The water was calm for a change...wind was only 1-3mph. I hoped this would help me spot bigger fish working in the shallows. Water clarity was considerably reduced from the past weekend's rain/wind storms. I definitely could have caught a lot more crappies and bluegills, but I quickly switched to a bass-sized foam popper and fished that until dark. The reason was this...I must have seen more than a half-dozen Giant Black Water Beetles either in the water or flying to/from it. This may not sound like a major "hatch". As much time as I spend around water, you'd think this would be a common sight...but I rarely ever see them, and NEVER this many. These are HUGE beetles. They look like this:
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| This is not my picture. Credit goes to this blogsite: |
They are about 1.5" long. With this many big bugs around the edge of the water (I'm certain there were a LOT more than just what I saw in a few glances around in the near-darkness), I figured the bigger fish might be feasting on them. That's why I was using the bass-sized foam popper. Long story short, I didn't catch any big fish. I did catch some bluegills and crappies on the popper, and missed a LOT of strikes from these smaller fish.
After about an hour, I moved over to the smaller pond about 30 yards south of the larger one. Water clarity there was also severely diminished compared to my last trip here. I saw evidence of decent-sized fish, but caught only some bluegills on a yellow boa yarn leech. There were a mix of sizes...6"-8.5". I also saw a toad swim across the pond unmolested, and had a muskrat snagged on my line for a few exciting seconds.
Overall, it was a pretty uneventful evening. The most exciting part was those Giant Black Water Beetles!
Cool! My first experience in an angling manner with these was while cleaning an office as a part time job while going to college in Alaska, on a desk was a preserved huge beetle and a note stating it was from a 3lb. rainbow from a one Quartz Lake south of Fairbanks. Later, while there with my wife and young kids, a similar sized trout was kept (shame on me, nice holdovers, would not do that now,) with another huge water beetle inside. A bulky muskrat bodied soft hackle, a huge one, would probably do the trick, the fur catching air on the way down.
ReplyDeleteGregg