Evening Fly-Fishing Report, 5-28-2012

Post-frontal, dropping temps, substantial winds...  The bane to comfortable fly fishing.
The seemingly incessant winds are getting old.  I got out to do some flyfishing in the evening anyway.

I started with a the Bass Gurgler, trying to fish it close to shore that was was slightly protected from the winds, but had no takers along one stretch of shoreline, so I changed to a #8 black Daedalian Damsel with beadchain eyes.  Put it under an indicator to help moderate its speed, depth, and drag in the water.  This worked ok.

I ended up catching 20+ Bluegills on that, mostly 8"+ deep-bodied males:

...but also the occasional female.  In fact, the biggest one I caught last night was a female bluegill that was just barely shy of 9":

I also landed 3 largemouth bass up to 15", and had another one shake free right in front of me next to shore.

After dark, the last spot I fished was an area that crappies like to spawn around.  I had a really nice fish on here for a few seconds before the hook pulled free.

The coolest thing was that when the wind was really howling, there were quite a few big grass carp porpoising on the surface.  Appeared to be a feeding behavior since I could often see their mouths open wide before they dove under again, but it could have been some sort of air-gulping behavior.  I've not heard of grass carp gulping air like a gar or buffalo might do...so I don't want to say this IS what they were doing.

The water was pretty muddy (visibility only about 12"), plus the low light and choppy surface didn't help.  I could ONLY see the fish when they surfaced...then they immediately disappeared again.  And as seems to almost always be the case with these wily fish, they were almost always beyond casting distance from me.  On a calm evening, I might have been able to reach them...but not with the big cross-wind I was battling last night.  These Grass Carp continue to TAUNT ME and HAUNT ME!

Also saw several large snapping turtles.  One was so big I started fishing next to it, thinking it was a big rock in the water.  Then I noticed the head and neck start to move.  It's shell was fairly smooth and covered with stringy algae. The smooth shell made me wonder if it was a big mud turtle or something OTHER than a snapper?  Big head and neck on it!

Another thing about this pond...last time here there was quite a bit of weed growth around the pond edges.  This time nearly all the weeds were gone, and much of the algae was also gone.  This makes me relatively certain the City has been on this pond and sprayed chemicals for weed control...maybe about a week ago.  Just when the crappie, bass, and bluegill fry are needing some place to hide for protection from predators!