Posts Tagged New York City
December 31, 2019 at 2:44 pm · Filed under Tenkara Philosophy, Tenkara Trips ·Tagged Black Crappie, Fly Fishing, Manhattan, New York City, New York City Fishing, Tenkara
The Second Fish . . .
The Lake in December
(NYC 12 2019)
The day, overcast, the sky white, and the water of the lake reflects a deep chocolate gray from tree leaves now settled on the bottom.
The bare branches and dry rushes speak within the wind as waterfowl patrol the lake. Mated pairs of mallards share the water with flocks of geese. Two swans, their sheer size impressing, provide the brightest sight to be seen.
End of the Year Gathering
(NYC 12 2019)
That’s until an equally white fly, chenille and herl imitating a baitfish, fished very, very slowly, gets picked up with a sudden flash and grab near the bottom. The rod bends, the weight ascends until the surface of the lake ripples and a slab of silvered black and white comes to hand.
The First Fish
(NYC 12 2019)
The black crappie is the primary cold weather fish of New York City’s lakes. A few largemouth bass and yellow perch may be encountered, too, but the crappie predominates.
Near evening the geese descend until dozens begin to call to one another across the water. The white sky turns gray and a steady mist begins to fall. Just before the shivering angler’s will decides to call it a season, as it is the end of December, another strong take awakens the inner heat and happiness as one more battle of catch and release takes place.
The white fly has done its job and the second fish gives satisfaction in the knowledge that the first fish was not a fluke. The second fish is the grand finale for the year.
The Second Fish
(NYC 12 2019)
That’s a whip finish for 2019.
— rPs 12 31 2019
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October 31, 2019 at 2:17 pm · Filed under Tenkara Art, Tenkara Kebari, Tenkara Philosophy ·Tagged caddisfly, Columbus Day, Fly Fishing, Halloween, Kebari, Manhattan, New York City, Pumpkinseed Sunfish, Tenkara
October Orange . . .
October Icons: Caddis and Columbus
(NYC 10 2019)
The sugar maples turn orange and blend with oak red and locust gold. The October Caddis, primarily orange, well imitated by means of orange floss.
Orange on the water in New York City is the space occupied by the pumpkinseed sunfish. Small, yet spirited, and still at times encountered in October when the trees hold onto their color just before the leaf hatch.
Pumpkinseed Sunfish (Lepomis Gibbosus)
Oranage everywhere. “Boo!” without the hoo.
Happy Halloween.
Portrait Of My Halloween Costume
(10 31 2019)
– rPs 10 31 2019
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September 30, 2019 at 11:47 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged Fly Fishing, Manhattan, New York City, New York City Fishing, Tenkara
The End of the Regular Season . . .
Basepath Around the Pond
(NYC 09 2019)
Evening falls fast for the tenkara fisher now that the Autumnal Equinox has passed. The lingering, almost lazy, evening hours have been replaced by a quick race into darkness that can add a bit of urgency to a fishing trip taken after work.
The local ponds have begun to turn over, weedy waters turning clear, and the fish appear paler and more actively feeding, which, if one is lucky, can result in a grand slam:
Bluegill
Bluegill
(NYC 09 28 2019)
Black Crappie
Black Crappie
(NYC 09 28 2019)
Largemouth Bass
Largemouth Bass
(09 28 2019)
The largemouth bass came at last light, making it a grand slam, an appropriate finish alongside the final weekend of the regular MLB season.
— rPs 09 30 2019
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August 31, 2019 at 9:05 am · Filed under Tenkara News, Tenkara Philosophy, Tenkara Trips ·Tagged Fly Fishing, Labor Day, Manhattan, New York City, New York City Fishing, redbreast sunfish, smallmouth bass, Tenkara
The L Word . . .
The Stream Behind
(08 2019)
Low water, light tippet, little fish, and lots of fun over the Labor Day weekend.
Redbreast Sunfish
(08 2019)
Smallmouth Bass
(08 2019)
Mornings have begun to dawn later, and evening falls faster. The truncated time in between spent fishing is a day labor . . . of Love.
That’s the short story near the end of another summer.
The Road Ahead
(08 2019)
— rPs 08 31 2019
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July 31, 2019 at 9:40 am · Filed under Tenkara News, Tenkara Philosophy, Tenkara Techniques ·Tagged flounder, Fluke, Fly Fishing, Kebari, Manhattan, New York City, New York City Fishing, Tenkara
End of July Fluke . . .
Proper Beach Fluke Release
(07 2019)
The find for a good start: an empty stretch of beach, early, sun behind, near a narrow point connecting back bay with channel, sand underfoot. It’s summer.
The small tungsten bucktail kebari with perhaps an especially long saddle feather may be swung off a line of fifteen to twenty feet in combined length. The tide incoming or outgoing swings the pattern on a current like a trout stream seam within the greater bay. Sometimes a striper, also short, intercedes, but this season is ruled by the summer flounder.
Fluke Kandy
(NYC 07n2019)
Another summer morning, another sudden solid connection with a fluke on the swing.
A Beauty By the Jetty
(07 2019)
The left-eyed flatfish, the summer flounder, fluke, is game for fly patterns. The black crappie of the sea, perhaps, to my personal perception of parallel connection. The southpaw fluke stands as a visual stealth and surge predator that seeks smaller fish.
Width adds weight to the battle after the connection is made and a demonstrative tenkara rod hookset sets with success. Nothing else quite feels like a flounder on the end of a line: the uppercut take, the fluttering stand-off, the evasions the fish’s nearly two-dimensional form can achieve.
Shorts are the rule. True. Catch and release is not only fun saltwater panfishing; it’s the law. So many fluke caught are just below the legal length that one must assume keepers are in fact almost always kept.
I release all, with the option open to keep.
Path to Fluke Point
(07 2019l)
— rPs 07 31 2019
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July 4, 2019 at 8:48 pm · Filed under Tenkara Art, Tenkara News, Tenkara Philosophy, Tenkara Reading ·Tagged Fly Fishing, Manhattan, New York, New York City, New York City Fishing, Small Fry The Lure of the Little, smallmouth bass, Tenkara
4th of July Fireworks. . .
How the Fireworks Started
(NYC 07 04 2019)
(* Excerpt from Small Fry: The Lure of the Little by ron P. swegman. 2009. The Whitefish Press.)
Fireworks!
Happy Fourth of July.
— rPs 07 04 2019
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April 30, 2019 at 9:03 pm · Filed under Tenkara Kebari, Tenkara Trips ·Tagged bass pond, Fly Fishing, Manhattan, New York City, Tenkara, trout stream
Fishes: Subject and Verb . . .
The early season evening hatch has been high water.
(04 21 2019)
April opens the trout season in the American northeast with all its attending opportunity for other fishes.
The salt may remain sleepy, somewhat, as creeks and rivers, ponds and lakes, together offer some of the broadest, and best, steady chances for a day of grand slam combinations of fishes.
The still waters, cold, bottom blooming back to life, offer the angler:
Bluegill
Bluegill
(NYC 04 29 2019)
Black Crappie
Black Crappie
(NYC 04 2019)
Golden Shiner
Golden Shiner
(NYC 04 2019)
Largemouth Bass
Largemouth Bass
(NYC 04 29 2019)
The freestones, tinted by spring rain runoff, flow higher, fish deeper:
Redbreast Sunfish
Smallmouth Bass
Trout
Brown Trout
(04 22 2019)
Diversity rules, rich and simple.
April fishes, subject and verb.
— rPs 04 30 2019
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April 22, 2019 at 2:50 pm · Filed under Tenkara News, Tenkara Philosophy, Tenkara Reading ·Tagged Earth Day, Fly Fishing, Manhattan, Nature, New York City, Tenkara
Earth Day 49 . . .
The author of Philadelphia on the Fly celebrates Earth Day “by the book” . . .
(Planet Earth 04 22 2019)
Earth Day has reached the cusp of a human’s middle age. The planet remains older, larger, and more important than all of us people put together. Let us try, at least try, to be stewards and gardeners and protectors rather than mere users of our one and only green, white, and blue home.
— rPs 04 22 2019
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April 17, 2019 at 10:53 pm · Filed under Tenkara Kebari, Tenkara News, Tenkara Trips ·Tagged Fluke, Fly Fishing, Kebari, Manhattan, New Jersey, New York City, Saltwater Fly Fishing, Striped Bass, Tenkara
See Bass? . . .
Line on the Water
(NJ 04 2019)
Tenkara rod yamame tethered to a small sparkled shrimp kebari found no willing herring or striper schoolie to tempt. The floating 8-weight line on a reel reached farther into the solunar peak and still found no takers, no curious passes from bass in the deeper water where the current’s piled sand flat dropped off into dark gray.
Water calm, a pass of squall coal gray cloud and on wind holding a spatter of rain. Calm times felt in a zone, fishy, and at that when came the yank, a strong physical stop below the surface. Hot Tail Half and Half, my own fly from a box full of talented friend’s, fooled a fish, too.
One hand managed one shot on the phone fly from the battle middle when eyes saw a dark form sprinting from a puff of sand in two feet of estuary water. See bass, see not a bass, but an early fluke, a fine one flipped off with a smile as flatfish fled.
Sand Trail of a Fluke in Flight
(NJ 04 2019)
Water too cold at 47 degrees Fahrenheit ( 8 Celcius) for the striped bass where I have been to fish The search continues. The season is early.
Fishing is not catching, yet, in or out of net, there is always a view.
(NJ 04 2019)
The saltwater season of 2019 has begun.
— rPs 04 17 2019
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Tenkara Takes Manhattan 