Finally - A striper on a fly

[tewart]

I was fishing yesterday morning in my home waters of the Chester River which feeds into the Chesapeake bay. This fish measured out at 31 inches. I caught him on a Rich Murphy Conomo Special after chasing a bait pod for about 1/2 an hour which my finder showed at least 6 feeding fish underneath it. I installed a trolling motor on my 17" Montauk this year which got me within casting distance. This made a big difference. After about a 15 minute fight, I was able to land this fish by hand.

After numerous attempts and failures, this took well over two seasons to accomplish. I changed rods and lines twice for better casting and accuracy. In the end, it paid off.

If anyone is interested and wants to try this sometime, ley me know.

-Tim

 

[sandfly]

congrats I remember fishing the chester back in the 60's to early 70's

 

[tewart]

Sandfly,

How was the Striper fishing during the 60's and 70's?

 

[poopdeck]

A 31" is a very respectable first on the fly striper. Great job. Here's hoping it don't take two years for a 32"

 

[sandfly]

not that great, the 60's was better than the 70's. caught a lot of fish on the flats in the late sixties. the rivers produced a lot of smaller fish then

 

[AFISHN]

Tewart..congats on your first rock fish!!!
31" is VERY respectable for your first and at this time of the year

I went sea duck hunting off Tilghman Island in the Choptank yesterday.Got a few ducks,but it was generally slow

Decided to try for some rock fish myself in the afternoon.
Joined the middle of the fleet:some were verticle jigging ,but most were trolling.I believe i was the only one fly fishing .

Actually caught 2 @21" so they were keepers (20" limit) and did keep them.Fished for 4 hours but that was it.
Wife ,Barbara,and I had them for dinner tonight.Delicious!!

Green Clouser on a sink tip worked on my 8wt

The bigger fish should start showing up at the end of November and I will be in touch Tewart.(check your PMs tomorrow)What does a " Rich Murphy Conomo Special " look like??

BTW:Spin fishing are actually catching some schoolies on the Susquehanna Flats right now

 

[tewart]

The Comono Special is basically a menhaden.

Hook: 3/0 TMC600SP
Thread - Mono
Tail: Five to seven strands violet Crystal Flask over white EP fibers up to 8 inches long.
Spreader Cone: Large pearl EZ Body
Collar: White EP fibers four to five inches long sparsely but evenly spread over the spreader cone.
Wing: Sparse Black EP Fibers over 5 to 7 strands of Peacock herls over pail olive EP fibers over pale olive EP fibers over pale pink EP fibers. Black is the longest element being 6 inches pale pink being the smallest of 3 inches
Eyes: Witchcraft 6.0 EY black-on-silver stick-on
Head: Large pearl EX Body Braid
Flash highlights: Red EP 3d fibers for gills (used for strike point) over Krystal Flash - your choice. Use marking pens on the head to color

This fly was traditionally tied with white polar bear. EP fibers are a nice substitute. The fibers tangle. bring a pocket comb to untangle.

When the mackerel are hitting, it pretty much destroys this fly after a few fish. I tie these is different lengths with variations on the amount of different colors.

 

[sarce]

Awesome fish Tewart, I was gonna ask about what length your fly was but I see it was around 6".

AFISHN: If you don't mind, what length were those clousers they were taking? I've been wanting to try for stripers, and am trying to get a sense of what baitfish they go after this time of year and how big the bait is.

 

[GenCon]

Congrats on your first striper. Very nice fish as well.

GenCon

 

[AFISHN]

Scarce:it was about 6" in length.Green with a touch of Mylar.
I also use white with a touch of mylar.
BTW:there was a MD fishing guide named Norm Bartlet(RIP) from Joppa,MD,I used to fish with in the late 1990s and early 2000's.

We fished Calvert Cliffs,The Flats and everywhere in between on the Chesapeake Bay He was a great guy and a great guide.anyay,Norm' would always start with a green Clouser,and his next choice was a white Clouser,and if that didn't work he would go to a Lefty's Deceiver :half green and half white.

 

[tewart]

Chartreuse always seems to be the go to color this time or year. I was using some red and white flies during the mornings and late evenings catching all kinds of different fish. Mainly white perch and a few croaker.

 

[AFISHN]

Teart: caught Croaker?
IMO,one of the hardest fishing fish pound for pound in the salt.

 

[trike23]

I just got my first taste of rock on a fly. I had a surprisingly good time just catching small schoolies. It was pretty fast action. was really cool to watch them just inhale my clousers.

Curious how heavy are you guys tying your flies? Seems like bigger fish are deeper and with the tides and currents getting down is/was an issue. Sure would have been fun to tangle with one bout the size of op's. I totally see how you could get addicted. Nice catch!

 

[tewart]

The croaker are easy to catch on crabs. I order blue crab flies from Enrico Pulglisi and they work great in the Chester river near the bay bridge. The little guys bite like they are eating truck and fight like mad.

As far as how heavy am I tying these fly's, it all depends. We can get allot of wind. I will get out my flies with cone heads tied on the head to break through the wind.

Otherwise I use an SA intermediate sink tip line and let it sink to the depth of the fish.

I had some really old sink tips from Orvis cutting them in half and added a loop. These work great in a pinch when you need to get the fly down. It all depends on what depth the fish are feeding.

Most of the time I am spotting birds and rising bait fish pods. Sneaking up on them with my trolling motor to try and get a glimpse of the stripers feeding around the pods. As I stated earlier, most of the time I simply use the sink tip line. I can control the fly better and make it dance.

One thing that has improve my hook up rate has been using rattles in my flies. Blue fish go nuts on these.