Monday, October 18, 2010

Warmwater Fall Fly Fishing Starting to Improve?

I fly-fished a local public pond on Friday night after dark.  I caught 13 crappies (finally, decent numbers!), 3 bass (2 were nice ones, I measured one at 16.75”), and 7 bluegills.
All hit a #8 bead-chain eye chartreuse Kraft Fur Clouser.  Geez, that’s a pretty long title for a fly, right?

Here's the biggest bass of the night:

And here's one of the crappies:

 
Decent night for fishing. It wasn’t fast at all, but I found a couple spots where I caught several crappies each, and that helped. The bass were great fighters, and a nice surprise.

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I hit the same pond again with the same fly on Saturday night after dark, but it was slower again. 3 Crappies, 11 bluegills, and 2 bass (both 11”).
The good news is, it looks like the algae mats are diminishing on all the local public ponds.

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In other news, I tied up some fly patterns I hadn't tried before, or hadn't tried for a long time, anyway.

Here's a variant (in both tying method and materials) of a Berry's Super Stone Skwala, size 8:
And below is a Matuka that I thought turned out acceptable:

3 comments:

  1. the "matuka" looks like a strange furry animal! do fish like animals?

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  2. Dave
    This is why I do the blog thing, to find out the flies other fisherman catch fish on during the year. The fall can be a difficult time to land decent numbers of fish, but you have shown me that the clouser will work great in the fall just as it does in the sprng. Great Post.

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  3. Thanks Bill!
    Jenni: Sure! Fish will eat anything that falls in the water, or is already in the water, that they can fit in their mouth. Even if its fuzzy! Actually I think a Matuka is supposed to look like a baitfish. In the water, the feathers will slim down somewhat and provide some lifelike movement. Also, there are a LOT of differnt varieties of Matukas. This is just one. A fly-tyer can vary the body color, feather color, even the feather shape (more pointed tip, rather than a rounded tip feathers like I used on this one).

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