2011 Fall Fishing Season Starting

It has been cool lately.  It feels like Fall.  Hopefully we'll get a nice "Indian Summer", as we have the past few years.  The fish have started to behave like THEY know what's coming.  They are starting to feast a little more aggressively.  The bass seem more active.  The crappies are becoming more active in the shallows where I fish.  The catfish have actually become a bit less active.

I fly-fished a local public pond last night.  Started fishing around 7pm, and fished until 8:15pm.  First fish was a crappie on a chartreuse microjig.  Then a small but really strong bass.

In the golden light of evening....

 And then a bluegill.  If ONLY these 3 species were followed up in succession by a green sunfish, channel catfish, hybrid sunfish and grass carp, I would have hit the GAME WINNING ULTRA MEGA GRAND SLAM I'M THE COOLEST GUY IN THE WORLD HOME RUN!!  Didn't happen, but a guy can dream, right?  I did spook some large fish along the shore that I suspect were grass carp.  I didn't see THEM until they were spooked, of course.  Uggg!  I shake a frustrated fist in their general direction and take deep breaths to maintain some fishing zen-ness.

I caught several more fish on the microjig, but wanted to try a few other patterns I had tied recently.  One was an all-chartreuse unwieghted Woolly Bugger.  I really thought this would work well at this pond if the fish were shallow.  I had some bumps on it, but the fish weren't too hot on it.  I still think it could be good, so I'll try it again some other day.

I switched to a yellow boa yarn leech, which historically has done very well for me at this pond, but not so much this year.  Consequently, I haven't been using it as much this year.  But it has repeatedly proven itself to be a killer pattern for me, so ....on my line it went.

The light was pretty much gone from the sky at at this point, and I started moving more quickly around the pond to get back (the long way) to my car, stopping to cast every so often.  I picked up several more crappies, a few bluegills, and another bass.  Not super-fast action yet, but its got that feeling to it.  The fish are definitely moving back in closer to shore, and the weedbeds/algae mats along the shoreline have nearly disappeared.  Its all good, and I expect the action to just continue to get better over the next month.

Stay tuned!  ;o)