Fishing Report, Sept. 22-24, 2010

For the 2nd week in a row, I took Wedn-Fri off work to fish.  Weather was erratic, windy, rainy...to sunny, cool and windy.  The only constant was the wind, but the direction shifted, so that created its own affects on the fishing.
It wasn't quite as good as the previous week, but I still managed to catch 210 fish in the 3 days.  I managed 10 species again, but some of the species were different, compared to last week, and my total species in the past 2 weeks from one lake, fishing from shore, on strictly artificial lures, is 14 species!
This trip yielded the following species:

Smallmouth Bass to 12"

Largemouth Bass to 16"

Crappie to 10.5"

White Bass to 14"

 A DOUBLE of White Bass on a topwater lure:

Here's my buddy Jay with a nice White Bass.

Wipers to 12" (no pics of my fish)

Channel Catfish to 24.5" (all on artificial lures!)

Carp to 18" (check it...they HIT the slab spoon!)

Carpsucker...Foul-hooked on accident, but this counts, since it is actually legal to snag these fish.

Green Sunfish up to 7" long (no pictures taken).

And lastly, a small Yellow Perch around 7" long:

Another excellent fishing adventure, although no fly-fishing this time due to the heavy winds we experienced.



Fishing Log, September 15-17 2010

I took some time off work, and fished for 2.5 days!  Mostly I used spinning gear, fished one nearby lake from shore, and caught 10 species of fish.  I did do a little bit of fly-fishing and caught bass and white bass doing that, which was very fun.
Many of the pics didn't turn out very good, I'm not sure why.  I thought maybe the camera lens was dirty, but then later some pics turned out really good.  So I'm thinking maybe it had to do with water vapor condensation clouding the lens?  Either that, or it was having a tough time with its Autofocus whenever I used the timer to get myself in the pictures.

Anyway, for the largemouth bass and white bass, I often caught so many, I couldn't keep an accurate count.  So, each day I guesstimated what I caught for those species as closely as I could, without OVERestimating the number...so while I may have caught over 100 white bass one day, for instance....I ended up entering "70" in my Fishing Log.  Even so, I logged 299 fish in 2.5 days of fishing.  It was very fun!
Here's some pics (there were lots):

I caught a few walleyes, the biggest was 14.5":

I caught a small 17.5" Northern Pike (and it managed to cover itself in sand and mud before I was able to get the picture, as did a few other fish later on):

Smallmouth Bass up to 13"....in fact the biggest one hit a topwater lure:

Largemouth Bass up to 16.25".  They are always very fat and healthy from this lake.

I caught just a couple Wipers, biggest were probalby only 12"-13":

I caught a BUNCH of White Bass up to 14.25", quite a few on topwater lures, which is very exciting...and some on flies, as I mentioned before.

I even had a couple of DOUBLES of White Bass on topwater lures!

And I caught a Yellow Bass:

A 10.5" Crappie:

A couple really nice 8" Bluegills:

And a feisty Green Sunfish:

New Species for Me!

I went fly-fishing last night to a local public pond I've fished many many times in the last few years.  I sometimes think I just might know every fish in there by name!  It is a city-owned pond, and was originally stocked in about 2003 with Largemouth Bass, Crappies, Bluegills, and Channel Catfish.  That's all I've ever caught from there.
Last night I caught a 9.5" sunfish (a good 1.5" bigger than any bluegill I've caught there!), that is either a Redear Sunfish, or a hybrid Redear Sunfish x Bluegill.  Either way, its a new fish species for me!  I was excited!  I caught it on a yellow Boa Yarn Leech.  I also caught 5 crappies, 4 bluegills, and two tiny largemouth bass.
Here's the new fish:

Lunch-Time Fishing Report 9/8/2010

I went fishing (just now) during my lunch-hour to a local public pond. I haven’t been there for a long time. Its the one that all the BIG bluegills got harvested out of a year or two back. There was some good catfish in there too, as well as a few jumbo grass carp.


What I saw today was reasonably clear water, TONS of algae ringing the pond, extending even further out than I've ever seen before, although there was a 10' gap between shore and the algae mats, so it looks like maybe some effort was made to "rake in" the stuff close to shore?

I did see some decent, but not HUGE, bass, some smallish bluegills, and a couple of very small grass carp (must have been stocked this year). I actually got the grass carp to take a few looks at one floating fly, but they didn't hit, and finally left the area.

I did catch a 13" bass on a #8 Sparrow variation, and small bluegill on a rubber legged beadchain-eye nymph.

Check out the ducks in the background...they weren't scared of me at all!

And even small bluegills can be VERY colorful!

Shad-Imitator Fly Pattern

White Bass are a HOOT on fly-gear! I'm always looking for a pattern that is fairly easy to tie and looks like a good shad imitator. I've tied up a good number of different patterns that imitate shad to some degree, and for various reasons, haven't cared much for them. They probably would all catch fish, but I admit I've been doing more fly-tying for white bass than actually FLY-FISHING for white bass. Its been windy, and much of the time when fishing for white bass, a quick long cast is essential, which means spinning gear usually wins out over the fly-fishing gear. Hopefully I'll find good conditions for the fly-gear soon.

A side benefit of fishing with shad-looking lures/flies for white bass here is that you might also catch smallmouth bass, wipers, largemouth bass, walleyes, or channel catfish.  Maybe even big crappies!


I tied up some of Ward Bean's "The Jointed Minnow" in the shad colors this weekend, and I decided I like them! Now I need to see if the fish like them as well as I do. I tied these in 3" and 4" sizes. These are big enough, I think even my buddy "Swimbait" Jay will like them!