August has some great fishing opportunities. Some of which require specialized techniques. Here are some tips and tricks to make each cast count:
If big northern pike are your game, try working a popper amongst the cabbage patches, targeting pockets and edges of the weeds. Do this on calm evenings and mornings. Often big pike warm themselves and wait like alligators in the big cabbage patches – especially if the weed bed is in close proximity to deeper water where baitfish and walleye hang out. Remember that big northerns also feed on little northerns that are always present in the weedy shallows.
Brook trout are morphing into spawning mode throughout August, and as September approaches, they dawn those brilliant colors. They also become more aggressive. For some reason brook trout in August and September are triggered by bright colors. Especially red and orange. So I like to use large streamers that incorporate those colors in their design. I also like copper and gold flash. A great fly is a Muddler with orange, red and/or yellow along with gold Krystal flash in the wing. I tied some of these out of caribou hair for a trip I did on the Sutton River along the Hudson Bay coast. I called this fly the “Marabou Caribou.” The brookies were so aggressive that I literally could not retrieve my fly without getting a hit. In fact, I made a game out of choosing the ugliest most undesirable looking flies, tying them on my leader and casting them out in the river. I could not strip fast enough to avoid getting a strike. Talk about an ass-backwards fishing strategy!
One of my little “tricks of the trade” for catching big brookies is to work a good pool or run paying attention to what I feel is the best spot in the lie. This is where the biggest brook trout should be. Once I hook several fish and the bite seems to slow down a bit, I switch streamers and go to something that contrasts the previous fly. I often am able to hook a couple additional fish this way. I’d like to tell you some of my really top-secret brook trout tricks, but then as the saying goes, “I’d have to kill you!”
“Keep your fly rod stiff and your fly vest dry!”
Until next time,
Scott
