishery is going to suffer. Losing sight of that fact in a quest for equity among sectors from recreational anglers, catch & kill charters, catch & release charters, and commercial fisherman means we will all eventually lose. There will come a point, and I firmly believe we are already at this point given the data at hand, that management action will need to be taken that negatively impacts some if not all businesses that rely on Atlantic striped bass; something like a moratorium on targeting striped bass or a moratorium on harvesting striped bass. Temporarily encumbering businesses in the recreational and commercial sectors that are responsible for driving the Atlantic striped bass stock into the ground will eventually be unavoidable. Though I'm an angler, writer, fly tyer and guide whose business benefits from being able to target striped bass, I'd rather be legally obliged to stop doing so for a short time than watch the fishery continue to decline to the point of collapse. No target and no harvest closures aren't the solution to rebuilding the stock, but perhaps a temporary coastwide moratorium, or coastwide gear restrictions (for example: single, barbless hooks, artificial lures only) that equitably affects every angler, guide, and business is. Either we lose business now and rebuild the stock, or we fail and see the stock collapse and lose our businesses for good anyway. I'd rather take the temporary hit than a permanent one.

Rowan M. Lytle

Guide, Connecticut Fly Angler

 Fall 2023 was a struggle in most of my normal striped bass haunts, and I stubbornly stuck to my guns in those places working under the incorrect assessment that if I kept going, eventually the fish had to show up. Meanwhile, friends were having much better fishing just a short bit further away from home. Not only were the encountering good stripers but big bluefish as well. I stuck to my guns on my home turf for a while before finally seeing reason and venturing out further. It was desperately necessary at that point, as I the season looked to be about to wind down.

Fall is when I basically live out of my car. Really, that could happen any time of year. But it's definitely more likely from September through November. The same clothes may not come off for days on end, the interior of the vehicle starts to smell dank and musty, and I consistently look both manic and tired. Loved ones say "you should get some rest", I say "when I'm dead". Pushing even just a little further from home and learning a relatively new to me area demands even more than the usual effort, and when a bite is in progress that means methodically fishing different structure in the new area, drawing knowledge of how similar spots in areas I already know fish at different tides, winds, and times of day. Some may require a significant number of visits at different times and tides to really dial in. I look or bait and make educated guesses as to where it may go next if it is liable to leave- always a factor in the fall -and watch for concentrations of fish eating birds or even seals. This often mean spending the majority of a week in the same general area, catching naps here and there and eating when I can and what I can between tides. But I always feel the pressure of the approaching cold season and the inevitable departure of the fish. 

On the first day of my exploratory I found a spot in daylight with very promising structure and bait activity. I made careful note of the tide level and current speed at the time of that visit and came back later that night on a different tide. There were fish feeding heavily and some very large ones in the mix. The next night, same thing but on the opposite tide. This was an ideal setup, and a spot I'd throw into the rotation for a while. Unfortunately it ended up serving up absurdly fickle fish. Though there was near constant and hellacious surface action I struggled to get bit. I tricked just a couple into taking very large Hollow Fleyes, but nothing else seemed to draw any attention and that just barely worked as it was. I fell asleep in my waders in a park and ride that night a bit dejected and frustrated but with intrigue as to the following morning. I hoped that bait might dump out into the adjacent bay and start a blitz.

The next morning, a huge blitz was in progress in a spot I couldn't get to as I drove to where the fish had been the night before. I pulled off for a bit to watch the birds dipping down to catch juvenile menhaden as stripers and blues churned the water underneath them. It was a fun show for a bit, but I wanted to feel a tight line. Things were quiet over by the mouth of the creek that had been loaded with bass the previous few nights. There were a bunch of cormorants hanging out up the beach though, and they seemed expectant. I decided to take their lead. I made some blind casts while I waited and picked up a few errant schoolies. 

It was more than an hour without much change before some of the cormorants began to take off confidently, fly across the bay, then land and swim around a point that was obscuring another small cove. Soon the whole flock- perhaps more than a hundred birds -were following their lead. I did the same. Rounding the corner, diving gulls and a few swirls marked the school. Eagerly I hopped out, dropping a camera in my waders pocket and grabbing the rod. I doubted tis would last very long and didn't expect I'd need to perform any fly changes. Twenty minutes, a dozen fish up to about 20 pounds, and a bit of sitting and basking in the chaos later the action departed and so did I. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, Oliver, oddity on Display, Sammy, and Cris & Jennifer for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version. 

 Kevin Callahan wanted his boga grip back. As he eased his Maverick Master Angler out of the launch and got on plane, the breeze, clouds, and chop lead me to believe that would be a long shot. But maybe the fish would bite. Large striped bass like it sloppy. Really, I think the boga retrieval was just an excuse. I think Kevin and I both felt like we were in with a really good shot at some gigantic bass. The ride wasn't as quick as the slick night we'd made this same run about a week prior, and though some fish were had that night and even more were seen, this felt a bit different. There was a feel to the weather. The changing barometric pressure and the color of the water spoke volumes. We spent probably 20 minutes looking for the gripper after arriving at the spot, but the sheet of vegetation on the bottom did volumes more to conceal it than even the chop and clouds could. That was a lost cause. 

Kevin moved us into a rocky area and began slinging a large topwater plug known as the Doc. If you aren't aware of the Musky Mania Doc and you striper fish in the northeast, you live under a rock. Nowadays its really unusual to see a boat leaving the launch for a day of striper fishing that doesn't already have a doc hanging off at least one of the rods. The lure shortened the learning curve for a lot of anglers to catch big bass both on the plug itself and on the fly. In fact, the first use of it in the Northeast striper fishery is as a teasing lure, with Joe LeClair being one of the first to employ it around Block Island. Not long after, Ian Devlin and Mark Sedotti brought in to Western Long Island Sound, and from there it started being used with hooks to actually catch the fish when it became clear that in some scenarios it was great for drawing strikes from big bass but not as good for teasing. Now there are multiple knock-offs of it specifically advertised to striper anglers. Some even cast better than the original, which has a shape and weight distribution that makes it hard to get the lure to consistently fly true. I was fishing a simple derivation of Mark Sedotti's synthetic slammer. This one had two little foam baffles and lead wrapped on the shank but no keel. It was 10" long and all off-white. Not only was it ideal if a teasing scenario set itself up, but also a fantastic generalistic big striper fly. 

After a little inaction around a school of tinker mackerel that were flicking and boiling, we pushed further into the structure seeking resident fish just holding. Confirmation of life came in the form of an almighty wallop on Kevin's lure. Stripers often hit the plug repetitively, sometimes popping it up into the air with their head, sometimes even slinging it with their tail. But sometimes they also just hammer it and get it cleanly in their craw on the first go, which is what Kevin's first fish of the day did. We knew ahead of time exactly what sort of fish were in this spot, so it was no surprise it was a 40 incher. In fact, we were hoping for something quite a bit larger. What came around was a bit more than we bargained for. The first fish to eat the fly took on a blind cast fairly near the boat and from was a clone of Kevin's. Not a giant, but very nice on the fly. That fish started to act a little weird partway through the fight though. All of a sudden, the water erupted in one of the most spectacular displays of predation I've seen in person as not only one but two brown sharks each attacked my hooked fish, one from the head, the other from the tail. They churned the water to a froth, tails thrashing as they made the striper a lot less mobile in a real hurry. One of the two followed as I stripped what was now half of a striper towards the boat, making another last attempt to get what was left pretty much boat-side. Incredibly, Callahan was rolling video through the whole event. 

Screen captures from video, courtesy Kevin Callahan

Photo courtesy Kevin Callahan

 November, 2022. Angler: Mark Alpert

 Spring 2023 is in the books now as the most frustrating herring run year of my short time chasing this sometimes magical event. It had its moments though, as any year does. And when I think about it, every year is a slog. Long, long night hours are spent casting at nothing for the occasional crazy night of heavy action or just one or two very large fish. And though on the whole this season was frustrating, the highlights really felt special. Though I managed only about a dozen  bass from my favorite river, the first of the season there topped out at 41 inches. My goal each season there is to get one 40 incher and I have accomplished that each year since 2018, last year being the standout with a 40" and 43" and a few fished that missed the mark by no more than half an inch. Getting my big fish there was a relief- and lucky given the overall lackluster success I had. 

In other parts of the state the story was a little different. My friends Alex and Dave were having an banner year. Twice I fished down their way, and both nights far exceeded anything I saw anywhere on my side of the state during this run. The first night was slow save for a short window at what has become one of my favorite spots to fish in the state. The tide was low and a few alewives were jetting down the riffles to the head of tide, where some would meet their demise. Not only were stripers there to take the desperate little fish. Like miniature fisherman, night herons were visible in silhouette up and down the riffle. It wasn't quite fully dark yet when we got there, but it took hardly four casts to come up with a quality fish. Two 20 pound class fish in quick succession fell to a swung Sedotti Slammer tied with Devlin Blends yak hair. These weren't long fish, they were over-slots but not 40 inchers. They were just absolutely rotund. That short window was enough to make that night special, as only a few more fish came to hand between then and sunrise. 

Photo Courtesy Alex Peru

 Garth and I dumped the canoe in last few hours of October. There'd been some large striped bass around and I'd been using personal watercraft to explore new territories. A couple days prior I'd caught my largest surf striper, a roughly 44 inch 30-plus pound fish. Minutes before that fish another 40 incher had come to hand. This was in daylight... I was a bit taken with that and felt the need to ply the same waters under the cover of darkness. Access was tricky but Garth and I found our way in.The canoe would be our ferry, the fishing itself would be land based. We just couldn't get where we planned to fish by wading outside of extreme low tides, and we'd inevitably not be able to do the fishing we wanted to in such a scenario. The canoe that Drew Price fished on the waters of Lake Champlain was now getting two young anglers onto the dark waters of Long Island Sound, where we thought we might just have a chance to run into a sea monster. 

There's often a deeply ominous feeling when I climb out onto the furthest rock I can reach to cast into a powerful rip. The water is rarely calm, certainly not on the most productive nights, nor is it clear. A headlamp provides some security but it mustn't be on long and I've learned to do nearly everything I possibly can without one. That darkness envelopes you, as does the sound of the incoming tide flushing around the boulders. All this rock was left as the glaciers receded and is now home to a plethora of baitfish, crabs both native and invasive, the odd lobster, oysters, muscles, and of course striped bass. My hope was that within this particular pile of current ravaged, life encrusted granite, there could be a truly huge striped bass. My mind created all sorts of other creatures though, and as I scrambled onto my rock of choice I looked back at the dry land behind me nervously. The point I was on formed a ridge extending out toward deep water. It's descent was quite gradual, meaning I'd needed to wade a long way through unfamiliar territory to get where I was. I knew the holes between some of these boulders could be surprisingly deep. I also knew that seals and brown sharks like to hunt this same water. Though I knew that rationally these large creatures posed no threat to me, the ingrained fear of that which I couldn't see crept up. The intent, really the necessity of pulling on a large striper prevailed though, and any unwarranted fear faded in the pursuit of a striped bass of a lifetime. Expectation overshadowed reality out on that point that night. One take from a bass of unknown stature was all that resulted.

I had other tricks up my sleeve though. Nearby a shallow muscle bar marked the passage between island and mainland. Despite being very shallow it was enticing structure with good current and multiple ambush points. We picked our way out into the rushing current. I was keenly aware that much of bottom I trod on there was a living mosaic of mollusks. I tried not to drag my feet or step too hard. When I could I walked on what sand I could find. The current here was perfect for swinging, and I worked the water by casting down and across with my large white Hollow Fleye and simply letting the tide carry it. Large stripers are lazy and bait often doesn't suspect pursuit under the cover of darkness. A slow and deliberate presentation will often beat out a fast retrieve.

It was just a few minutes into November when I felt a pull. I pulled back hard and buried the hook. The fish's actions were deliberate and slow. It didn't really define its size, though I knew it wasn't small. My size guess changed again and again as I waded into the shallows, walking the fish back to where I could land here. When I finally did get her on her side in about five inches of water where her silhouette was just visible, I could see that she was a good one. At 39.5 inches and 20 some pounds she was easily my largest November bass. It can be all too easy to ignore the bass in front of you when you feel confident that there are much, much larger ones within a mile of where you, and I'd had a such a good October that I'd started to tire of the smaller fish. I wanted a 40 pound striper on the fly, on foot. And this wasn't it. But I realized her significance... she was a reminder to stay on my toes, to expect the unexpected. I thought there was a chance big fish could occasionally slide onto that muscle bar, but if I'd had to pick one spot in that area to fish that night it would have been where we started and we would have gotten skunked. 

And we almost did. That was the only fish we laid hands on that night. It proved the importance of exploring all the possibilities of a spot, analyzing it critically, and fishing thoroughly and with intent at all times. Though I'd try again, that muscle bar never produced another striper this fall. The point nearby did give me some opportunities. It will take a few seasons at least to really grasp the dynamic of this new-to-me water. After fishing it an hour more that night we paddled the canoe back to our starting point. The whole way I was formulating approaches, considering conditions, and picturing the fish I knew was out there somewhere not far away. Scales as big as quarters. Mouth wide enough to swallow a fluke. I need to catch her. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, and Oliver for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.

 I learned the ropes of striped bass fly fishing in a localized area on Long Island Sound. It was the perfect training ground, with tidal creeks, rocky points, beach front, and sand flats all in close proximity. Many parts of the Connecticut shoreline have all of these geographic features within close proximity, but I stuck with one area initially. I gained confidence in this area, as there happened to be a lot of fish there that year. There were even some pretty nice fish in the mix, and some encounters I had that year will stick with me for a while. I was ecstatic with what I'd found in this fishery. I made the faulty assumption that it would always be that way. 

The next year things were a little different. The tidal creek that had been the epicenter of my fall run the year prior had some fish but very few. There were some nice fish in the spring but the fall was underwhelming. These spots then wouldn't produce well for five years straight. I began to think that first year would never be repeated. Though some years saw good numbers of bass, especially small ones, there was never a lot in that specific spot. 

Then came the fall of 2022. October was one of the most spectacular- probably the most spectacular -striped bass fishing months I'd experienced. For a while I was following one body of fish almost daily, and it was epic. Then I sort of lost track of them. Deciding they must have moved on, I began driving around and stopping to watch for birds or blowups on my daytime missions. Two days after I'd lost track of the fish, I crossed one very familiar bridge and turned my head to see a massive cloud of birds over the creek. I whipped a u-turn as soon as I safely could and parked. Not even donning waders, I grabbed a fly rod and my sling pack and ventured into the marsh with a palpable sense of anticipation. I didn't even make it to where the birds were before spotting a blitz in a marsh cut where I'd not seen loads of breaking bass in years. The fish were on peanuts, averaged about 27 inches, and were ravenous and easily caught. 

I roped in bass after bass on a white Hollow Fleye, many of them being low end slot fish and a fair number being smaller. The size of the fish and ferocity of the blitz were very similar to those of that formative year of my striped bass fishing. It felt like a homecoming of sorts. After years if lackluster results this water- one of my favorite places -was suddenly giving up the goods again. Things slowly winded down right in front of me, and in time the decision was made to go to where all those birds had been. I couldn't have anticipated just how crazy that would be. 

I had just walked up to the most spectacular, expansive, and prolonged blitzes I had ever encountered. There were acres of bass and hundreds of birds laying siege to peanut bunker in a narrow tidal creek. This was a show to beat all others, a display of life and death that touched every sense. The visual spectacle was, of course, plainly evident. Thousands of iridescent juvenile menhaden sprayed out of thew choppy water, often followed by a linesider going airborne in hot pursuit. The birds provided their own sights to fixate on the laughing gulls dipping to grab the peanuts, hovering low over breaking fish, wings not beating effortlessly as they often can but, rather, completely frantic. Nothing I could see in that little part of the world at that moment was calm. It was chaos. If I closed my eyes, and I did a few times, I couldn't hide from it. The sound may have actually rivaled the sights as evidence of the mayhem. The gulls calling was audible from afar of course but so was the sound of the bass. It was a dull roar, like a waterfall, with higher pitched splashes and pops coming through. I could almost feel it. At times I really could when the bass would pin a school against the mud bank at my feet, the vibrations of their many bodies impacting the sod transmitting to my feet through the very ground I stood on. There was a smell and even taste to the air the signified the death of baitfish as well. It's an almost sweet smell with some vegetable like aspects. If you've been around a wild bunker blitz, you know what I'm talking about. It's an almost melon like smell with hints of fishiness to it. 

It's hard to really put into words what a blitz like that is like and what it feels like to be in the middle of all of that. It's even harder to describe what it was like for me being in such a special place with all of that going on around me. This was a meaningful day of fishing for me. Though I knew that this wasn't likely to produce any out-sized fish, that getting larger fish was no more predictable here than winning big at a slot machine, this blitz was more significant to me than so many of the big fish blitzes I'd already experienced this year. 

After a spell, I actually had to go back home. I left the blitz in progress. Being gone long just wasn't an option though, returning that very same day had to happen. I also felt like I needed to share this spectacular thing with some friends. I asked Garth if he wanted to come and he did. My friend Boots and I had talked about fishing that day as well, so I gave him a call. He'd actually been with me one of the last good days of that formative first season in this spot as well. These two guys would get the gravity of this, that's what was important. 

Some people might think it was foolhardy to think this epic blitz would still be going on. In my mind, there was no way it wouldn't be. It was just too large, too vigorous, and had already been going on at a somewhat subpar tide... had to continue. Well...

Garth and I drove down together, Boots would get there a little later. We were in the fish right away, and if anything the spectacle had increased in intensity in some ways. This event had now seemingly been in progress for six hours. It would go on for many, many more, and that was something I couldn't have anticipated. 

We gawked. We caught fish. We struggled to process the extraordinary event that was right in front of us. There are bigger blitzes, I've seen plenty of them. But for a blitz of this size and duration to take place in a narrow system of tidal creeks is very special. It doesn't happen every day. Boots finally found his way to us and joined in the revelry. He was soon trying to catch bass on all of the plugs he'd not yet caught stripers on, plugs that had special meaning to him. And because the fish were so ravenous it wasn't all that hard to get one to eat almost anything. 

For the fish, this day represented and important and yearly part of a migration. Water temperatures were falling and the days were getting shorter. These fish were heading towards their winter homes, and their biology drove them to pack on the pounds while they could. Some of the fish we were catching were so heavy set they looked downright rotund. They had round, saggy bellies. The really small ones almost looked like tadpoles, carrying their freshly gained weight exclusively in their stomachs. As with so many aspects of the day, photos just didn't do it justice. 

As it got darker I anticipated that this blitz would end. Nighttime blitzes are rare. Nocturnal surface feeding isn't, but concentrated blitzing is. This was the blitz that refused to end though. The sun fell and it was still going on in the fading light. 

As the sky darkened, the fish merely moved rather than calming down. We followed them down to the mouth of the creek and continued to catch fish into the night, our hands becoming shredded and raw from the rasp of countless striper mouths. The number of fish to hand was likely well in the hundreds at that point, and the thought of tying into something much bigger convinced me to continue casting. That and the knowledge that this was a special event. I told Garth, "enjoy this while it lasts, because we may never experience this again. These are our good old days". I'd love to believe that I was wrong, but there's no way to guarantee that we'd experience a tidal creek blitz like this in our home waters again. So we stuck with it until it seemed absurd to stay a minute longer. My hands were bleeding, my sleeves were crusted with salt and dried bass slime, and I'd waded into the creek wearing leather boots and khakis in air temperatures that were dropping into the high 40's. When the fish put on a show that good, I don't let much stand in the way of being in the middle of it all. Sharing this show with a couple of good friends in a location that was incredibly important  to my development as an angler was priceless. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, and Oliver for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.