August 26, 2010, Evening Shore-Fishing

My buddy Jay called me last night. He was out at the lake again to go fishing...he had just left his car and was walking towards the fishing spot. He's on the phone talking to me, and he pauses, and I hear this dog barking, and then all sorts of commotion, yelling, screaming, cussing, etc. in the background. I say "Are you alright???" Jay says,"A dog just attacked me and bit me!" Jay never made any of the noises or cussing, that was the dogs owners. Jay just kept walking. Jay showed me the tooth-hole in just below the ass off his jeans when I got out there. I saw the dog, it was good-sized! Anyway...it was funny to be hearing all that through the phone!


So, we fished again. We didn't catch much for numbers, but they almost all fair-sized fish.

Four species tonight...Wiper, White Bass, Largemouth Bass, and Smallmouth Bass. Pop-R's did a good job again, and we also caugth a few on Mepps spinners.

We both forgot our cameras, so I took these pics with my cell phone.

15" Wiper:

Smallmouth Bass (chunky!):

Largemouth Bass (chunky!):

White Bass (chunky!):

Shore-Fishing - 8/25/2010

I thought about trying to fish from shore at the local reservoir last night.  My buddy Jay had mentioned the high water levels had finally dropped enough that you could actually FISH from shore at last!  After work, I called him up to see if he wanted to go.  He was already there.  He said the biting flies were HORRIBLE.  So, I grabbed a can of OFF for him, put on some jeans and a long-sleeve t-shirt, and headed for the lake.

By the time I got there, Jay had already caught Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, White Bass, and Walleye.  He was having good success with both a #3 Mepps spinner, and a TNT slab spoon.  I switched between the Mepps and a Pop-R topwater lure.  Both caught fish.  Lost a few nice Largemouth Bass, but ended up landing a few, plus a Smallmouth Bass, White Bass, a little Walleye, and a YELLOW BASS!

Here's some pics from our evening of fishing:

Smallmouth Bass:

Largemouth Bass:

Jay's Walleye was quite a bit bigger than mine!

And the Yellow Bass...we usually only catch maybe one of these each year from this reservoir:

The White Bass I caught were all less than 12", so I didn't take any pictures of them.

It was a very fun night.  And fish hitting on topwaters is always exciting!

More Backyard Bugs - Aug. 15th, 2010

Here's some more critter-pics I took over the last week:

Common Buckeye Butterfly

Japanese Beetle (and ant)

Cicada

Viceroy Butterfly (its a Monarch "mimic")

Painted Lady Butterfly

Yikes!  Creepy spider!

And the following are pics I took in low light of a fast-moving White-Lined Sphinx Hummingbird Moth.  None of the pictures are that good, but still sort of interesting:

Weekend pics - 8/6 and 8/7/2010

Didn't go fishing, but did some scouting for where I could possibly launch my kayak on a local reservoir.  The lake has been super-high all season, and we just got about 4.25" of additional rain last night.
Anyway, I saw a couple of deer.  Although the 2nd deer was a buck, and was much closer, I figured he'd run if I slowed my pace while walking by him, so I didn't bother pulling my camera out on it.  Here's a doe:

And a Red Admiral Butterfly that was sunning itself late in the evening:

And this is another pic of the Milkweed Bugs in my backyard.  Colorful critters.

I fly-fished with my friend Jenni last night. I had REALLY hoped to get her a grass carp last night. Had some follows, but no hook-ups. BUMMER! But she also wanted to catch a bass. So, I put a bass popper on her leader, told here where to stand, where to cast. She walked down the rocks to the water's edge, had the fly resting on the water while she adjusted her feet to some "comfortable rocks"...and a bass took the popper right in front of her! She was VERY happy!

She let me catch the next one, which I estimated at 17":

She fished for more bass, and had something BIG on for a solid minute...maybe 2, but it eventually broke her line. Later on, she spotted the popper floating, and was able to cast out and retrieve it!

I fished for the grass carp for much of the time, but finally switched to bluegills and hybrid sunfish. I was catching them within seconds of the fly landing in the water. San Juan worm worked really good.

While fighting a 7” bluegill on my fly rod, I saw something chase the fish near shore, so I let it swim and struggle a bit longer…and the bigger fish grabbed it. He then swam slowly but directly to the complete opposite side of the pond while I fed line. After a minute or so over there, he started swimming back along one edge of the pond, and I started retrieving line. He got into an area where I was concerned he might tangle me up in some cables, so I started putting pressure on him. He started fighting. I was concerned the bluegill was just still in his mouth, and that he would spit it out. But, I landed it! Just the very tip of the bluegill’s tail was sticking out of the bass’s throat. I tried to gently pull the bluegill out of the bass’s stomach, but it wasn’t going to come out easy (thanks to the bluegill’s dorsal spines!), so I just cut my line and let the bass keep his meal. Pretty cool! I measured it at 19"!

Then we started talking about how she really wanted to catch a catfish, and wondered what fly would work best. I explained how I usually just catch them while fly-fishing for bluegills. And then I caught one!

End of July, 2010

Just some random pics from then end-of-the-month that I wanted to share.  I know...It isn't FISHING.  Part of the fun of fishing is being surrounded by nature. And that is what these pics are...only they are the "nature" found in my own backyard.  What's in yours?

Monarch Butterfly

Red Admiral Butterfly

Painted Lady Butterfly

Viceroy Butterfly

Immature Milkweed Bugs

A bright pepper from the "garden".

And...a couple different Rose of Sharon flowers:

Lighting Show - July 23, 2010

Lightning pictures are COOL.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get good pics of lightning (except the first pic) by clicking the shutter, so I had to settle for lower quality photos by saving off individual frames from AVI movies I shot with my little digital camera.  Better than nuthin'!  :o)

2010 National Ballon Classic - Indianola, Iowa

How often do you ever get to see more than maybe one or two hot-air ballons in the sky at the same time?  Well, Saturday evening, 7-31-2010, was the "Mass Ascension".  I'm not sure exactly how many lifted off, but I have a picture or two where I can count over 70, and I KNOW that wasn't all of them!  We think there may have been around 100?