Monday, March 21, 2011

Weekend Update, 3/18 and 3/20/2011

Friday after work, I fly-fished the upper end of DMACC Pond in Ankeny, Iowa. I hoped to find some trout up in that area, and did see a handful of fish hitting something(s) on the surface, but the water wasn't very clear, so I don't really know what the fish were. I WANT to believe it was trout....but all I caught was 4 bluegills on nymph patterns and gold metallic patterns.  The bluegills were fun.



Sunday, I fly-fished for about 1.5 hours at Copper Creek Lake. Passed a couple guys with fishing rods on my way in, they said they hadn't caught anything, the fish weren't biting. It was slow, I caught 1 small bass, 2 medium-sized bluegills, and a 10" crappie:

It was crazy what the fish were hitting on.  The bass took a nymph pattern.  The bluegill sucked in an entire black-over-gray Craft Fur Clouser Deep Minnow pattern, and the crappie took a Beadhead Prince Nymph!

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Around 5:45pm, I hopped over to a local public pond to fly-fish. It was slow, too. A couple guys fished with spinning/baitcasting gear for awhile, and between the two of them they caught 1 bass.

I landed 8 crappies, 3 bluegills, 1 green sunfish, and 2 largemouth bass. The bigger bass was 15.5", and hit just at dark (cell phone pic):
I caught EVERYTHING on a chartreuse Craft Fur Clouser Deep Minnow pattern.

 
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And Monday, 3/21/2011 lunch report (I know...it isn't really a "weekend update" if I include Monday lunch, but I don't want to make a new blog entry just for one picture)...

Fly-fished local public pond with buddy Ben. Caught 5+ crappies and 6+ green sunfish, including this one I didn't measure, but its one of the larger green sunfish I've caught recently:


I caught most of the fish on a Myakka Minnow pattern...metallic body (covered in Clear Cure Goo epoxy alternative) and chartreuse marabou tail.  Hopefully Ben is still out there reeling in fish-after-fish!

2 comments:

  1. The power of the fly.. everyone else will say they caught nothing.. while you can't keep'em off.. them old folks on the docks don't look happy when im slamming them after hearing they haven't caught a single fish all day... really glad to find another midwest warm-water fly fisherman

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  2. It's been a pretty common experience for me. Catching fish with fly gear when most folks aren't catching anything. Its one of the reasons I finally decided to spend the bulk of my efforts using fly-fishing gear. I recognized that presenting a small, nearly weightless presentation to fish, with (usually) slow movement was irresistable to the fish. They could get an easy meal with little effort on their part. What's not for them to like? :)
    Their are other fish that usually prefer a faster presentation...white bass, wipers, and often smallmouth bass, for example. Just gotta adjust your patterns and retrieves a bit.

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