Fallfish on the Fly: Discover A Native Super Predator
We’ve all seen the movie where in the end the main character realizes they undervalued something, or someone, that was right in front of them the whole time. Well, somehow fly anglers have largely ignored one of the most pleasurable and abundant fly rod species in the entire state: fallfish.
Fallfish (Semotilus Corporalis) are native throughout the Atlantic Slope, from New Brunswick to the James River drainage in Virginia. They are typically encountered as accidental bycatch for fly anglers fishing for other species labeled as “game fish.” However, it’s time fly anglers started recognizing native fallfish as the very formidable game fish they truly are.
Fallfish on the Fly
Given their ability to tolerate water temps up to roughly 82 degrees Fahrenheit, native fallfish are essentially a year-round fly rod species. This opens up the possibility to capitalize on even more late season or summertime hatch events with native fall fish when streams are too hot to fish for trout.
For example, one of my local streams becomes too warm for trout in late June but you still can find me there having a blast swinging Isonychia soft hackles for fallfish eating the naturals as they swim towards the bank. Wild native fallfish have provided me with quality year-round fishing opportunities, and I usually have these streams all to myself.
Despite the fallfish’s strong fighting ability, aggressive strikes, silvery complexion, and 20-inch top end size, few anglers specifically target them. Even fewer are aware that fallfish were the original apex predators in many of the region’s streams prior to the arrival of invasive species. They are voracious predators. Once attaining a certain size, they feed ravenously on crayfish and other fish species, and I’ve come to realize that fallfish are a streamer junkie’s best friend. Any typical streamer or crayfish pattern will take fallfish.
Much like trout, fallfish often switch from taking large prey items to small, highly abundant food sources such as aquatic insects during hatches. Not only will these silvery savages attack swung wet flies, but they will also readily feed on surface imitations. Yes, you can hit a hatch and fish over rising fallfish! On many of the streams that warm up too much to support trout year-round, I’ll often fish dry flies for fallfish during the summer hatches.
Another quality of fallfish that endears them to the serious fly angler is this predator’s penchant for hunting larger prey items at night. The strikes after dark can be heart stopping! Imitating crayfish, sculpins, and small forage fish at night with large wet flies and streamers has brought many fallfish pushing 20 inches to net for me. In fact, fallfish are known to be primarily nocturnal hunters. One study I read suggests that fallfish begin hunting around 9:00 pm, peak around midnight, and end after 5:00 am. I have found this to be true, as some of my best fish have come in the middle of the night.
Due to their stocky nature, fallfish can often be measured in pounds, not inches. Although small to medium-sized specimens are often caught accidentally by anglers targeting trout, some fly anglers reading this may have long run into fallfish by accident, specifically targeting fallfish can produce much larger specimens. Finding these bigger fallfish often means going downstream into sections of the stream considered warmwater fisheries.
Benefits of Fallfish
Fallfish exhibit many of the traits and behaviors desired by fly anglers, and yet are still mainly ignored and sometimes even bastardized. This lack of respect for fallfish stems from the trout “tunnel vision” inherent to last century’s fly fishing culture. As a result, an undeserved, derogatory attitude towards fallfish seems to have developed at an early age in many anglers. “Doesn’t count,” “not a trout,” “trash fish,” “just a chub” are common things young anglers hear from others when they catch a fallfish during their formative years. If instead we encouraged kids to chase wild native fallfish, we could help them avoid the combat fishing environment that inevitably comes with crowded, stocked trout fisheries. Maybe more kids would stick with the sport if given the chance to have this more relaxed and immersive fishing experience.
As well as their many merits as a game fish, fallfish serve a valuable role in the freshwater ecosystem. They serve the ecological role as apex predator in many streams, provide food for birds/mammals, and build some of the largest nests of any known fish on earth. The spawn typically takes place March- June, at which time the body of the male fallfish darkens and grows pointy tubercles on its head. Their gill plates take on a beautiful purple to red coloration, too.
The male fallfish are the architects of the nest. They move stones one by one with their mouth over a two-to-four day period to create a nest mound. These nest mounds can reach six feet in diameter, three feet in height, and some have historically been estimated to contain around two tons of stone. A “pit” is left behind by moving stones upstream to create the nest mound or “ridge.” This downstream edge of the “ridge” or “mound” is where egg fertilization occurs.
Fertilized eggs typically take roughly five days to hatch after water temperatures are consistently above 62 degrees Fahrenheit. The manner in which fallfish construct these nests with their mouths to protect their fertilized eggs led Native Americans to call them, and other closely related species of fish, “Awadosi.” This Native American word translates to “stone carriers.”
Additionally, these nests are simultaneously used by as many as five-to-seven other native fish species at a time who co-evolved with the fallfish over millennia and depend on its nest for spawning habitat. This makes wild native fallfish an important keystone species.
Anglers should take great care to avoid unknowingly stepping on these nest mounds or downstream “pits” while wading from March through June when the spawning occurs. Not damaging these nests will give us a healthier and more vibrant aquatic fish community and ecosystem. If it’s a courtesy we give invasive brown trout in the fall, then surely native fallfish deserve at least the same consideration.
Highlighting what fallfish and the many other wild native fish species can offer anglers is important. It has the potential to decrease the learned dependency on invasive stocked trout. With soaring production costs and the cost of gasoline to transport those fish to waters throughout the region, there should be more emphasis on managing and enhancing the native fish populations already found in our streams and rivers. Fallfish already exist in most stocked trout streams and provide a viable fishery long after many of those waters have warmed too much to support trout.
Not surprisingly, research has shown invasive brown trout compete with native fallfish for forage, so it’s not unreasonable to expect that the size or absolute number of fallfish would increase in many streams if stocking over them was terminated. We already know that stocking over native brook trout populations has contributed to their decline in this region of the country. It’s very possible we’d see other native species, such as fallfish, grow bigger and healthier populations if we stopped stocking over them, too.
A Native Species
In theory, any hard fighting silvery torpedo-shaped fish species that takes both surface and subsurface flies readily should be highly prized by fly anglers. However, that has not been the case historically for native fallfish. For much of the 20th century, freshwater fly fishing was largely pigeon-holed to just trout. This narrow focus on fly fishing for trout resulted from decades of last century’s most famous fly anglers writing and romanticizing solely about trout.
Native species such as fallfish often got the degrading label of “trash fish” simply because they were not trout. This label caused these fish to be unfairly devalued by anglers based on a stigma, not their merits as sport fish. Many fallfish were even ignorantly thrown on the bank because of this foolish mentality that some fish are “trash fish,” falsely implying they don’t serve an important ecological purpose.
Thankfully, respect for native fish species has slowly began to build over the past 25 years. Popular fly fishing magazines now regularly feature articles about native river redhorse, redbreast sunfish, chain pickerel, anadromous shad, freshwater drum, smallmouth, and musky. Famous fly anglers are writing about their adventures pioneering fly rodding for a myriad of untapped native fisheries around the world. This native fish movement in fly fishing is about admiring nature’s evolutionary genius and vast biodiversity, and the fallfish plays a vital role in that movement.
Here in the northeastern United States, those willing to chase fallfish will quickly learn that quality fisheries are extremely abundant and often much less pressured than crowded, stocked trout streams. Most anglers can be on a stream with a good fallfish population in minutes.
Many anglers have developed a new-found gratitude and connection with their home waters through the exploration of native species. Isn’t it time you gave fallfish on the fly a chance?
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