Summer is here and fishing patterns will soon change with the warmer water. The back waters are still cool well into the ebbing tide and the stripers are around for almost the whole tide. But that will soon change quickly and fishing closer to the cooler inlet waters will be necessary. However, throughout the summer, around the spring tides when small stuff, for example, 1-inch silversides, shrimp, crabs are around in abundance, a visit to where back water meets bigger water is in order.

Match the hatch is also in order. To break the code quickly and quickly is an understatement because in less than a couple of hours of outgoing current the very warm back water will arrive and the stripers will quietly exit for cooler water.

Fishing multiple flies is the key to summer night fly fishing. The best way I have found to tie on droppers is to use a 4-turn Surgeon's knot and leave a 5-inch tag. With experience I can add that when using droppers do not use anything less that 20# mono or there will be break offs. I have total confidence using this class tippet for droppers even when there are larger stripers hitting.

One advantage of using this knot is the benefit gained by having the tag lie straight along the leader rather than at right angles other types of knots create. When a heavy fish hits that tag it will pull in line with the leader and reduce the force on the knot and line. Also, never let the tag exceed 5 inches or the fly will foul around the leader. Tie on as many tag as you want or can handle casting. Here is a basic guide line for distance between flies. I tie in the first dropper 24" from my leader's loop. Subsequent droppers are added at 18-inch intervals. Always tie the largest fly at the very end of the tippet and the smallest fly on the dropper closest to the rod tip. This will aide in casting. Another tip is to slow your casting cadence and open the loop a bit. With just a little practice distance does not have to be sacrificed.

Follow these links for more on fishing small flies for stripers on summer nights: Get Enlightened and Out of the Dark: Summer Night Time Striper Fishing and Popping on Shrimp: Stripers on a Dry Fly.

Late August has not failed to be what late August is the bringer of very warm water that is mostly stained near shore. This year unlike most recent years has seen an unusually large amount of sea lettuce collecting on the bottom and on south facing shores. The presence of sea lettuce is good but the piling up of it has made wading and fishing difficult. I suppose it has been the lack of any powerful storms from the east this summer that would wash away the plants off of the shores. As far as keeping one's fly from tangling with it I have been using foam backed flies at the point and a fly on a dropper. This rig enable fishing over piles of sea lettuce where predators actually hold looking for silversides and crabs.

As usually it can be next to impossible to find a striper in late August due to the very warm water that is close to shore. But the shad don't mind it and consequently I mostly target them. Lately, they have been quite scarce too but are around.

The following is a short article I wrote a while back about shad fishing in Moriches Bay.

Shadedelic

With such appeal what is an effective approach to taking shad? Shad, like stripers, are drawn to rips to feed on discombobulated bait. What does a shad eat? Anything. They eat squid, silversides, peanut bunker, shrimp, krill, isopods, worms and lots of other stuff I'm sure. Also like stripers it can be a guess as to what it prefers at the moment. What bait...what color...what size is something to ponder? However, what remains the same is where to fish for them and how. Bar none, the best method is to cast a floating line up current from where the shad are holding and let the fly dead drift with mends to allow the fly to sink. For example, if the shad are feeding in and around a rip, then take a position to cast up current so when the line swings the fly will go right through the rip. As the line swings, the fly rises and the hits will come. It is the rise that gets them to hit just like a brownie on a wet fly. I rarely impart any action to the fly. Again, as with stripers the hits can be almost imperceptible while other times the fly is ripped from the surface just as it touches down.

The fly I have had the most success with year in and year out is a white hackle fly that is about 2 inches long. If I know there are both stripers and shad around I will put this fly on a dropper. It is quite simple and deadly.

Also tie this fly in yellow.

Another fly that has worked very well is a trout streamer with a marabou wing.

I have also caught shad with a #2 General Practitioner, a 10-inch squid fly, Ray's Fly and the Nacht Tern.