Fish Species That Defy the Fly

Besides starry flounders 😉, grass carp.
I have access to a private lake where they’ve been planted to control weeds. The things are huge and will sit on the surface and look like a cross between a sturgeon and a tarpon. They spook easily. I tied up some green pattern that looked like weeds. I’ve spent several days targeting them but never got a sniff. Now I don’t even bother. It used to be you couldn’t target them in public waters but I’m not sure if that still holds true.
SF
 
Tied some actual grass to a hook...
It's like plunking a dry fly...good waste of time.

And no...that didn't work either.

Uncatchable
 
Besides starry flounders 😉, grass carp.
I have access to a private lake where they’ve been planted to control weeds. The things are huge and will sit on the surface and look like a cross between a sturgeon and a tarpon. They spook easily. I tied up some green pattern that looked like weeds. I’ve spent several days targeting them but never got a sniff. Now I don’t even bother. It used to be you couldn’t target them in public waters but I’m not sure if that still holds true.
SF
I picked up a 50+ pound grass carp on an olive woolybugger many years ago. It dragged my canoe around for 45 minutes before it came in. I would declare myself a stellar fisherman but was targeting bass at the time.
 
Might be tough to get a sablefish
Ya, there's stupid deep fly fishing, and there's no freaking way deep. Always exception though. There used to be a spot near Birch Bay north of Bellingham where juvenile sablefish could be caught on mooching gear. Dad took me out there sometime in the late 60's and caught my first saltwater fish ever.... mmm blackcod.
 
Ya, there's stupid deep fly fishing, and there's no freaking way deep. Always exception though. There used to be a spot near Birch Bay north of Bellingham where juvenile sablefish could be caught on mooching gear. Dad took me out there sometime in the late 60's and caught my first saltwater fish ever.... mmm blackcod.
As a current birch bay resident id love to hear more about this!
 
2014 was a massive brood year for NSEI sablefish, particularly the Stephens Passage stock. In 2015, one of my favorite places to take guests for may-june char fishing was overrun by 15"-18" blackcod. We caught em so regularly I started priming guests for the experience. The furthest inland i have seen them was the 10' tide mark at that particular inlet.
On rhe rarer side of things, another of my favorite places to guide salmonids kicks out a couple P-cod a year on really low tides. They fight like a wet sock, but its another species to check off the list
 
Suckers are challenging to fair-catch intentionally on flies. For me anyway. All the ones I've caught were surprise bycatch while fishing for something else.
A buddy got one on our ill fated salmon lake trip, still too traumatised by dogshit fishing to send a report. It was about 4lb he reckoned. Alike to fighting a big lump of clay. I got so wee ones that were spirited but by that time a minnow would have got me going.

Dave
 
As a current birch bay resident id love to hear more about this!
It's a bit fuzzy being 50+ years ago, but we fished a tide rip off the point at the south end of the bay. Not far offshrore in a 15' plywood skiff. Mooching herring with banana sinkers. Maybe 3oz... ish so they couldn't have been very deep. The blackcod seemed huge to me being used to creek cutts, but maybe 2-4# IIRC.
 
Suckers are challenging to fair-catch intentionally on flies. For me anyway. All the ones I've caught were surprise bycatch while fishing for something else.

Say what? Look at this fair hooked fair looking fly-sucking sucker from the stuləgʷabš river! The little pink fly in its mouth may or may not indicate that I was fishing for pink salmon. Speaking of suckers, I kind of sucked at flyfishing when I first started, so I was probably fishing for whatever would bite, does it still count as a fair-catch? :p

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It's a bit fuzzy being 50+ years ago, but we fished a tide rip off the point at the south end of the bay. Not far offshrore in a 15' plywood skiff. Mooching herring with banana sinkers. Maybe 3oz... ish so they couldn't have been very deep. The blackcod seemed huge to me being used to creek cutts, but maybe 2-4# IIRC.
Ahhh i do love that particular point. It used to be my go to silver spot in the fall.

Wouldn't surprise me if you could still find some of them there at the right time of year.
 
only caught one sucker in my life (fairly)....they might qualify in the category of extremely prevalent, in water one can get a fly easily to, rarely caught (as much as I fish where they're around, I woulda thought I woulda caught at least a couple more.....fairly).

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🍻
 
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Besides starry flounders 😉, grass carp.
I have access to a private lake where they’ve been planted to control weeds. The things are huge and will sit on the surface and look like a cross between a sturgeon and a tarpon. They spook easily. I tied up some green pattern that looked like weeds. I’ve spent several days targeting them but never got a sniff. Now I don’t even bother. It used to be you couldn’t target them in public waters but I’m not sure if that still holds true.
SF
My dad got one in Lone casting damsels by the grass for trout. He said it fought like a bastard.
 
2014 was a massive brood year for NSEI sablefish, particularly the Stephens Passage stock. In 2015, one of my favorite places to take guests for may-june char fishing was overrun by 15"-18" blackcod. We caught em so regularly I started priming guests for the experience. The furthest inland i have seen them was the 10' tide mark at that particular inlet.
On rhe rarer side of things, another of my favorite places to guide salmonids kicks out a couple P-cod a year on really low tides. They fight like a wet sock, but its another species to check off the list
well I'll be damned
 
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