It was a slow summer...

Well it was a slow summer for me in the fishing department. Since the posts you saw over Memorial Day, I only got on the water three total times. Once on a trip to Beaver Island for carp (I know, I owe you a write up), once on a smallmouth float on the James River, and once a couple weekends ago on the C&O Canal.

The canal wasn't much to write about. I hooked a couple fish, but broke them both off trying to land them. The space canal between 7 and 8 was almost completely empty of water. Between 6 and 7 was fish-able, but low and dirty. I would rate the area as "fish somewhere else" based on what I saw. Plus, with the de-watering of the canal coming up soon, it's probably only going to get worse.

That being said, I did see two monstrous grass carp in the main stem of the Potomac. It was a little surprising to see them there since they aren't native (and generally can't reproduce around here) and I hadn't ever heard of a stocking program in the past. Regardless, I couldn't even get them to glance at my flies.

Hopefully soon I should have some video for you from the past few months...

The canal is rewatered!

My friend has reported that there is water back in the Canal in the Georgetown stretch along with sightings of carp. Maybe the mulberry season isn't over yet after all! The trees likely won't be dropping for too long, but the good thing is that the draining and refilling likely brought in a new batch of carp which means they haven't learned all our flies yet!

A drained Canal

Unfortunately, it appears the mulberry season is cut short this year. The canal between Fletcher's Cove and Georgetown has apparently been drained for some maintenance. I assume this is in preparation for the upcoming 18 months of the C&O canal being drained. Very unfortunate.

Memorial Day Mulberries

I meant to post this earlier, but life got in the way. Better late than never.

The mulberry hatch is in full swing. I got out all three days over Memorial Day weekend. The fish seemed to get more aggressive as the weekend rolled on. My last fish of the weekend was the biggest, pushing 15 lbs. and caught right in front of the Sea Catch restaurant. It put up one heck of a fight, and I had quite the crowd cheering me on by the end.

The big boy

Even the turtles are looking for the berries

Mulberry Rumors

If you remember in my last post, I suggested mulberries would be dropping by Memorial Day. Yesterday, I got a picture from a friend about ripe berries hanging from the trees, and today, another friend mentioned he saw the berries dropping. I'll be out this afternoon and much of this weekend to confirm and will report back.

Mulberry Watch, Part 2

I got out this past Saturday in the few hours to fish the stretch between Fletchers and Georgetown again. Some of the mulberry fruits are beginning to show light shades of red, but we still have some time to go. Strangely, or maybe not, some of the trees were a little deeper red than the picture, but others weren't even showing any red at all. With warmer weather coming up, we might see the fruit starting to drop next weekend, but certainly by Memorial Day at the latest. The other cue is there's lots of baby geese around now. They're cute, but their parents get a bit angry when you walk past.

Now as far as the fishing. There was some good and some bad.

The Good

• Very clear water - at least for the canal - with about 3 feet of visibility
• Very active fish - lots of fish were poking around, feeding, and cruising
• Very big fish - I'm fairly certain one fish (that wouldn't eat) was easily pushing 30 pounds

The Bad

• The water was extremely high - about 2 or 3 feet above normal. It was actually spilling over the overflow point that's a bit north of Key Bridge.
• A storm rolled in and ruined everything

I was quite surprised when I got to the canal and saw how much water was there. I wasn't sure if it would mean a ruined day or a good day. Turned out to be a little bit of both. It was very easy to find cruising fish. The bad thing was feeding fish were extremely hard to target. It was easy to spot the large plumes of silt, but because the water was so high, the feeding was happening too deep to actually see far enough through the silt to figure out where the fish were. To make it even worse, the silt clouds simply were not dispersing. 

Nonetheless, I still managed to stick two fish, Unfortunately, one escaped my net on my first landing attempt then popped the hook out, and the second fish broke me off while I was trying to scoop him. I pulled the hook out of countless other fish's mouths too.

I went with the Bonefish Gotcha again today after having success last week. I can't quite figure out this fly. Some feeding fish would ignore it, others would attack it very aggressively. I even got a few fish to eat that I never would have expected to pay attention to food with my old techniques. I also have a zero percent success rate in setting the hook if the fish is swimming towards me with this fly. That's the hardest way to set a hook on a carp, but I'd usually at least make contact on a few fish. Maybe it's just a coincidence. 

Keep your eyes out for the next report. I'm going to try to get a mulberry fly tying tutorial up soon too!

It's almost mulberry season!

I was supposed to go musky fishing on Saturday with one of my favorite Virginia guides, Matt Miles, but the river was unfishable for the third time this year. With that trip off the books, I figured it would be a great time to head over to the C&O Canal to check out how close we are to the mulberry hatch, which if you have been reading this blog for a while, you'll know is my favorite time of the year. The berries are there - pretty small and green. A "ripe" mulberry is around an inch long, but these are closer to a quarter inch right now. My guess is that we're maybe two weeks away.

Despite no mulberries, I still had to check out the fishing. I walked from Fletcher's Cove to Georgetown and back. The majority of fish I saw were at either end of my trek. I thought it was going to be a long day because most of the fish I saw were out of true sight fishing range with my normal nymphs since the water was so muddy. I finally stumbled upon a fish hugging the bank, but pulled the fly away from him when he went to eat. I guess some off-season rust. A few more fish ignored the fly. Frustrated, I tried my strategy of the makeshift strike indicator, but that didn't work either. Finally, out of desperation, I tied on a Bonefish Gotcha and dropped a cast out. To my surprise, a fish ate it almost immediately, but I didn't get a good hook set. A few more casts later, and I actually came tight! It was actually a pretty hefty fish, and the good news is most fish I saw were pretty good size this year.

I even saw this little guy hanging out in a tree.

More Bad News for Fishing in the C&O Canal

After the post last week about repairs to the C&O Canal requiring a large portion to be drained, it looks like even more bad news awaits us. You may remember in the past the replica canal boat that used to go up and down the Georgetown section of the canal as a tourist attraction. It stopped operating several years ago, but as The Georgetown Current reports, the Georgetown Heritage nonprofit (local business improvement district arm) wants to begin operating it again. In order to do that, both Locks 3 and Locks 4 need repairs.

The National Park Service has funded the repairs to Lock 3, at a cost of $5.5 million dollars. It will require the canal to be drained completely east of Lock 5, which is just over the Maryland border. The NPS plans to begin work in October of this year with completion expected in April 2018. Additionally, repairs to Lock 4 have not yet been funded, so NPS has no timeline for when those will be complete. While the required repairs are less extensive, one can imagine these repairs may not happen at the same time and could extend the timeframe.

While having the canal drained for shorter periods of time over the winter isn't particularly new, having such a large portion drained for such a long period of time is new to me in the 9 years I've lived in the DC area. This comes as an even greater disappointment after what we saw last season. The 2014-2015 winter saw the canal remain filled the entire season. As a result, last summer we saw bass, bluegill, and carp populations flourish. Bigger and healthier fish were available, and the canal became an even greater source of recreation for the general DC area. This will be replaced by a dry canal bed and towpaths blocked for extended periods of time due to construction.

While understandably, a nearly 200 year old canal and lock system will require repairs, it's quite unfortunate we cannot figure out how to restore something that was built with 19th century technology in a more reasonable time frame than 18 months.

Water in the C&O Canal

My sources tell me it appears the Canal is getting filled with water in the section around Georgetown. How the fish actually get in there after they drain it is still beyond me. Well, they clearly get washed/sucked in, but I'm amazed it occurs in the numbers we see.

I've also been told that there will be no water from Lock 5 all the way north to possibly even as far to Lock 22. I'm hoping I'm interpreting the data incorrectly, but it sounds like I'm not. There's a culvert at Carderock and the "Log Wall" that's requiring repair. As I mentioned in my last post, there was normal water levels in between Locks 6 and 7. Hopefully that sticks.

Fly Fishing in Cuba

This blog is mainly to document my efforts in chasing carp around DC and the rest of the country. But occasionally, I do some other fishing too. It usually still means sight fishing some nice fish. Like in the past, I pointed towards some Louisiana Redfish trips. About a month ago, I went down to Cuba and spent a week on the flats chasing bonefish, permit, tarpon, barracuda, and the like. Check out the blog post on my Cuba fly fishing trip for more pictures and the full write up!

First Carp of the Season

With the streak of warm weather, I figured my chances would be good at finding some stirring carp in the C&O canal on Saturday. Of course, the weather turned out to be cooler than originally forecast, which doesn't help keep the fish active.

I parked up at Lock 8 and began my walk down towards 7. Nearly all of the stretch had no water, and there were only a couple pockets that had enough water to hold a couple fish. The final 100 yards above Lock 7 held a few more fish, and I managed to pluck my first carp of the season out of there. He took my usual fly, although I needed to change up colors to get any reaction from the fish. I didn't know it yet, but it was a signal of what was to come.

I continued on down past lock 7. The water level in between 6 and 7 was roughly normal, or maybe down a few inches. I worked the stretch all the way down to Little Falls Pump Station. There were plenty of fish, and some of them were hogs too. Unfortunately, these early season fish were as picky as I have ever seen them. I tried throwing everything in my fly box at them, but the vast majority of my attempts were met with nothing more than an occasional follow. I only got one fish to eat the rest of the day, but could not connect on the hook set. Even the "bank digging" fish wouldn't look at my fly.

The interesting thing is the fish were clearly actively feeding. They were rooting around and pushing plenty of silt. I even saw a couple fish actively opening their mouth and eating something. But I couldn't tell what it was. My best guess is since things appeared to be beginning to bloom, the fish were each plant matter versus the bugs I was throwing. As the weather warms, hopefully the fish will become less picky. Either way, I'm starting to count down the days to when it's time for the carp to feed on mulberries.

Spring is coming!

Spring is on its way for sure. The 5-day forecast has a four days in the 70's with two hitting the upper 70's. This could spell an early start to the carp season here in DC! Hopefully I'll be able to string together a couple hours before or after work this week to check things out. I'm getting the itch!

We're on a magazine cover!

A few weeks back, I got an email through my other website - www.findthefishing.com - asking for permission to use a picture of me on a magazine cover. You can now find me on the February edition of the New Orleans version of Coastal Angler Magazine. Pretty cool!

http://coastalanglermag.com/emags/new-orleans/