The Susquehanna Flats catch-and-release season has been anything but consistent.
Opening March 1, 2006, the season so far has produced days with catches of a “few hundred” small fish up to a couple of pounds, days with some big fish in the 15-pound-plus range, and days with a mix of the two.
My wife Brenda and I proved that fact earlier this week fishing with avid Susky angler Wayne Blottenberger. In early afternoon, we ran into anglers like Capt. Gary Neitzey, whose clients caught some fish, mostly small.
Nearby, Capt. Norm Bartlett noted that the day before his clients were “catching them all day long, from early light until we quit.”
Early in the day we were lucky, which is better than skillful, since “skillful” for Flats anglers only involves bouncing a bucktail or ounce-weighted chartreuse or pearl Bass Assassin along the bottom.
Other good lures include Sassy Shads, Tsunamis and similar skinny soft plastics. Favorites for fly fishermen throwing sinking lines include crab Clousers, chartreuse and white half-and-halfs, Deceivers, or any long slim streamer that imitates bait.
The fishing also involves moving, running around the Flats, by following the channels, checking charts, and using a good depth finder with a shallow water alarm. Don?t and you can get grounded.
“If you fish for ten minutes and don?t catch anything, move,” said Wayne, of his tactics for the shallow water Flats.
Ultimately it is working the lure that attracts stripers who are in the neighborhood for spawning – and oh yeah – to eat some shad, herring or white perch.
The fish grab soft plastics thinking that they are meals on fins. That?s what happened to Brenda, with Wayne first thinking that her drag was loose, then realizing as the fish ran and the rod bowed that the fish was big: A good catch if it would stay hooked long enough for catch-and-release.
At the boat, it swirled, tried to run under the hull, but then joined us onboard for a little while to get measured against Wayne?s console-mounted yardstick.
It stretched over both ends by a tad, perhaps about a 37-inch or more fish, maybe in the 17-pound-plus range. It should get better.
Wayne and other experts agree that the fishing ? particularly for larger fish ? will pick up during the rest of the catch-and-release season that continues through early May. Look for warmer weather, and with it, more fish, bigger fish and yes, more anglers and boats with this popular early-season sport.
C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally-known sportsman, award-winning author, and has written more than 20 books on fishing and hunting. He can be reached at [email protected].
