Last Week of June, 2015

Algae blooms are forming broad mats along the shorelines of many of the public ponds I flyfishing.  It makes fishing and landing fish difficult.  But not impossible.
I've tried unsuccessfully for more Grass Carp.  Largemouth Bass are becoming increasingly aggressive towards topwaters.  Bluegills and Hybrid Sunfish, too.  Some sunfish are still hanging out near nesting areas, but I think the main spawn is mostly over.  A much smaller percentage of the population may continue to spawn sporadically for the remainder of the summer.

Hybrid Sunfish:

A 10" Bluegill!! :

And Largemouth Bass up to 18":

Blockhead Bass - September 2, 2014

The Fall White Bass fishing extravaganza is going on here, so I've been focusing on them lately.  It had been 3 full weeks since I'd tried flyfishing for bass on the local ponds.  Last night I had a short timeframe for fishing...not enough time to chase the White Bass, so I hit a local pond with a fly rod and a Blockhead Popper.

I was happy to discover the fish are still very willing to strike topwaters.  I flyfished for just over an hour, and caught 7 Largemouth Bass, 3 Bluegills, 1 Crappie, and 1 Hybrid Sunfish.  The biggest bass measured 18", and was the biggest one I've landed from this pond so far:

Flyrod Bass Poppers-2

My friend Dale S. gave me a tool/jig he built to aid in cutting foam "flip-flops" into shape for blockhead-style poppers.  He even gave me some flip-flop pieces in all the good colors!

Well, I'd been very interested to try making some of these poppers and trying them on the local fish, so I had to sit down and cut some up right away.

Wow, it worked great!  I quickly cut @ a dozen heads in just a couple minutes!  The tops and bottoms are angled....I can see I may need to also angle the sided, but there was some cool texture on one side that I kind of wanted to keep.  I can trim some more in different ways later.

Here's the first one I tied up:

I think it should work really well.  Yesterday I went fishing during lunch, and hadn't packed this new popper into my flybox/sling pack yet.  I resorted to using one of the poppers I mentioned in my previous blog entry.  Conditions were extremely tough at the public pond I fished, with a 25' wide solid band of floating algae mat on the surface around the entire pond perimeter!  I found a couple openings in it, and saw some decent bass around one of them.  First cast with the popper...I could see a bass come up to look it over...it slowly moved forward, I just let the popper sit...and the bass sucked it in, turned and dove.  Fish ON!  :)

It was a nice 17" bass!

Anyway, I hope to try the blockhead popper soon.  Another huge THANK YOU to Dale for the awesome foam cutting jig!!

Fly Rod Bass Poppers

In the comments of my previous blog post, Mel from the Pond Stalker (http://pondstalker.blogspot.com/ ) blog inquired about what popper I've been using for catching bass on the fly rod from my local waters.

A couple years back, I started tying and using this style (introduced to me by James Smith from Georgia):

These have worked REALLY well for me at times, and I've caught bass up to @ 19" on them.  They have some bulk to them that pushes water, the foam sheet lips form a popping mouth, and the the marabou tail and boa yarn belly area give the impression of movement even when the popper is at rest on the surface.  They cast almost like a wet sock, however.  I do like them!

HOWEVER, this year I've been fishing with bass poppers I've tied using pre-fabbed (store bought) foam heads.  This is just one example I tied up last night, but it's pretty typical of what I've been using all season:

Just a marabou tail, the popper body, and some rubber legs is all that is needed.  Its smaller and somewhat more compact than the first popper I mentioned.  I use a Tiemco (or Umpqua) 8089 Bass Bug Hook in a size #10....although I would probably use a #8 if I could.  I think they may only make this hook in sizes #10, #6, and #2.
Don't let the hook size fool you.  That style of hook is much bigger than normal hooks.  I've read that the size #6 compares to about a 2 or 1 in other hook styles.

Anyway...I can't recall off-hand who manufactures the foam head/bodies.  I buy them at the local Sportsmans Warehouse.
I did some searching on-line, and found some similar ones:
https://store-ff6ab.mybigcommerce.com/flybass-flat-belly-poppers-12-pack-4-colors/

http://www.flybass.com/rainys-bass-pops-pre-shaped-6-pack/

One key to the design seems to be the flat belly.  It helps the popper maintain proper position in the water, and allows for reasonable hook gap to improve hooking percentage.  Bass are bass...and they will still throw this fly sometimes.  The ones I use look just like these...but this picture came from an eBay seller's page:

They are very quick & easy to tie, durable, float all day, and cast reasonably well with a 5 or 6wt fly rod.
I've caught a lot of bass on them already this season, and my biggest bass so far on one measured 20", which is a REALLY nice bass for Iowa, especially considering it came from a heavily fished public pond in town.

Although I consider it to be a "small" bass popper, its generally too big for bluegills to manage.  I still catch some on it occasionally, and last week I had an 8.5" Bluegill completely inhale it...the whole thing in its mouth, lips closed!!  That was bizarre.  I've also caught smallmouth bass, green sunfish, crappies, and even a couple of channel catfish on these poppers.  Check out my previous blog entries for pictures of these in fishes' mouths.

Good luck!  :)

Carp & Bass, 6-25-2014

Flyfished a local city pond yesterday evening.  Caught some bluegills and a nice 24.5" Carp before switching to a popper for the dusk Bass bite.