Enjoying the many aspects of spring with tigers,kings, and schoolies

Tiger Trout

DJ and I had plans to go to Race Point today. The plan was to ride the bike path and look for whales on the ocean. On the way home, I was going to trout fish one of the state parks while DJ rode his bike on the trails. This was a good plan in theory, but once 6:15 came around, he no longer wanted to get out of bed. Plan B.

I didn't want to take the long drive to P-Town alone so I improvised. The state has started stocking tiger trout into some of the ponds. I wanted to catch one. So I went to the closest pond to my house they were stocked. It is a little shallow pond. I hoped I could catch a few trout early and start the rest of my day around 8 am (I got to the trout pond before 7 am). When I got there, two Powerbait guys were packing up and leaving with three trout. Another young guy got there at the same time as myself and started fishing where the other fishermen were. Within minutes he caught a trout (rainbow) on a spinner.

The fish were extremely fussy for hatchery raised trout. This guy had the best spot and caught three fish in 90 minutes. I caught one rainbow on a Roostertail. I had tried most everything in my box starting with a casting bubble/ brown wooly bugger. I tried spinners and spoons. Finally I went back to the casting bubble but put on an olive wooly bugger ( I had also tried a hares ear). For some reason the olive fly did the trick. I started getting hits every three or four casts. The fish were not very aggressive and I missed a lot of tail biters. Still my numbers started to build. I ended up catching eight rainbows. This sounds like a lot, but I really had to work for them. Also, as happy as I was to catch any fish, I really wanted to catch a Tiger Trout. Finally on my ninth fish I caught a tiger trout. It was about 13 inches. I forgot how hard they fight. They are much stronger than the rainbows.

After I fished for trout two hours longer than I planned I thought I should at least look for whales

A few herring in the run

since that was my original plan for the day. So I headed to the Cape. As I said, I wasn't making it all the way to P-Town. I figured I'd have a pretty good look at Cape Cod Bay from Scorton Creek. So I went there. The water was a little rough and I knew I wasted my time. I brought my spotting scope down and scanned the water  for 20 minutes with no luck of seeing whales or spouts. The highlight was seeing a few Red Throated Loons.

I guess I could have went further down the Cape but chose not to, Instead I headed towards home. I made a quick stop at the Herring Run to see if the alewives were in. There were a few herring but it wasn't loaded yet. I did see the King Eider again. Today was by far the best conditions I have seen it. The light was at my back and the Canal was glass calm. I took some more pictures of it but only watched it five minutes.

The last picture I'll post of the King Eider, I promise

After lunch at home I went back out again. I tried fishing a fly fishing only pond I had never been to.  The pond is nothing more than a mud hole, but it was well stocked. I fished it for an hour and caught a decent rainbow. I also saw one other one caught. I could tell as it was edging toward evening the fish were really becoming active. There were a lot of splashes around the pond.

Rainbow at the fly pond

I had other ideas. Instead of fishing a mud hole for stocked trout, why not fish a pretty ocean backwater for stripers. So I went back to the same spot I went Monday and Tuesday. I met my friend Dave and we fished the last hour before dark. Combined, we averaged a fish a minute as they were really keying on our Zoom Flukes. They were small fish, but I did land one decent one that took a little drag.

If you take anything from this post, it's this- spring is finally here. So many outdoor things are really starting to get good. Trout are stocked, stripers are in, Migrating animals are on their way back (such as birds and whales). I'll write a separate post about spring, but this really is the best time to be outdoors!