Panfishing Pandemonium

I fished from the boat deck in front of the boat house this time.  I started with a new
soft bait.

That worked well until the bait was torn from the hook.  After that it was back to nymph patterns.

This was a # 14 Marabou Nymph

Red Bead Head # 14 leech

Red Bead Head # 14 leech

Black stalking bug #14

In the upper right hand corner of the above picture is the soft bait I fished.  Since that time I have glued  several of these one inch blood worms on hooks.  I hope that the glue will help keep these blood worms on the hook  longer than the first time.  Soft baits work well when they are fished with a fly rod.  My real problem is trying to pick the right hook and size for the soft bait.  I think the size is important for hook penetration.  I've lost a number of large and smallmouth bass because the hook I chose did not go into the bony part of the bass's mouth.

I've noticed that there are a number of fly fishers experimenting with soft baits.  Check out some of the YOUTUBE videos on making flies with soft baits; like San Juan worms made with rubber worms.  I plan to make a few "Texas rigs" for next season to fish for bass and crappies.

Anyone going to the Fly Fishing show in Edison, New Jersey, next month?

Panfish on leech patterns in Prospect Park

A few years ago I bought a few dozen #12 leech patterns.  They were tied with maribou tails.
Maribou moves with an undulating movement in the  water.  It makes me think of small minnows
swimming in the water.  It is something panfish cannot pass by.

The weather has been unusually hot and fishing during the day is fool hardy.  Fish are dormant
until near sunset.  Algae is still a major factor when deciding when and where to fish.  I like to try catching fish, when it is hot like this, on the west side of Prospect Park Lake.

I made several casts to locate where the fish were holding.  The sun was going down and I cast like I was slicing a pie.  Every five feet or so I would move to my right.  Eventually I located some bluegills.  Fish seemed to be taking my fly on the retrieve.  There were no crappie nearby just bluegills.

But because it had been a while since I had been fishing, it was fun to catch fish again.
These fish were caught rather quickly.  The hard part was locating exactly where they were holding
before sunset.

Carp fishing Loeb Lake in Central Park

It had been a while since I went fishing for carp, due to the extremely warm weather we experienced
this past summer.  In some lakes it can be a health risk to fish because of the presence of "blue algae"
in the water.

Buoyant artificial corn has helped make carp fishing more productive.  Fishing off the bottom
of the lake, in the water column, has been a goal of mine since I saw carp taking streamers as
the fish took them on "the swing".  Using a "pop up" is not the same as swinging flies in a river but
it is another way to get the attention of feeding carp.  No fighting for visibility with debris on the bottom of the lake because  pop ups float off the bottom.

Normally, I chum for a few days before I fish a spot on the lake with pop ups but this time
the weather was conducive to fishing.  So I tied on a "pop up" immediately after chumming and cast my line.

 I've seen carp pass by food.  I think they want to be sure that what they see is safe.  So it can take
almost 30 minutes before a carp will take up an offering.  This day it took about 20 minutes before I got a take.

And I lost two.




BLUE ALGAE:

Cyanobacteria can produce neurotoxins, cytotoxins, endotoxins, and hepatotoxins (e.g., the microcystin-producing bacteria genus microcystis), which are collectively known as cyanotoxins.

Specific toxins include, anatoxin-a, anatoxin-as, aplysiatoxin, cyanopeptolin, cylindrospermopsin, domoic acid, nodularin R (from Nodularia), neosaxitoxin, and saxitoxin. Cyanobacteria reproduce explosively under certain conditions. This results in algal blooms, which can become harmful to other species, and pose a danger to humans and animals, if the cyanobacteria involved produce toxins. Several cases of human poisoning have been documented, but a lack of knowledge prevents an accurate assessment of the risks.^{[105][106][107]}

Recent studies suggest that significant exposure to high levels of cyanobacteria producing toxins such as BMAA can cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). People living within half a mile of cyanobacterially contaminated lakes have had a 2.3 times greater risk of developing ALS than the rest of the population; people around New Hampshire's Lake Mascoma had an up to 25 times greater risk of ALS than the expected incidence.^[108] BMAA from desert crusts found throughout Qatar might have contributed to higher rates of ALS in Gulf War veterans.^[106][109]

Central Park fishing for carp with "pop ups"

There is no thrill like catching carp with a fly rod.  The wait, the take, the run and the
anticipation of the size of the carp as you fight and try to land it.  Well, I came , I chummed and
I caught.  This day I got to Central Park a little later than I had planned.  There were train delays.
After setting up. I cast my fake corn in the water.  Surprisingly, the water is clearing up and is not
pea soup green.

It seemed to take longer than usual for the fish to take my offering but suddenly the line straightened
out and became tight.  I like to allow the fish to accelerate before I set the hook.  The line was peeling off my reel and the backing was showing.  It had plenty of open lake and I still had some backing left!  My process for taking carp is to change angles.  By moving along the shore with and away from the fish, I believe this confuses the fish.  Right, Left using the rod, pulling, allowing the line to go slack so to speak.

The lake was calm this afternoon.  No wind could be felt.  After unhooking the carp, I
checked the hair rig I was using.

I felt a second take after twenty minutes.  And it was off to the races again.  More backing
was visible and I began to change the angles on the fish.  sometimes moving 20 or 30 feet
to the right or left to confuse the carp who never gave up.  I forced the fish off the bottom and up to the surface to tire it out.  Once I see the fish turn on it's side, I know that I am winning.

Here is my new "pop up" with the smaller lead free split shot.  The smaller split shot
allows me to cast further with my fiberglass fly rod ( 7wt, 6' 10" Fenwick).

This was the carp of the day, a rare mirror carp.  Look at the unique pattern of the scales.  I'm hoping
for a few more warm days in November and wishing for some time in December to catch carp
again.

Clove Lake Survey

Bureau of Fisheries Technical Brief #2018008

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Clove Lake is a narrow, shallow 10 acre lake located in Clove Lake Park in northern Richmond County (Staten Island), formed in the 19th century by damming a small brook. The largest of a chain of three connected lakes, Clove Lake is popular with anglers, but all the lakes have access. Largemouth bass, sunfish, and brown bullhead are the most common species in the lake, and are most often targeted by anglers. The lake was surveyed in Fall 2017 by boat electrofishing following the Bureau of Fisheries Black Bass and Sunfish Sampling Manual (Brooking et al. 2018) to assess bass, panfish, and bullhead populations. Due to shallow water, large sections of the shoreline were unreachable and total on-time during the survey was relatively short (36 min).

A total of 704 fish from 5 species were captured (common carp were also observed). Nearly 80% of those were bluegill and pumpkinseeds. Only 6 largemouth bass were captured, less than 1 percent of the total (Figure 1). The total largemouth catch/hour (CPUE) of 9.89 (Table 1) is low for similar sized lakes in New York State. However, 5 out of 6 were quality size or larger resulting in a PSD of 83.3. Adult bass relative weight was a high 126, indicating that the few bass present were in good, even fat, condition. This is not surprising given the abundant forage in the lake. In contrast, panfish were generally small, with low PSDs of 1.1 for bluegill and 0 for pumpkinseed.

The presence of few but large bass combined with many small panfish, shiners, and bullheads suggests a prey overbalanced lake. The reason, however, is unclear. Bass exploitation is low thanks to the catch and release regulation, so apparently bass recruitment is being outpaced by sunfish recruitment. It's possible that anglers are pulling bass off beds, but shoreline access is not universal and there is plenty of space for nesting bass to remain unbothered. Water levels may fluctuate, and such changes might impact bass recruitment. Excess vegetation can also inflate small sunfish populations, but it can also aid young bass. Still, future management considerations should include nutrient control as a matter of general lake health. Another possibility is to include stocking smaller bass to aid recruitment, but without identifying the reason for low recruitment that might be wasteful. The last survey of this lake occurred in 2009 when bass PSD was much lower but overall numbers of all species were higher. Regular surveys may provide more insight into this system. For the moment, while the potential to catch a quality bass exists, a more balanced size profile is desirable for the angling population in this public park.

Table 1. CPUE per size categoryi for each species

Species	Total	Time (h)	CPUE(fish/h; Standard Error)
			All sizes	Age-1	≥Stock	≥Quality	Preferred
Largemouth bass	6	0.61	10(5)	-	1.7(1.5)	3(1.7)	5(4.6)
Golden shiner	70	0.61	116(24)	-	-	-	-
Brown bullhead	68	0.61	112(36)	53(21.5)	48(24)	1.7 (1.5)	-
Pumpkinseed	275	0.61	454(214)	38(4)	119(27.4)	-	-
Bluegill	284	0.61	469(121)	20(12)	152(24)	1.7 (1.5)	-

(i) Length categories (inches) for size structure indices of largemouth bass, sunfish, and bullhead in Clove Lake

	Largemouth bass	Bluegill/ Pumpkinseed	Brown Bullhead
Stock	≥8 in	≥3 in	≥5 in
Quality	≥12 in	≥6 in	≥8 in
Preferred	≥15 in	≥8 in	≥11 in

Meadow Lake Snakehead Monitoring

Bureau of Fisheries Technical Brief #2017002

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Meadow Lake (94.9a) is the larger of two fresh water bodies located entirely within Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens County, NY. The two ponds are connected by a narrow creek, while Meadow Lake, the more downstream of the two, is connected to Flushing Bay through Flushing Creek. The connection is interrupted by a tide gate which is intermittently opened by managers at the NYC Parks Department. As a result, Meadow Lake has slightly elevated salinity that typically hovers in the range of 4-7ppt and hosts a mix of estuarine and freshwater fish species. Northern snakeheads were first found in the lake in 2005, and annual NYSDEC general biological boat electrofishing surveys have documented them at low levels of abundance since then. Boat electrofishing was conducted again in 2017 to continue monitoring the northern snakehead population and assess any impacts this introduced predator may have on the native fish community.

In 2017, one 18.7in adult northern snakehead was collected in Meadow Lake, out of 285 fish from 5 species (plus eels and carp that were observed but not collected). When compared to previous years, the northern snakehead population in Meadow Lake does not demonstrate a consistent trend either positive or negative (Figure 1). Only fall electrofishing surveys are compared across years since spring surveys were not conducted regularly and demonstrated dramatically reduced catch-rates.

Figure 1: Fall CPUE (number caught/h) for important fishes in Meadow Lake from 2011-2017. Since spring surveys have very different results only autumn surveys are included.

Consistent with past years, white perch were the most abundant fish collected (Table 1). 2017 also marked the third year in a row that not a single Lepomis spp. was captured in Meadow Lake. The beginning of the decline coincided with a large multi-species mortality event (cause unknown) that occurred during late summer/early fall in 2014. Also in 2014, the control board of Region 2's electrofishing boat was replaced. The new board limits the amount of voltage available for fishing. This limitation presents a disadvantage in high conductivity environments such as Meadow Lake and may also help explain why no further Lepomis have been captured. As of now there is no definitive explanation for the disappearance of sunfish from Meadow Lake surveys. Additional boat electrofishing as well as seine and trap net surveys will be conducted in 2018 to try and ascertain whether sunfish are truly absent or just difficult to catch.

Overall, there is no evidence that the snakehead population in Meadow Lake is increasing. There are also no evident impacts of snakeheads on native fish but the fish community of this system as revealed through electrofishing is not always consistent. Boat electrofishing surveys will continue annually to monitor the status of the snakehead population and its impacts.

Table 1: Percentage of individual fish by species in Meadow Lake from 2011 to 2017. Carp, eels, and snakeheads which were observed but not captured have been excluded.

	Survey Year
Species	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
silverside	9.4	51.8	3.2	33.5	19.8	1.2	1.1
gizzard shad	3.4	1.5	2.8	20.7	1.5	4.3	20.0
brown bullhead	0.0	0.1	0.0	0.5	0.0	1.2	0.4
mummichog	0.0	0.5	0.3	0.3	1.7	5.5	0.0
white perch	68.2	39.5	81.9	44.6	72.5	83.5	74.4
pumpkinseed*	16.5	6.5	8.4	0.5	0.0	0.0	0.0
largemouth bass	0.4	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
snakehead	2.2	0.0	2.0	0.0	0.0	0.4	0.4
goldfish	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	3.5	0.8	2.8
other	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.2	3.1	0.0

https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/fish_marine_pdf/snakeheadsnyc.pdf