Brooklyn's Prospect Park

Beautiful fall colors are showing near the lake in Prospect Park.  The Lullwater is covered in duckweed.
The season is winding down and I hope to be fishing until mid December.  There are still a few lakes I want
to fish that I missed in the spring.

I was hoping that I could catch some Bluegills or Crappies this afternoon.

This is the newly opened area near the new skating rinks in the park.  It is overgrown with
vegetation because no peddle boats were rented this summer. That will all change next year.

Large mouth bass on a fly.  I used the Ghost semi  automatic fly reel.  I still have not been able
 to adjust the drag on this reel.  I will send the reel back to Spain for better instructions.

 It took awhile but I caught this fish on a black hares ear just before sunset.

Sheldrake Lake

This place was the reservoir for the town of Larchmont at one time.

It is feed by the Sheldrake River.  After the water leaves here it flows south into Garden Lake.
Garden Lake was being dredged during my visit; so I didn't get to fish it.  The lake water level was low
too.  I suspect it has bass.  Another fisher said it has crappie.  I saw a few fish jumping but I saw no one catching anything

Sheldrake Lake is a body of water located in the north-eastern section of New Rochelle, New York in Westchester County. It has a surface area of 25 acres and formerly served as the water supply for the neighboring Village of Larchmont. The lake is the result of Larchmont Water Company Dam #2 on the Sheldrake River. The dam, constructed in 1935, is masonry with a height of 31 feet and a length of 1000 feet. The dam has a maximum discharge is 987 cubic feet per second and drains an area of 2.66 square miles.

Henderson Pond

This pond is difficult to reach by foot.  The bus stop is at the bottom of a long and very steep walk.
It made me think of the Olympic ski trails  I have skied.  The climb started across the street from the Passaic
river and took more than thirty minutes to reach the summit!

That was the easy part  of reaching this pond.  I had to bushwhack once I reached the park.
There is no marked trail to reach the pond on the north side of the park.  Fortunately,
I was a boy scout during my youth; reading terrain and walking in a forest is fun. 

.

It was a cloudy afternoon and there was no wind.  Looking north across the pond.

I walked around the shore of Henderson Pond looking for signs of fish activity.  It appeared
that fish were not in a feeding mode.  I fished nymphs, streamers and had no takes.

There are plenty of deer near and around the Passaic River area.   The deer are relatively tame.
This one stopped and allowed me to take several flash photos.

More deer crossing an open area near the pond

A closer view of a deer out in the open area

This is an uphill view of Rose Place.  This street is very steep and keeps getting steeper
right up to the top which cannot be seen in the picture.

This is the downhill view of Rose Place.  The car with it's head lights own is at the very bottom
of the hilly street.

In this corner of the pond I thought I saw the shadow of a feeding carp but I was not able to confirm this.
The pond is reported to have panfish and pickerel.

Bronx River in Westchester

Soft hackle #12 under a Tarantula fly is what I fished during my first visit of the year to
the Bronx River.  Carp will take many of the same flies that trout take; so will young bass.

Last season Dennis and I both hooked carp on soft hackle flies.  Today was different I arrived
at 3:00pm in the afternoon.  There was not much feeding by carp but that may have been the result
of cooler temperatures and the huge snapping turtle patrolling the river bed.

I know of several places where feeding carp like to hold during the summer.

The river looked beautiful.  The water was clear with very little algae.  Raw sewage was still
being dumped into the Bronx River as late as 2006.  The water quality has improved steadily.

Leaves have started to change colors .

 Sleepers just resting in the river current

Fish continued to hold without feeding

 Moving but not feeding

Here a fellow fly fishing has caught a carp on  an egg pattern.  The fish was nearly two feet long and
was almost too big for the net.

I switched to my number one carp fly.  I caught a bass on a #12 white woolie bugger
but no carp would approach it

I moved to another pool on the river and caught several  panfish on a black Hares Ear

Sunfish

I caught a bunch of these. Too many to count!

small yellow perch

Grass Carp

I stumbled upon this tiny pond in Babylon.  The sign says there are grass carp in the pond

I tried to see if there are any other species in the water but I had no takes on the flies I fished.

Even with an aerator the water was lime  green and showed no signs of life in the pond.

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!