Fly fishing in Brooklyn

We continue to have spectacular warm weather this fall,  This afternoon I went to my local park, Prospect
Park,  for some power fishing ( less than 120 minutes).  Bluegills are active and I was able to catch a few
until it grew too dark to see. 

Prospect Park is where I learned to fly fish.  It took me many hours of lessons and practice before
I felt comfortable casting under trees.  Now I tell people that, if necessary, I could cast in my  clothes
closet.  All I need to be able to do is form a "D" loop and cast.

It has been months since I last fished here.  The lake is about a kilometer from my home.
You can see from the pictures I took that it was not windy at all.  I like fishing here in the evening because most people are leaving the park as I arrive.  I enjoy walking the shore line of the lake as I fly fish.  Most fly fishers have not learned how to roll cast or use Spey casting with a single hand rod.  The lack of these
skills limits the places where a fly fisher can cast because of trees and people.

The lake allows catch and release fishing only as do all the lakes in New York City.  The lakes managed
by the New York City Parks Department are not restocked on a regular basis.  The fish in the lakes and ponds are wild.  Prospect Park Lake has Bass, Bluegills, Carp, Catfish, Crappie, Golden Shiners
and Pickerel.   

Passaic River near Totowa II

It turned out that the quiet pool I found includes a bunch of carp feeding on the river bottom.
I managed to get to the opposite side of the river and saw that besides the carp, I could not see
any other fish in that pool.

The weather the past week or so has been very good.  Almost no wind, no rain and sunny all day
However the water level is very low in the river.  It seems deer are following me as I explore the river.

Don't be fooled by the calmness of the water as it appears here.  carp are tailing and feeding
in this picture.  Initially I thought there were juvenile carp in this pool because that was all I could see.
Due to the water level being low, it made the pool look shallow.  Every once and a while a large tail fin
would stick out of the river but I had no idea there were any mature carp in this pool.

  Each time I fish for carp or any fish, I look for obstacles in the water.  These obstacles become
 part of my mental plan on where the fish can and can not go as we fight.  I fished a
wax worm soft bait; carp have taken this before.  When my fly line began to move, I thought that
I had a young carp.  My six weight began to bend.  It looked like it would snap.
Confusion and fatigue are my weapons for fighting  large fish.  I kept to my plan and the fish began to tire.

It was only as I forced the fish to surface that I saw how large it truly was.   It was not a fish of say 45cm
I had hooked and landed a carp that was 76cm  in length!

Passaic River near Totowa

In the very middle of the river I saw this swarm of carp swimming under a bridge.  This pod
of carp is unreachable without a water craft.  A beautiful sight.

 This small pool looked fishy.  I thought it might contain a pike or a bass.  I tried a number of flies
but I saw nothing until I walked further south along the shoreline.  I noticed two large swirls in the
water.  A closer inspection revealed that there were carp in the water feeding.

No wind. It was quiet.  I saw carp feeding and as the evening approached, the carp began to make
more and more swirls in the pool.  This was an exciting moment.  No one was anywhere near
me and I had the water all to myself. 

I fished the JMC Ozone semi automatic fly reel.  The reel makes no sound as a fish rips across the river.
I had tinkered with the drag adjustment and hoped it would perform as well as the Peux Fulgor.
It did until a LDR (Long Distance Release) occurred due to my knot failing.  The carp felt large but
I never was able to confirm this.

The other side of the pool was the main branch of the Passaic.  Windless, clear,as if it was a
swimming pool.

When I saw this I had to take a picture of it.  An evergreen tree growing from the trunk of a
non coniferous tree.

Woodland Park II

I went to the mouth of the Peckman river looking for carp.  I wanted to catch a carp today.
For most of the week there, I had seen cruising and tailing carp all over the river while I fished
for bass.

Today for some reason I only saw two carp, briefly.  Did I spooked them? I don't know.
I do know that I saw no carp in many places, where previously I had seen many carp
holding and feeding.

So with about an hour of day light remaining, I switched to plan "B".  I fished for panfish.
I systematically began to cast clouser flies.  I started with a pink and white fly.
The past week I caught several fish with a black clouser.  I wanted to see if other flies worked
just as well.

All the spots that had produced fish earlier in the week were not producing today.  As the
sun disappeared, I made a cast to an area on my left.  After a few strips, a wake appeared
behind my fly.  On my next strip, wham I had a fish, a big fish!  It fought hard but I kept my
rod tip low  A really nice size smallmouth bass had taken my clouser.

Woodland Park

Walk,walk,walk.  I walked more than 5 kilometers today just to get to the area I wanted to fish.
My destination was the junction where the Passaic River meets the Peckman River.
Even here both rivers were low on water, so low I could walk out on a sand bar and fish.

I decided that I would not fish for carp today.  I wanted to see  if I could hook a few smallmouth bass.
I had fished a small black clouser earlier and caught my first smallie  from the Passaic River.
My first cast was from the east end of the sandbar.  I spooked several carp that were feeding in the shade.

It wasn't until the sun started to set that I got my first hit.   After a booming cast, I began to
hand strip the line in to me.  Most of my fly line was stretched out across the river, so it took
awhile and I didn't want to risk trying to put the fish on the reel.

It was a nice size yellow perch.  I thought about packing and heading home.  However,
I thought I'll make another cast to that area to see if there are more perch.  Made another Belgium cast
began to strip line and bam!  This time it was a smallie.

I made about a dozen more "last cast" before calling it a night.  I lost two fish, one was really big.
Another smallmouth got almost to the shore before making an early exit.  A sunfish attacked my clouser
two meters from shore.  He really whacked the fly. The final fish was another panfish.

During the bite I saw more than 6 carp come into the shallows to eat and cruise.  I stayed the course
and did not re rig for carp.  This is without counting the three or four carp I spooked initially.

More deer tracks

The sandbar

The trough I fished looked deep enough for pike but I was not equipped to fish for them, today.

Time to go, almost dark  I had a great time fishing.  I caught fish and learned more about fishing a river.

Last fish of the day, taken on the same small clouser.

Totowa

Another of the Little Falls waterfalls.  This water is coming from a channel of the Passaic
The channel is sectioned off from the river itself.  It is off limits to the general public.
However , it is visible in the Google satellite pictures

The duck weed is pretty thick hear.  Since I did not bring any weedless flies, I did not stay here
for a long time.

Below the channel there is this section of the river.  It looks like a great place for pike to hang
out and wait for the unsuspecting.

A few soft bait flies I tried today.

Passaic River at Little Falls II

There are smallmouth bass and carp in this part of the Passaic River.  I caught this one with a small
clouser (black).

The wooded area near the access point to the river.  Tricky walking, I advise wearing
hiking boots for support of your ankles while you walk on the loose shale stones,

I saw several hedge hogs in this wooded area and another large white tail deer.

Carp were near, in fact while I was fishing for bass, four carp approached the shore line.
They were no more than three meters from where I stood on the river bank.  I was stunned
by their boldness.  They did not try to avoid being seen by me and simply swam up river .

I stood on the river bank hoping that they would return but They did not.  I also saw two koi
They were orange and white each more than 60mm in length.

Little Falls

These are the Little Falls of the Passaic River.  Not as spectacular as The Great Falls further
north but you can see how it got it's name.

I apologize for the blurred photo.  I was shooting through a chain link fence when I took this
photo.  If you look closely you will see what I saw when I looked  down at the river.

There were about twenty carp , all feeding on debris that had fallen from the over hanging
trees.

Here you can see an area loaded with carp swimming, tailing and clooping on the surface.

There are pools of calm looking water and smaller falls and more pools of water.

Further away from the area with carp swimming and feeding, I found a couple of fly fishers
catching smallmouth bass and panfish in another pool.  As you can see they were wet wading
The river water is still relatively warm even after 6:00 pm in the evening.

The Passaic River water level is low.