I did more bass fishing than I have in quite a few summers. They always seem to cooperate and come out to play when I have the time. Went after the largemouths with deerhair poppers and chased smallmouth on the rivers. The hot, dry summer seemed to be to their liking. Had a close encounter with a very large smallmouth on a gurgler just five minutes from home. In between catching little guys, a pig took the fly, dove downward taking line then came back up and exploded on the surface. The hook pulled free once the fish splashed down. Hard saying how big the fish was. Just as well I didn't land it so in my mind it can be as big as I want. I'll remember this fish as well as any this year.
The striper fishing was better than the last few years but it was hard to gauge how much better. Fishing from shore was a struggle and after the early season just catching a couple fish seemed like a good day. The average size of the fish was amazing although I didn't land any exceptional ones. The lack of smaller fish was concerning. Local anglers continue to argue about the state of the fishery but I'm betting on some dark times to come. I kept going back to some of my favorite spots just to prove to myself that fish were still there but most of the time I was proven wrong. I mostly attribute the better fishing this summer to the improved weather.
I didn't do much trout fishing. The water got awfully warm and low and I wasn't able to travel to some of the areas that were less affected by the weather. I did see someone close to home catch a legitimate 20"+ brown last night while walking along the river. I'll be checking this spot out a little more until winter comes.
After having so much fun pike fishing this spring I wasn't sure I was going to get the chance to fish some more this year. Lately we have been hit with the remnants of hurricanes frequently making the ocean dangerous to fish so Coops and I decided to spend a weekend chasing the pike around. Even better I got to try out some pike flies I tied early summer that I thought would be sitting in a box unused until spring. They fished beautifully. We had to work for the pike but Coops ended up catching the best specimen of the season for us.
