Heading north

The weather forecast is predicting a blizzard for the New York City area tomorrow morning. My grand daugter and I plan to drive to the Lake Placid region for a week of cross country skiing in the morning too. My hope is that I can be on the road and driving before the blizzard reaches the city limits. It will be a drag race to the great north of New York state. Currently the lake in Prospect Park is 90% covered by ice.

The Drag Free Drift: The Shadow Cast, and another video to laugh with

The Drag Free Drift: The Shadow Cast, and another video to laugh with: "I saw this short video a few weeks ago. We all remember Brad Pitt, really Jason Borger, performing the Shadow Cast from the (in)famous fil..."

UNDERWATER TARPON FISHING

Building Furled Leaders Without Jigs or Tools

Skip Morris | Fly Fishing

Skip Morris | Fly Fishing

Fly casting ROLL CAST / Switch Cast Excerpt from 'Casts that Catch Fish'

Fly Casting Instruction :: Roll casts, Curve casts and more! :: Cast tha...

Thanksgiving carp

I discovered that when the temperature is cooler carp are not active during the day light. At this time of year, carp can become active after sun set. For several evenings, I have witnessed carp swimming into the shallows and feeding in the darkness. They feast no more than a few feet from the shoreline. I can only imaging what they are eating but they are feeding. All one needs to do is cast a fly into that area; a carp will take your offering. The problem is that the temperature drops quickly after the sun sets. As a result of years of skiing in sub zero conditions, my hands have become very sensitive to cold. My hands become cold and numb easily. So I don't stay out longer than necessary in cold conditions.



The night before I caught this carp, I had fished from 4:00 PM until about 8:30 Pm and got not one bite. Carp were active, jumping and cavorting in the moon light but apparently not eating. And as I've said many times, "if carp are not feeding, go see a movie." The fish pictured was taken in the early afternoon on a deer hair pellet fly. The air temperature, for the past few days, had been in the upper 50's. so carp were active during daylight. I'm hoping to catch carp into the month of December.

small carp

Caught this youngster last evening while carp were feeding after sunset. I discovered this behavior after having spent 6 hours not seeing or catching anything. By accident I noticed that carp were feeding in the shallow end of the lake, even taking dry cat food from the surface. Dennis caught a carp using dry fly tactics and I used wet tactics. All we had to do was place our hooks in the water where we saw bubbles or carp tails sticking out of the water.

Carp on the fly with Brad Befus

http://www.askaboutflyfishing.com/media_player.cfm?sid=17

Barry Reynolds on carp

http://www.askaboutflyfishing.com/media_player.cfm?sid=92

carp in late fall

Quiet pool where carp hold. There is a Mulberry tree on the left.



My first carp ever in the month of November.



My first night time carp



Another carp caught after 5:00 pm in the month of November

I went fishing for carp. I got to the lake at 11:00 am set up and began to look for carp. In spite of the warmer weather we experienced, there were no carp visible. Hour after hour nothing to be seen. It was as if all the fish had picked and moved to Florida for the winter. I thought to myself that this could be the last time I fish for carp until spring. The sun began to slowly sink into the horizon. Then one of those good for nothing Canada geese moved closer to the edge of the lake and by accident spooked a carp that was secretly feeding in that same spot. a giant wake headed toward the center of the lake. I knew where the carp were hiding, less that a yard from the edge of the lake. In the twilight, I saw no evidence that fish were feeding but the fleeing carp's wake showed me carp were near and feeding. About 5 minutes later I hooked my first carp of the day. I told my fishing buddy and got him to try. He hooked his first carp in 2 days; in almost total darkness except for the moon above. Shortly after he netted his carp, I had a 2nd carp thrashing in the dark on a #10 barbless. With the sun gone the temperature begin to dive.

You must know how carp behave before you can catch carp. until I witnessed the carp feeding, in mass at dusk in the fall, I would not have believed that carp could become active so quickly. their feeding slowed after 6:30pm. we left after 7:00pm

Local waters

It is getting colder each day and windy too. I fished near the Boat house in Prospect Park today. Rigged my 2 wt and began casting to the left and working my way towards where fish normally like to hold. I tried a new nymph pattern I picked up at Orvis a few days ago.



I felt a slight tug as I began to fish the area where fish hold in the fall. I missed the fish. I cast again this time there was a thud and the line pulled away from me. I kept the rod tip low while I hand stripped the line in. A small Bg was brought to hand. After a few more cast to the same location I pulled in another but bigger Bg.



A pocket bass also liked the #14 nymph I was offering. At this time of year I like to fish 2 nymphs at the same time a bead head about 18 inches above a non bead head nymph. Often I can land two fish at a time.

South Pond

I returned to Nassau county this morning. I wanted to fish South Pond in Rockville Center. The pond is stocked with Trout twice each season. It was breezy to say the least when I arrived and cooler than I liked but I was dressed for the weather. Usually there are a number of anglers here but today I saw no one fishing.



This pond has a population of yellow perch and since the pond is not in New York City fish can be harvested depending on their size.



Next to South Pond is Mc Donalds pond, a smaller fishery but also stocked with perch, trout and bass. This pond's water was crystal clear,the good news. The bad news no fish were visable,not one.


Mc Donald's Pond

I fished for a few hours and then walked back to the Long Island Rail Road, skunked.



There was no evidence of carp activity today in Mc Donald's pond either.

Loft Pond

Made my first trip into Nassau county for the season. I had read that Loft pond had carp so I took the Long Island Rail Road to Baldwin, New York. The pond look just like it appeared on Google maps, almost "L" shaped. It has lots of lily pads. As I walked the shore line I looked for signs of fish activity. In the northwest corner I saw a carp moving slowly towards the lily pads.



Other than a small carp on the east side of the pond, I didn't see much activity. I began chumming the areas where I saw carp on patrol and waited. but I was unable to get the carp active and feeding.



I switched flies and started to fish for panfish that might be lurking under the pads. sure enough a pocket size bass took my fly. My only fish of the afternoon.



This is nearby Milburn pond in Baldwin, New York. There are too many Canada geese here for me to want to return here to fish but maybe it will look more inviting next spring.

RED OCTOBER

I met Dennis at the Long Island Rail Road Train Station yesterday. We planned on fishing for carp in Queens county. The last time we fished in Queens( part of Long Island) we caught no carp, so we had something to prove, this time. Our first stop was at Golden Pond. No fish to be seen. We then traveled to Bowne pond. By the time we got there it was windy, overcasts and cold. The wind was gusting up to 25 mph. I chummed and put my rod together.



Slowly the wind died down, the sun came out and I started to fish. It took a while but I hooked a fish that started to take line, a lot of line across Bowne Pond. After several runs, I was able to see what looked like an orange football pulling against me. It was a Koi, my first ever Koi on a fly rod. He fought like a champion. But fishing never picked up at Bowne Pond so we left around late afternoon. We headed to Kissena lake.



I caught a second carp at Kissena Lake. There are some big carp there. Carp with some girth and about 6 inches longer than carp we catch elsewhere.



Dennis got down to business and hooked his first carp of the day at the lake. A hefty carp well over 10 lbs. I worked his rod while he netted his own fish.




Later Dennis hooked another carp but lost him in transit to the net. Incidentally, Dennis & I are the only two fly fishers to catch carp in Richmond, New York and Queens county. If we catch carp in Kings (Brooklyn) and Bronx county, we may set a new standard for carp fly fishing in the Greater New York area.

Episode 1 _ Fly Fishing 101

Episode 1 _ Fly Fishing 101

Main land fly fishing in The Bronx

Van Cortlandt Lake

I went to Van Cortlandt Park today and fished in Van Cortlandt Lake. It took a few fly changes to determine what fly the fish would take. But of all the flies I used it was the old standard, a Bead Head Prince that took the most fish.


Crappie

The Bronx is the only county of the five counties which make up New York City that is part of the United States main land.


Yellow Perch

I had planned to fish for carp but I discovered that my carpin tools had been left out of my back pack. My goal is to be the first person to catch carp on a fly rod in all five New York City counties.



Yellow Perch

I'm always surprised and happy to catch yellow perch. Perch like cooler weather and are somewhat elusive. Today I caught 3! I've caught a total of 6 this year so far.


Bluegill

Bluegills were the most active fish today but these were the BGs that are less than 5 inches long. They are zealous when it comes to taking flies. Often they beat the mature bigger fish in the area to what is available to eat.

Fly Fishing for Channel Cat

The beginning of the end

I went to Passaic, New Jersey this afternoon for some end of the carp season fly fishing. When we arrived it was 47 F with a wind chill factor of 37F! It felt like it was going to be a l o n g day. But after 1:00pm the clouds blew away, the sun shined brightly and the gusts of wind stopped. As if by magic the carp appeared and started to feed.



Dennis drew first blood with a #12 deer hair fly. A while later I caught a carp, my first since Sunday. Until today, I had been unable to catch a carp all week. I had been skunked at Central Park Lake, Golden Pond and Bowne Pond. When the bite stopped we moved to the deeper part of the lake to fish.



As dusk appeared Dennis had 3 and I had 2. I moved back to the shallow end of the lake where I saw more carp feeding. I made a cast and watched as the fly line began to slink away and across the lake. Fish on.

Survey

Tonight a survey was conducted to examine the fish in Prospect Park Lake. A similar survey was conducted about two years ago with the results being that the lake has more bigger bass than other lakes on Long Island and even Central Park.

Willowbrook Lake

This was my third visit to this lake. It seems the fish here are active during early morning but nonetheless we fished here because Cloves Lake had an event and was filled with walkers. Dennis & I started at the north end of the lake and worked systematically toward the area where we knew the carp to be.



Dennis with a carp on line at the south end of the lake.



I hooked this carp on my 2 wt fly rod. This is my second carp on this rod. I was kind of surprised at how at ease I felt with this big fish on such a light rod. Dennis worked the net and this helped to land the fish. Size #10 hook.



Waterfowl



more waterfowl

Crappie in Prospect Park

I fished the pool near the boat house this morning. I tried several flies with no hits until I tied on a small #10 clouser. A number of small bass liked this fly and took it. By trial and error, I located a bunch of mature crappie that also liked my little clouser. I landed two and lost the third at the shoreline.



Each fish is more than 9 inches long.

Early Morning in Prospect Park

Left the house early to chum for carp and to see if I could catch some fish before the forecasted Nor'easter arrives in the evening. There was almost no wind so I was able to get some nice photos of the lake. This picture was taken near Three Islands; a lot of bass and Crappie have been taken in this spot.



The main part of Prospect Park Lake



One of the swans



My reward for being persistent. Caught this guy on a pheasant tail nymph #14.

Indian Lake

After I left the Bronx river, I took the subway down town to Indian lake for a shot at the bass that live here. First time fishing here since spring. Fishing was slow but I did hook two small Blue gills.



Looking east



Looking south



Almost no wind in the park.