Fly-Fishing: 9-22-2011 Evening and 9-23-2011 Lunchtime

I had 1 hour to fish on Thursday (9/22).  I visited the closest public pond, which was in a nearby 'burb, since that is where I was at the time.  Like the last visit here, there was still a LOT matted floating algae around the edges of this pond...and the water clarity is still rather poor.  I neglected to fish the spots where I've had the best success in the past, because it would have been too much of a hassle trying to get a hooked fish up and through that much algae and get it to shore.
I fished a couple spots where the algae mats were less obtrusive.  I tried a microjig & indicator.  I had some hits, and even caught a couple bluegills, but it was tough and slow.  I had a few good strikes at the indicator, so I tried a foam topwater pattern, the Chernobyl Ant/Hopper.  Got some good strikes on that as well, but couldn't hook up with the fish.  I switched to a yellow boa yarn leech and caught a couple more bluegills on that.  There were some healthy 8-inch bluegills! I switched one more time to a chartreuse Docaroo, and fished my way back to the car.  No more fish were caught, however.

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Today (9/23) during lunch, I fly-fished a local pond for 1/2 hour.  I had the chartreuse Docaroo still tied on, and I fully planned to change flies right away...until I walked down to the pond.  There is a large fountain in the pond, but it was not on this time.  The wind died down several times, and combined with the bright sun and clear water, I could see the tops of aquatic weeds almost everywhere.  Even out in the area I'm pretty sure is the deepest part of the pond!  The weeds came to within 12"-18" of the surface in most places, and even touched the surface in a few places.

I decided to go ahead and fish with the Docaroo.  I could see a few fish near shore, most were small.  Well, small is a relative term, I know.  There are Crappies in this pond that might touch 10", Bluegills might top out at 8" to 8.5" and the abundant Green Sunfish are all sizes from 1"-8".  I didn't see or catch any Crappies today.  I did catch 4 nice chunky Bluegills, and at least 10 Green Sunfish...mostly the larger ones, but I did catch 3 of the tiny ones too.  They're rather cute when they are that small!

I thought about taking some pictures of the fish I was catching, but in the end I didn't bother.