Autumn is a short step away from summer and one step closer to winter; a brief but unique time of the year that holds special promise, excitement, challenge, and some astonishing fishing opportunities for salty fly-rodders.
The autumn window opens around Labor Day, highlighted by a welcome drop in humidity and a perceptible cooling of daybreak temperatures. The hint of summer is still there so the fishing is comfortable, unlike late fall, when chilly mornings at Montauk in the surf leave fingers numb from gripping the fly rod and stripping line. Down along Jupiter’s beaches the cooling temperatures bring shivers to the pre-dawn magic hour. Whether you fish Rhode Island, Cape Hatteras, or West Palm Beach, autumn will hold court until sometime in early to mid October, when fall barges in late in the month with rude, blustery winds.
The fish get charged up in autumn as masses of baby bunker, silversides, herring, and mullet drop out of the shallow coastal bays and rivers and begin to migrate in waves along the beaches. The ocean-going bait will often stop off with side trips inside coastal inlets to rest before continuing their journey. Striped bass; weakfish and bluefish; and tarpon, jacks, and snook down south; follow the bait buffet, which draws them from their summer haunts in the shallow bays, sounds, and rivers.
Fly-rodders are often amazed at the intensity of the fishing on one day, supremely discouraged the next as the bait and gamefish flee from one area and move on to the next. The bait, and gamefish like striped bass, may hold for several days until a weather change gives them a nudge to get back on the migration schedule. A few gamefish will hold over for a week or so in one location as they seem to wait for the next wave of bait.
Some of the best autumn places to fly fish are just inside inlets, like the entrance to the Manasquan River in New Jersey, or Sebastian Inlet in Florida, but there’s a mental game to be played out every morning. Some days the bites come rat-ta-tat-tat like a machine gun, one fish after another striking the fly, while another day is nothing more than practice casting. There’s no substitute for perseverance; those who fish the good spots every day will be rewarded with plenty of fish, while those who wait for the next fishing report will only score if they luck into a school. Each day is full of promise, yet tempered with nice surprises and occasional disappointments.
Some fly anglers get the heebie-jeebies and move around a lot in autumn, searching the beaches and inlet jetties for signs of bird play or tell-tale flashes of splashing water as gamefish chase bait to the surface. Driving quickly from spot to spot, these anglers often miss the action, relying instead on a buddy’s cell-phone call to alert them to a blitz that more than likely will vanish before they get their truck into gear. Being anchored to one beach or wading spot with no sign of life can be a fool’s errand, but persistence and working a spot thoroughly often pays off with more bites in autumn than running and gunning from one beach spot to another. If there are signs of bait, it’s probably a good idea to work that spot hard before deciding to move.
The boat fly angler has many more options and after thoroughly working one spot, can quickly move to another, jumping one by one from one area to another until finding the right combination of bait, temperature, water clarity, and eager-to-bite gamefish. It’s a fishy game of hop scotch, played out by carefully working tides and times at each location before moving to the next.
Until he passed away back in 2009, Jack Gartside was an icon at Northeast winter fly fishing shows, and he loved to talk of his autumn adventures. A quiet guy, he sat at his tying table working his magic with thread, feathers, and hair, and cheerfully shared his experiences with anyone who paused to strike up a conversation. Although he primarily fished Massachusetts for striped bass, especially the rich waters around Boston, many fly guys from other coastal regions eagerly took notes while he talked about his fishing adventures in the autumn season, and they applied Jack’s techniques to their local waters. Jack was always generous with advice with a wry sense of humor that always made other fly fishermen smile, yet his funny quips had a serious purpose and helped make his points about the fly fishing tips and techniques he was handing out. You had to pay attention.
Jack liked to catch fish on the surface for the visual appeal and excitement of the topwater strikes, even if it meant catching fewer fish. He once said, “The best time to find fish feeding on the surface seems to be from three hours into the falling tide until dead low; and then the first three hours into the rising tide.” Jack believed that the current was strongest at these times, and this helped to concentrate the swirling pods of bait, which in turn lit up the appetites of striped bass. “If this period occurs in the early morning or late afternoon, so much the better,” he said, and that’s why so many of the best striped bass fly fishermen fish at these times.
A big box of flies is not needed for autumn. If you’re like Jack, you know a few surface flies will fool plenty of fish. For quiet waters inside inlets, around marshes and salty creeks, bridges, and shallow sand bars, the Gartside Gurgler is a top contender. But these aren’t the small Gurglers of summer. Step up to a 1/0 or 2/0 long-shank hook and tie them with either bucktail for the tail, or with long flat-wing-style saddles for a long profile. The long saddles swing and weave behind the foam body with an enticing slow-motion dance that can really drive striped bass nuts.
For the quiet backwaters of autumn an oversize bright chartreuse Gurgler is a favorite that gets the attention of northeast striped bass and southeast Florida snook. It’s a great pattern for early morning and at dusk when its gurgling action pulls striped bass out of the marshes.
In shallow water an intermediate line and Clouser Minnows are favorites for September striped bass, but in deeper water I often use an intermediate line with a 350-grain sinking head and with a bright-colored floating running line, like the Sci Anglers Mastery Express I’ve been using for quite a few years. The bright orange floating section allows me to visually follow the line direction, and I can even detect strikes as the running line twitches when a bass takes the fly.
A great surface popper is Bob Popovics’ Banger. Snappy twitches with the line hand make it pop, while slow pulls make it slurp and slide. Most fly guys with a “feel” for creating a lifelike presentation use a combo of both retrieves to fool eager bass. A little trick is to cut the face of the popper on a shallow slant so it spits more water. The slant-cut foam body can also be rotated so the angle faces downward, creating a sort of swimming lip. With short twitches of the line the lip dives the Banger down an inch or so, creating a struggling action that bass can’t ignore.
Surface strikes are very cool, and at dawn and dusk small striped bass will often feed so aggressively you can rack up a good score of a dozen or so fish in an hour, but if you want bigger fish get the fly down below the surface. The big girls won’t usually expend too much effort to chase baitfish on top, nor will they compete with the quick-moving younger bass, so a deeper presentation is needed to get a response.
An extra plus for the Clousers is the jigging action on the retrieve. The up-and-down motion of the Clouser creates a more active presentation than a simple suspending fly, and the jigging action is enhanced if the Clouser is tied on a jig-style hook, like the Owner 5317 Wide Bend hook. Other good flies for a jigging action are patterns tied with a weighted head, like the ubiquitous Popovics’ Jiggy, which is a perennial favorite. Fly patterns with jigging actions are often ideal choices for shallow-water weakfish or sea trout, and just as in spring, some decent-size tiderunners will show up in autumn.
Live baitfish don’t always aggressively hop around, and if you watch them carefully from a dock or bulkhead, they swim with a relaxed motion, at times appearing nearly motionless in the water unless attacked. That’s why some fly-rodders prefer the suspending presentation of a fly pattern that can pulsate with a snake-like action. The Bucktail Deceiver looks so amazingly lifelike with a swimming action you’d swear is a real bait fish. Another good choice is the Tabory Snake Fly with a bulky deer-hair head that also pushes water. Both patterns can be tied small to imitate a silver-dollar peanut bunker, or large like a 12-inch herring, or in between to perfectly duplicate a 6-inch mullet or a pilchard. In shallow surf they’re a perfect choice with an intermediate line, but can also be fished very deep on full-sink or sink-tip lines.
Back bay or surf, other good patterns include Polar Fiber Minnows tied high-tie style, any roundish silhouette baitfish tied in bright and dark colors with Enrico Puglisi’s EP Fibers, and several lengths and colors of Surf Candies. There are infinite variations of these basic patterns that can be tied to imitate every baitfish that swims the coast.
North or South, surface action or deep, along the beaches or in the back bays, autumn delivers superb fly fishing choices all along the East Coast.
Pete Barrett has been fly fishing in salt water since the 1960s. He was a charter boat skipper for 30 years, and he was on The Fisherman magazine’s editorial staff from 1973 until his retirement. Pete has published over 1100 magazine articles and is the author of five popular books on angling. Pete is a Florida representative for the International Game Fish Association, and he’s currently an active member of the Atlantic Salt Water Flyrodders and the West Palm Beach Fishing Club. Pete lives in Juniper, Florida.
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