Bowfin!
Bowfin were on my "bucket list" for many years. I finally caught a baby one (@ 4") on my fly rod earlier this year with the help of my buddy Hamilton.
A week ago, I visited a new spot, and saw many bowfin surfacing. Water was really muddy. I didn't catch any. When water is muddy, bowfin rely on their sense of smell. So, I bought some lure scent to add to my flies if that became necessary.
I fished the same place this weekend. Water was again still really muddy. I caught the first bowfin on an unscented fly, a white Conehead Zuddler streamer fly. After that, I added scent to see if it helped. It certainly didn't hurt. I ended up catching 2 more bowfin on an Erny's Full Metal Jacket streamer fly, and lost at least 5 others that shook free. Pretty awesome! Biggest one measured 24.5".
More info...I was using a fast action 9wt fly rod, 20 lb fluorocarbon tippet. The first bowfin of the day (the pictures are not in sequence) was caught by casting out towards deeper water away from shore and slowly stripping the fly in near the bottom. I moved to another smaller, shallower pool, and so the rest of the fish/strikes, I usually only had a few inches of fly line out of the end of the fly rod, and was just pendulum-swinging the heavy fly out to work the area.
Wow! Definitely one of the toughest fish to get on fly. Congrats!
ReplyDeleteSo no wire, just straight 20# flouro! Bold move, but if you got 8 or 9 strikes total I'd say it probably helped. That "Full Metal Jacket" fly looks like a good compromise between weedlessness and hookability - with that little bit of shank exposed giving just enough protection, I might have to tie up some of those. And even though it seems to be designed as a hook-point-up fly, it looks like you hooked the lower jaw or the tongue in that one picture. I'm not opposed to scents on flies in general, although I have never tried it, but especially when it comes to bowfin - I have to drive 3-4 hours and then paddle an hour to reach a good spot only to find them feeding by scent, you bet I'll try any advantage I can.
Mark, those Erny's Full Metal Jacket flies can be purchased from FeatherCraft...those heads are really heavy. Difficult to cast, even with a 9 weight rod! Good strong hook.
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