Thursday, August 27, 2015

Summer / Fall Bass on Topwater

Don't forget about Largemouth Bass at this time of year!  They feed aggressively as the water cools down through Fall.  And yes, they definitely will hit topwater flies.
Here's some nice fish from this month:

19"

18"

17"

17"

This healthy bass measured 19.5":

Friday, August 21, 2015

NE Iowa - Waterloo & North Bear Creeks, Aug. 19-20, 2015

Day 1:
Crazy weather for August 19th (my birthday)!  Drizzle and 53 degrees when we arrived to fish Waterloo Creek.  We layered up to stay warm/dry....so yes, l looked absolutely ridiculous in what I ended up wearing. :)
Waterloo has naturally-reproducing Brown Trout (no stockings), and stocked Rainbows & Brook Trout.  We fished the stretch below the parking access  that is downstream of the Bee Rd bridge.
Tough section!  Very few deep pools, and lots of weed-packed shallow stretches that look devoid of fish, or extremely difficult to fish properly.
I did make friends with cows...
Jay got on the board quickly, with a Brookie and a Rainbow.  It took me awhile to finally find a fish, but it was a nice, 17.25" Brown Trout:
I did manage to catch the trout Grand Slam here, but overall numbers were very low.
After an early dinner, we hit the lower C & R section, which I think has recently been "improved".  The weed growth was nearly impenetrable along the banks, and the creek bottom was really soft clay crap that really wasn't conducive to safe wading.  I caught a Creek Chub and one more Rainbow here.
The big surprise in that stretch was...Jay caught a chunky Smallmouth Bass...
...While I was shocked to catch 2 Northern Pike!



Day 2:
Day 2 was still unseasonably cool, but better than Day 1.  And the wind was more of a factor today, as we fished a pasture section of the upper North Bear Creek.  (We didn't get pictures of our new set of bovine friends, but they seemed to like us....and sang to us for quite awhile.)  Casting was easier in the cow-mowed pasture area, but the abundance of thistles still caught our lines WAY more often than we'd care to admit.
I like this stream section!  Interesting runs, which the Brown Trout seem to prefer, and intermittent deeper pools to waste time trying to catch non-feeding brookies, rainbows, and the occasional brown.  :)  I got a trout Grand Slam here as well, along with better numbers of fish.  Jay caught his first-ever Brown Trout, and his first trout Grand Slam.
We were worn out by 1:30pm, so we gave it up and began our journey home.  NE Iowa is always a good time!
Thank you to everyone that gave me tips on where to fish, where to stay, and where to eat!  I appreciate it! :)
Everything was caught on a gold Springbrook Wunder microjig, or a Beadhead Gold Woolly Bugger.  Here's the microjigs I tied up for this trip:

Monday, August 3, 2015

McLoud Run, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

My wife and I went to Cedar Rapids, Iowa,  Saturday evening to watch Jim Gaffigan (comedian) live. We spent the night, and I woke up early to flyfish McLoud Run, Iowa's only urban trout stream. I'd never fished it before.

The banks were overgrown with tall vegetation, and trees overhanging the water. Really NOT the most enjoyable place to flyfish. The stretch I fished paralleled I-380 and a paved bike trail on one side, and train tracks on the other side. At one point, my ankles and calves were swarmed by biting ants... Its not a big stream, but to avoid the ants and brush, I was soon wading the stream. Wet wading. Being spring-fed, the stream maintains a temperature of @ 55 degrees F year-round.... or so I've read. I believe it...it was cold! I managed, but at one point standing in deeper water, it became almost uncomfortably cold.

The stream is stocked in June mainly with fingerling Brook & Brown Trout, along with some catchable size Rainbows. Again, this is what I've read, but I can't easily verify it. I saw some nice fish of all 3 trout species, and some large suckers. What I caught, however, were smaller fish, including the Rainbows. Could there be some natural reproduction here?

The stream is Catch & Release Only, and Artificial Lures Only, so all trout could be holdovers.

Anyway, with my first 3 fish landed, I'd managed my first trout "Grand Slam", catching all 3 species. I ended with 1 Brown Trout, 5 Brook Trout, 7 Rainbow Trout, and 1 Creek Chub.






All were caught on a gold Springbrook Wunder (microjig)...no indicator.


And most of the fish came from faster water. I spent too much time fishing a single large pool with some decent fish visible. Some were occasionally hitting the surface. I drifted a beetle imiation through the pool a number of times with no interest from the fish. I tried a bunch of other stuff, and the only thing that seemed to get the fish interested was a beadhead Pearl Bugger. No strikes, but boy they sure liked to follow and look at that. Compared with ignoring my other offerings, I though I was onto something. Again....I spent way to long at that pool. It was the closest deeper pool to the parking area. Highest fishing pressured hole on the whole stream, most likely. I knew better, but was too lazy to move on. I had to get back to the hotel to pick up my wife before check-out time anyway.

Of course I almost never take a photo of the "boring" or "typical" stretches of the stream, but at least you can see something from these pics:

There's a line of big eletrical poles going right down through the stream in the section I fished. Fortunately, the poles anchor fish habitat in some spots.










And below is the pool where I overspent my time. If you can zoom in, you can see a bunch of fish in the middle of the pool. Many are suckers, and some are trout.