Mid- to Late-May 2018

After a long cold spring that saw ice on local waters into April, we had some record high temps in the middle and latter part of May....temps that reached into the mid 90's F.

Flyfishing the local public ponds has been at times excellent, and other times rather slow.  But that's fishing.

Channel catfish have often been sighted, but they aren't as aggressive as I wish they were.  I'm struggling to get them to strike a fly. Did catch one.

Carp were going strong, but have recently slowed down.

Bass are finishing up their spawning and are starting to feed more aggressively, even taking topwater with regularity.  These are the 3 largest ones in the past couple weeks.

18"+:

17.75":

17":

Lucked into a nice crappie that hit my bass popper one evening.

Some hybrid sunfish are guarding nests, and some seem to be feeding over open water.

Pumpkinseed Sunfish are nesting.

Early May 2018

Early May has been (mostly) warm, occasionally cool, some light rain every few days....more of a typical "Spring" that we had heretofore been lacking this year.

Bass started guarding beds in most of the local ponds by May 5.  That shut the bass bite down considerably for me, but some have still been caught.

Bluegills have been pretty active...not quite nesting yet.
I did catch this dandy 9.25" Pumpkinseed Sunfish:

Pumpkinseed Sunfish, 9.25"

Crappies have been hitting well, with the males now seemingly guarding nests (I haven't seen them on nests, but they are hitting really close to shore, so I assume this is what is happening).

I finally caught my first flyrod Channel Catfish of the year, 19":

I caught the catfish while flyfishing for carp.  They are SO MUCH FUN!  The biggest one recently has been this 28.5-incher:

And some other ones in the 25-27.5" range (one fatty was only 23.5", but made up for it in GIRTH) ;o)

All the carp and the catfish were caught on Hybrid Carp Fly pattern variations:

Overall, the fishing has been fun...fairly steady....nothing "lights out amazing".  I'll take it!

Took a Couple Days off Work

...and went fishing.

Day One:
Jay and I fished Saylorville Lake from shore/wading.  We flyfished for carp.  I got 4 (lost a 5th after a long fight),

Jay got one too!

Jay busted out the spinning gear for Largemouth Bass.  He got 6 good ones and lost another 3.  I brought my fly rod over with a popper...cast it right where Jay told me to (GREAT GUIDE!), and caught 4 good largemouth bass (only took a picture of the first one).

White bass started busting WAY OUT towards deeper water.  No chance of casting a fly THAT far!  Jay put on a slab spoon and started catching white bass and catfish.  I had no choice...I made the long walk back to my car to retrieve a spinning rod and some lures (first time using a spinning rod this year!).  I put on a slab spoon as well, and threw out just as far as I could.  If I didn't cast far enough, no strike.  If I cast far enough, a fish would often hit withing the first 20' of the retrieve.  The rest of the cast was wasted.  To give you an idea how far you can throw a slab spoon with spinning gear and 8lb Fireline...ITS A LONG FREAKING WAY...so far, many times we could only hear the faint splash, and not actually SEE it anymore!  I caught some nice white bass...measured one at 15", one may have been bigger.  And I caught a 22" channel cat on it as well.

Later that evening, I flyfished a local public pond and caught another bass or two, some bluegills, a pumpkinseed sunfish, and a hybrid sunfish.  7 species for the day!

Day 2:
Despite the river being low, with only a 2 CFS flow rate, I decided to wade it for Smallmouth Bass.  It did rain this morning, after all.  That is probably why the water was cloudier than I would have expected.  And there was...not a LOT of water in the river, but enough to allow the fish to move wherever they wanted, IF they wanted to cross some shallow water.
I usually prefer to fish a popper for Smallmouth, but today I went subsurface most of the time...with a small shad-imitating craft fur pattern, and a chartreuse weighted fly.  I did catch one on a Popper near the end of the section I waded.  The bass were mostly little ones this time, and I did catch a chunky largemouth too.

Next, I drove downstream to an old gravel pit adjacent to the river.  It is sometimes actually connected to the river.  Here, I caught a couple small Largemouth Bass, some bluegills (some where still guarding spawning beds!), and was surprised when a 15" beautifully colored Smallmouth hit...What a strong fighter!!