Fly fishing for schoolie striped bass in the Severn River goes well; plus a surprise catch to finish the morning!
Oh, the lessons that fly fishing is trying to teach me. Patience is one of the most significant virtues that a fly angler can possess and, boy, am I lacking in this department. I’m simply wired to fish guerilla style—deliberate, quick, and precise. Today, I inched my way closer to acquiring the patience necessary to make more accurate fly casts among and between my targets in order to catch fish. I’m finding that it’s patience that leads an angler to the fish—or rather the fish to the angler. And ultimately, this patience coupled with persistence pays off in fly casting. Today was a winner in this regard.
The morning rain that I heard while still in bed at dawn felt like a downer—a possible wash out. But the rain clouds passed and the radar looked clear by 8:30 a.m. I gathered my gear and prepped the boat. The tide was predicted to be high and outgoing, but it was already quite low when I launched. Very low. Hmmm. This coupled with a north/northeast wind up to 10 or so knots had me eyeballing a particular area where any south-moving current would pass neatly along a stretch of deep-water docks that consistently seem to hold fish in these exact conditions.
We’re also just one day removed from the new moon, so I checked that as another variable in the pocket that should work to the angler’s favor. As such, the stars did seem to align as I moved into position to catch a preferred drift along my first-chosen fishing spot. Suddenly on the side-scan, I spotted a cluster of fish. Clearly a pack of schoolie striped bass. Then, near the end of a dock, a few frisky splashes on topwater, as fish were picking off some bait. Looking good.
I moved into an expansive area between docks that was perfect for reacclimating my arms and body to the first casts of the morning. By the time I drifted near the dock, my casting was patient and accurate—enough so that a particularly fine cast parallel to the dock solicited a strike from a hungry striper that immediately charged away from me, stripping line out of my hand.
Maintaining pressure on the fish, I was able to reel in the remaining fly line, carefully bringing the line and fish taut. This was a nice 20” fish that felt like a brute on the 8w setup I was using. This fish hit an all-green/chartreuse Clouser fly tied to a fluorocarbon leader connected to an intermediate line that I let sink about 7 seconds after landing in the water on the cast. The fish was sitting about 10 feet down in the water column. Most fish I scanned were.
I played the fish to my hand, took a picture or two, and let him swim away happy and healthy. Well, I was happy. Because I was marking a decent number of fish in this area, I stayed there for an hour-and-a-half, working it thoroughly. With the fish hanging deeper in the water, I tied on a slightly weightier Clouser to get the fly down. On one subsequent cast, a bigger fish hit the fly, went tight, and charged back into the pilings of the dock. Unfortunately, the fish wrapped a piling and broke off free. Darn.
Though the area held these 20-plus inch class of stripers, I decided to make a move to another spot that could hold fish if the current is moving just right (it was). The main feature here is a set of rock jetties that poke into the river like a hand of fingers. I could see fish movement when I approached the area, and on my second or third cast, the line pulled tight with a fish. Only to my surprise, the fish was a speckled trout! An unusual catch in the Severn River, especially farther upriver in the Round Bay area, where I was fishing this morning. This fish was icing on the cake and, after playing around in this spot for 20 or so minutes, I felt content to leave and head home.
With patience and persistence, I was able to deliver accurate casts in the areas I fished—better than any previous outing. The acclimation to fly fishing and practice that I put in this summer during late-May, June, and July is working for me. As an angler, the validation of catching the target species is quite pleasing and qualifies all the hard work put in—it also has me thinking of bigger and bigger fish come autumn.
See y’all on the water again,real soon!
