Friday, March 29, 2013

First Flyrod Fish of 2013!

Got back from a family Spring Break vacation earlier this week (will blog about that soon!).  Finally, the local ponds and lakes are starting to open up.  Some still have ice on them, a few are completely ice-free.

Wednesday (March 27) after work, I visited a local pond with my flyrod for about 45 minutes.  There was ice covering about 1/4 of the pond.  I walked beyond it to start fishing.  First cast with a chartreuse microjig/indicator resulted in a Crappie.
Not a jumbo, but fun all the same.  I ended up with 10 crappies and 4 bluegills.

On Thursday, I flyfished a different pond during my lunch hour.  That pond was 60%+ ice-covered, and the open water shoreline was ringed with about 20' of floating weedy/algae/gunk.  Messy fishing.  I landed just one Bluegill.

Thursday evening I flyfished the same pond as the previous evening.  All the ice was gone, although a neighboring pond about 100 feet away was still 50% ice-covered.  I flyfished for @ 2.25 hours.  For awhile it was a fish on nearly every cast.  I ended up catching at least 30 Crappies and at least 23 Bluegills.


The fish were in shallow water near shore and were aggressive.  Most fish came on the chartreuse microjig/indicator rig, but I also caught a few of each species on this:

I am SO glad to once again be flyfishing in open water!
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5 comments:

  1. JoshMarch 29, 2013 at 1:58 PM

    I like the photo of that fly! Ice on a pond. It's March, lol. I'm freezing my kiester off wading streams. I tend to do well catching crappie on chartreuse Clousers.

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  2. JoshMarch 29, 2013 at 2:01 PM

    Looking at your pics on Photobucket. Man, you've got some great ones.

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  3. FishnDaveMarch 29, 2013 at 2:06 PM

    Thanks, Josh! Last year we had an extremely early and extremely warm Spring...wich sort of spoiled me and raised (and then crushed) my expectations for this year. I have at times also done well with #10 and #8 Craft Fur Clousers for crappies...tied with beadchain eyes. Chartreuse is generally the best color, but in some waters other colors are also effective.

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  4. GreggApril 4, 2013 at 12:43 PM

    That Bow River Bugger, almost-very similar, is a cool. Nice report! We had a bugger of a cold January that had ponds frozen until late Feb. but I'm catching carp now, actually since mid feb. where springs warm one up a bit. No sunfish for me yet, I don't try for them usually but they do take carp flies very often, and love it.

    Gregg

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  5. FishnDaveApril 4, 2013 at 1:12 PM

    I had to look up what a Bow River Bugger was. Dang, that pattern DOES look REALLY good! I will have to tie some up!

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