First visit to Fletchers - what were we seeing?

[Natalie]

Hey all:

I'm hoping someone can help us understand what fish behavior we were seeing yesterday at Fletcher's and what we could've done to catch fish. 

My husband and I headed down to Fletcher's yesterday evening for the first time with our new kayak.  I'm seeing now from Andrew's post (and the replies therein) that the water levels and turbidity were a bit on the high side. The water was indeed chocolate milk, but we paddled out immediately because we saw big splashy rises everywhere in the cove.  We usually fish for trout and are only just beginning to target warmwater fish other than bluegill.  We have no idea what we're doing and could use all the help we can get.  We tried everything yesterday: sink tips, heavier sink tips, floating line, shad darts, green clousers, pink clousers, blue clousers, wooly buggers, white zonkers, slow strips, fast strips, dead drifting, etc.  Nothing, not even a nibble.  

Anyone have any thoughts on what type of fish we were seeing, what they were doing, and whether we had a chance of catching fish?  My understanding is that shad hug the bottom of the river, so my best guess yesterday was that we were seeing bass of some sort feeding on baitfish.  

Thanks!

[Yambag Nelson]

They were probably mostly herring. You will also sometimes see carp and catfish on the surface. Trying to catch them was definitely not worth your time.

They were almost definitely not shad which as you said, are usually down where you would use a sinking line. Sinking lines and shad flies should have worked but with the water being dirty was probably tough.

[Rob Snowhite]

Lots of quillbacks at surface. White perch will join them soon. Herring splash against structure along shore as they spawn. You’ll get nothing but gizzard shad four hooked in this high water 🤢

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 19, 2019, at 11:55 AM, Yambag Nelson <northstreet...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> They were probably mostly herring. You will also sometimes see carp and catfish on the surface. Trying to catch them was definitely not worth your time.
>
> They were almost definitely not shad which as you said, are usually down where you would use a sinking line. Sinking lines and shad flies should have worked but with the water being dirty was probably tough.
>

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[Natalie]

Thanks, everyone!  Good to know.  I might target them at some point so I can add to my lifelist.  If anyone knows what flies would work for herring and quillback, I'd love to hear about them! 

Rob, are you still collecting flies for the Mayfly Project? 

On Friday, April 19, 2019 at 12:36:08 PM UTC-4, Rob Snowhite wrote:

Lots of quillbacks at surface. White perch will join them soon. Herring splash against structure along shore as they spawn. You’ll get nothing but gizzard shad four hooked in this high water 🤢

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 19, 2019, at 11:55 AM, Yambag Nelson <northstreet...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> They were probably mostly herring.  You will also sometimes see carp and catfish on the surface.  Trying to catch them was definitely not worth your time.
>
> They were almost definitely not shad which as you said, are usually down where you would use a sinking line.  Sinking lines and shad flies should have worked but with the water being dirty was probably tough.
>
> --
> http://www.tpfr.org
> ---
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders" group.

> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tidal-potomac-fly-rodders+unsub...@googlegroups.com.