Bunker fly and getting ready for spring

Blue and white half and half.

Spring is in the air! i already took a couple trips to the bridge near the Bush-Holly House and caught my first striped bass on the fly! The first one i took during the day and was about 18 inches long. The next day i went at night and caught four 14 inch bass which were blitzing on silversides. I was fishing the outgoing tide at around the middle height, when the current coming out was the strongest. The fly i was using was a blue and white half and half, about four inches long.

This morning i also tied a bunker fly to prepare for the blitzes and just the big bunker. I was really proud of this fly. It's about 7 inches long and 4 inches tall. I tied it using a Mega-Mushmouth pattern that i tweaked myself a little. overall nice fly.

Bunker Fly

The boat is supposed to go in next Friday. As soon as it does i'm going fishing. I can't wait!

Snapper time is here!

Snapper Blue

Hello fellow fishermen, as you can probably see now we are entering the fall and that means great fishing. One of the things i love to fish for in the fall is snapper blues. These little guys start out at maybe six inches when you catch them and as the season progresses they get bigger until late October which is when they leave for the south to warmer waters. At about that time they are 10-12 inches. Snapper are fun to catch when you can't get out on the water for stripers and bigger blues and make great bait for fluke and gator blues who happen to like to eat their little brothers and sisters.

The set up for snappers should be a little 5 foot fresh water rod that has around 8 pound test on it and a steel leader. As for the fly fishermen out there (like me) you can use a 3 or 4 weight rod that has a strong tippet and a steel leader on it to prevent losing flies. Always flush your rod with fresh water after using it in the sound so nothing corrodes and your rod and reel stay well cared for.

Kastmaster

Snapper popper setup

For lures what i found works best is a snapper popper or a spoon. A snapper popper can be bought at your local tackle shop or made with a popping cork, a steel leader, and a snapper fly or a size size hook with live silver-sides or mummiechugs. To fish the popper cast it out into an area with action or just where you think the fish would be and pop the bobber like it was a popper. Pop it fast and non-stop. When the snapper strikes they normally hook themselves and all you have to do is reel it in. For a spoon you want to use a 1/8 of an ounce Kastmaster or similar. Cast it into the action or if there is none the where you think those little bluefish will be. Remember that these fish move around a lot so fan the water and if you don't get anything try again. Reel in fast and twitch the rod along the way. If you feel a bite do a little sweep set and reel in.

For the fly angler i would recommend a 4 weight fly rod with a bass tippet and a steel leader so you don't get bit off. as for flies i would go with any sort of small flashy fly. So a size six deceiver or such.
i tie my own special snapper flies on a size 6 hook with epoxy so that they last longer against the teeth of the snappers. ill make another post with instructions on how to make this fly later.

To find the snappers look for rocky shorelines that hold a lot of bait-fish such as silver-sides. the fish are where the bait are.

good luck and tight lines! i hope to see you on the water.

Bluefish On The Fourth Of July

The crippled herring spoon in the color and size I used.

Yesterday my dad and I went fishing to the sound on our boat like any normal weekend day. My day started at 5 in the morning and we went to our boat for the morning bite. On the way out of the Cos Cob port i snagged a bunker just in case the light tackle and fly fishing didn't work and we were off. At first we fished around Great Captain's Island with no success on anything, not even a live lined bunker which will normally catch fish under any condition. Eventually we decided to cross the sound and fish the power plant (the big 4 chimneys you can see from Tod's point) and Loyd's neck. We released the bunker and crossed the sound. When we arrived at Loyd's Neck we already saw some bunker being fed on by bluefish. My dad cast a sand eel fly right into the middle of the mini blitz and hooks up with a harbor blue. I casted out a 10 inch fin-s fin and watched it get destroyed by 3 fish at the same time. Unfortunately the lure was too big and didn't hook a fish. The blitz all of a sudden disappeared. We blindly casted until it appeared again. This time using a 1 ounce crippled herring spoon in the color above I casted right into the middle of the action and got bite almost as soon as the spoon hit the water. After one more harbor blue caught by my dad on the same fly we hit slack tide and the action stopped. We decided to go to the power plant and try there. We arrived at the power plant, but there was no blitzing. I took one cast with my spoon and had a nice harbor blue on and my dad had the same story with the fly. These fish weren't terrorizing anybody but they were there. I even tried a popper and it proved to work great! Whatever you threw at these fish that looked like a bait fish would work. This constant action continued until we had caught 23 fish all together and my mom called us and told us to come home. So to go get out on the water and catch these harbor blues here are a few tips...
- go during the day
- go in between high and low tide or visa versa
- use any spoon that is a decent size or a small popper such as a creek chub
- fish what ever you are using FAST!!! but not too fast...
- do not use soft plastics because bluefish rip them up and you'll have to get a new one every time you cast wherever you hook the fish or not
- try to use single hooks and if you can make them barb-less. I spent 1/4 of the time unhooking fish and let me tell you barbs+blues=mess and waste of time. To make a hook barb-less get a pair of pliers and just pinch the barb down. you'll save your selve time and you have more time to catch more fish
- watch out cause those teeth are really sharp! use pliers to unhook them 
so good luck and tight lines!

Sorry

I'm sorry that i accidentally deleted 3 posted. i managed to recover 1 but Snow Day Post is lost forever. May it rest in peace.

Big suprise!!!!!!!!!!

Guess what? I back in the US and just before i left i hit 50 species!
these are the last ones.
House Wren
Red-Crested Cardinal
Masked Yellow- Throat
Bay-Winged Cowbird
 And one last thing leave a comment on what is your favorite bird. Mine is the Burrowing Owl.

Extra info

just to let you know my more exact location is in a farm, two hours south of Buenos Aries and in the direction of Mar Del Plata, it is a farm next to a river ( El Salado) and the geography is the pampas (look it up if you don't know what it is).

Even More Birds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day six and more birds!
Brown and yellow marsh Bird
Whistling Heron
Rufuos Collard Sparrow
White Browed Blackbird
American Kestrel
White-Faced Ibis
Now at 46!