Catfish (on Flies) for Lunch

During my lunch hour today, I went to the carp pond hoping to flyfish for....more carp.  Saw mud clouds and bubbles, but can't say that I actually definitely saw a carp this time.

Had a few decent strikes that I missed...who knows what they could have been.

I caught some bluegills and Hybrid Sunfish that were near/on nests...and 3 Channel Catfish that were hiding down in (and so probably MAKING) some of the mud clouds I was probing (with the fly) for carp!

Multiple Channels Cats on flies...during lunch??  YES PLEASE!

All fish were caught on a John Montana's Hybrid Carp Fly.

Verified...Redear Sunfish!

I mentioned in this post from a week or so ago:
http://www.fishndave.blogspot.com/2015/06/19-largemouth-bass-on-bluegill-topwater.html
...that I suspected there may be a few Redear Sunfish in a certain nearby pond.  I finally got back to try and catch one of these spooky fish, and DID!  I caught just one...a 9-incher...and they are indeed Redears.  I've only seen maybe 6 nesting only in a certain area. I suspect they may have been stocked from elsewhere...and at this point I'm not even sure if there are any females in the pond or not...so it may not be a reproducing population.  Because of that end, I will keep this pond under my hat.

I've been flyfishing the local public ponds in my city, starting in 2006 (so, 10 years now!).  It was only about 3 years ago that I discovered a series of connected ponds have Pumpkinseed Sunfish in them.  They are beautiful fish not commonly found in the area lakes and reservoirs, so that was a really nice surprise to find a population of them locally.  I always hoped I'd find some Redear Sunfish too....they get big and fight hard, but can be difficult to entice to strike a fly, except when they are nesting.  There are some of these in lakes within an hour or so drive of where I live, but I usually prefer to spend my time fishing rather than driving so I generally fish close to home.  I say all this just as background to help understand why I think finding them in a nearby pond is SO AWESOME!

Anyway...so that started off my day on a high note.  Since most of the fish that were on nests scattered when I approached, I put an indicator above a microjig to fish the far side of the weedline to see if I could get a female Redear or one of the males that had just vacated the shallows.  I didn't get anymore Redears, but the indicator dropped down, and set the hook, and a nice fish shot out for the middle of the pond.  I couldn't stop it on that first run!  Strong fish!  Turned out to be a 20" FAT Channel Catfish...my 2nd Channel Cat on a fly within 5 days.

I also caught a couple bass on poppers, and found some pretty nice bluegills.

After leaving this pond, I picked up my buddy Jay, and we fished Saylorville Lake.  Using spinning gear, I caught a White Bass, Jay caught at least 3 more plus a Freshwater Drum.  But most of the time we were flyfishing for carp.  We saw plenty of them, but they pretty much ignored everything we showed them.  I dropped a fly down in front of one that was feeding in some heavy flooded vegetation.  The carp dropped down to the fly, I set the hook, and it took off for open water.  My excitement was short-lived...it became unhooked in about 3 seconds.  Bummer!

And then in the evening, my buddy Chad sends me a message asking where I'm going to fish that evening.  It had been a long day out in the sun already... but its tough to resist a fishing invitation!  So, back out I went.  Chad flyfished poppers for bass, so I flyfished for bluegills with a yellow Boa Yarn Leech.  I did well, and so did Chad.  In addition to bass, he managed a Bluegill on that large popper!  I ended up catching 4 bass along with the bluegills.

It had been a very enjoyable day of fishing!

Lunchtime Drum! 9-27-2012

I went flyfishing during lunch today.  I visited a spot I hadn't fished since Spring.  I spotted some Common Carp and/or Smallmouth Buffalo near shore.  I put a conehead-weighted black nymph near them.  I think I had some looks, possibly a subtle hit..but no hookups.

I switched to Missouriflies.com's "Black Ops" fly that I had tied to be weedless with his monofilament "Y" technique.  Check out his blog/website if you want to see the fly pattern (and lots of other great ones), video instructions for tying the weedguard, ...and some fantastic videos of him catching Grass Carp, Common Carp, Gar, and other species on flies.  Really GREAT stuff!

Within a few casts, I had a "pecking" type strike.  I set the hook and watched what I thought to be a small crappie come to the surface.  Not a crappie, though.  A small Freshwater Drum!!

If you've been following along and paying attention, you've probably heard me say several times this year that I'd really like to add Freshwater Drum to my list of species I have caught on a fly rod.  Even though it was a small fish, I was really excited...it made my day!  This was it...the first one!

This one has pretty yellow pelvic and anal fins.

A Weedless Black Ops does the trick!

I made a few more blind casts around (having spooked the Carp / Buffalo).  Next fish was a small but chunky Largemouth Bass.  Something was chasing shad around...could have been this guy!  I didn't take his picture.

A few casts later, I got a nice strike, and a really nice fight out of this Channel Catfish:

Yeah...I guess he WANTED it!

Very nice!  Almost time to go...but I had to make a few more casts.  Another strike!  And another Freshwater Drum!!  Still small, but larger than the first one.  I'm guesstimating 10.5"-11".

That weedguard worked fantastic.  In fairness, it really didn't get tested by weeds or snags (since I was fishing over a sandy/silty bottom)...but it hooked fish perfectly!

Notice the shoe?  What...you don't go fishing in your office shoes??  :)

Been looking for Drum throughout the year...and FINALLY got a couple!  Excellent lunchtime flyfishing trip!

Lunchtime FlyFishing Report, 5-30-2012

Last night I fly-fished and saw good numbers of gar, but wasn't able to hook into any of them.  Hopefully next time!

Today, my buddy Jay said, "Today's a good day for you to go after carp!"  Well...why not?  The 7-10 mph winds were the calmest its been in weeks, it was sunny, but only 65 degrees.  Doesn't everyone else wear a Polo shirt, slacks, and casual dress shoes to go carp fishing??

Maybe it helps to look the part of an elitist fly-angler, regardless of target species?  HA!

Anyway, I found feeding carp.  Biggest problem was water clarity.  Deeper than about 4" of water, the fish disappeared.  I could see bubble trails and mud clouds that I hoped indicated feeding carp.  Would they even be able to see a fly more than a few inches away??  Strike detection was a problem when carp don't move much to eat anyway.  Watching for fish movement or opening mouths was definitely out of the question when the fish simply AREN'T visible.  Waa waa waaa...listen to me cry a river over muddy water!

I may have gotten some strikes.  A couple of times I actually bothered to set the hook, I spooked fish.  I may have been a tad late, or the fly may have bumped the fish.  I'll never know.  I did foul-hook one decent carp in the dorsal fin.  It was a fun fight but I was already a bit tardy to head back to work, so I put a lot of pressure on the line, and the fly popped out.

I didn't get skunked.  I caught a small channel catfish.

Evening Fly-Fishing Report, 5-21-2012

I was hoping I'd get a chance to fly fish today.  It was the calmest day we'd had in 2 weeks.
My son had a cancelled extracurricular activity, but I didn't get confirmation of that until I drove him 1/2 hour to get there.  Long story about horrible communication skills by certain people, which I won't detail here.

By the time I got back home, it was 8pm.  I grabbed some mosquito repellant (a.k.a. "cigar"), a few recently tied flies, camera, and headed out the door.

I arrived at the pond to find a couple other folks fishing with spinning gear.  I'm not sure if they ever did catch anything.  I started out with the Bass Gurgler I recently posted about.  Once again it was a fish-catcher.  No biggies this time...but I did land 2 largemouth bass on it, lost a third one near shore, and had a handful of missed strikes.  In that short amount of time, a tot on a Razor scooter stopped behind me to watch.  He no sooner went on his way, when a Dad and son stopped by to watch.  They followed me around  1/3 of the pond, during which time I caught zero fish.  I know, impressive, right?  But I had spotted a grass carp back, and had begun stalking it.  Cast after cast with a deer hair "pellet" fly.  I may have actually gotten one strike on this, but no hookup.  Then I switched to an unweighted white woolly bugger.

When I had arrived at the pond, I noticed a woman on the opposite side of the pond chucking some bread into the water for the ducks.  I actually like to see this, since it often gets the catfish active, and it should get the grass carp active.  But those darn grass carp...frustrate me to no end, and I want to catch more of them SO MUCH!

Anyway, I worked my way around to where the bread was.  Some smaller fish were playing with it.  The grass carp I was stalking was hanging out near it, but about 30 feet further away from shore from the bread.  As I was casting to this grassie, a couple other large fish that I suspect were also grass carp that were slightly deeper, showed their locations with some large rings at the surface.  Eventually (and after my audience finally gave up on me), one or two large fish started coming in closer to shore for the bread.

I cast a bit beyond the floating bits of bread and slowly brought the white woolly bugger back through it.  Sooner than I expected, my line tightened...FAST.  Big fish on!  I didn't want my hooked fish to disturb any other fish in the area more than it needed to, so I immediately started walking the fish down the shoreline away from the area.  This was a strong fish, but mostly slow.  I could walk it around like a dog on a leash, but it would simply parallel shore.  Whenever I leveraged the 6wt to try to get the fish to the surface, it would turn and make a powerful run for deeper water again.  The happened repeatedly, and I still hadn't gotten a visual on the fish.  Plus, it was getting dark.  From the way it was fighting, I was SO SURE it was a grass carp.  I was so happy!  FINALLY hooked another one, after a hiatus of over a year!

I finally got the fish up into the shallows near shore, and it made one more short run before I was able to get my hands on it.  Hands.  I pinned it down with one hand, but couldn't secure a grip across its back (by this time, I realized it was a nice channel catfish instead of a grass carp, and was sort of bummed....but I love catching catfish on the fly rod too).  I set my rod down and got on my knees and put two hands around the fish's midsection, with fingers on either side of its pectoral fins.  With this grip, I was able to lift it onto shore.

This was a really nice male channel catfish.  I measured it at 27", which would put it in the 9-pound range.  I snapped some photos and released it.

I love it when a fish makes my gear look small!

See the beat up white woolly bugger hanging from its lip?

Here I'm holding the fish down so I can hold it still while I photograph it.  Looks like I could have picked it up with one hand...but I really couldn't get an adequate grip with just one hand.

I returned to the breaded area.  A couple nice fish showed up on it, but nothing was feeding quite as aggressively as before.  I switched to a fresh white woolly bugger that was bit larger, since the catfish had beat up the first one pretty good.  I caught at least a dozen crappies on it before I left.  I also caught a couple bluegills, but found it very odd that I foul-hooked almost 10 bluegills!  Its very rare that I foul-hook a bluegill EVER...and to snag that many from one spot was bizarre!  All I can figure is the fish were pecking away at the bread and were either slapping at the fly to break it into smaller pieces, or were oblivious to my line/fly passing near them while they were distracted by the bread?

Anyway, its always a great night when one can land a big fish on a fly rod!

Post-Storm Fly-Fishing, 4-15-2012

Saturday I didn't go fishing.  Weather was PERFECT for it.  Light breeze, overcast, humid, big storms moving in later in the day....all these things usually add up to EXCELLENT fishing.  Well...I missed out this time.

Saturday evening gave us high winds that knocked over utility poles, snapped trees, and blew over road signs.  Winds were 39mph with gusts to 56mph.  And rain.  HEAVY rain.  From Saturday evening to Sunday morning we got between 2.84" and 3.43" of rain.  A couple public ponds I drove by showed evidence that they had gone up nearly 2' above normal, and had since receded but were still high.  Water clarity had gone from relatively clear (~2.5') to MUDDY (4").

I headed out to fish after supper for a couple hours...from 5:45pm-7:30pm.  Winds were still high...and gusting.  Horrible conditions for fishing, and probably the main reason I decided to go...because nobody else would be!  Full disclosure...another reason to go was because with all the influx of water into the ponds, I hoped the catfish would be actively feeding in the shallows.

I drove to a nearby public pond and headed to the most wind-protected spot to start fishing.  I started with an unweighted black woolly bugger.  I caught several nice bluegills on it.

...and then broke it off on a submerged log.

I tied on a microjig under an indicator, but didn't catch anything.  I removed the indicator and put on another black woolly bugger.  I caught some more bluegills and a largemouth bass.  By this time I had worked my way around to the side of the pond that the wind was blowing into.  I had a great strike and had a nice fish on for about 7 seconds.  It took my fly with it.  BUMMER!

The wind was really strong here.  I had 2 or 3 casts that didn't reach the water!  I put on an indicator again, and tied on a Black Ops fly http://missouriflies.com/all-products/carp-flies/black-ops-carp-fly .

I caught a bluegill or two on this, and then BAM!  Another nice fish on.  This felt bigger than the one that got off.  As usual, I was hoping for a Grass Carp, but several minutes later when I finally got my first glimpse of the fish, I could see it was a good-sized Channel Catfish.  The battle raged quite a long time.  We strolled together back and forth along the shoreline.  It didn't want to come in! With the water high, there was no good place to land it.  After several failed attempts, I finally did get it to come into the shallows, and as I reached down for it with one hand, my line broke.  Fortunately as the fish turned, it paused for a second and I was able to drop the rod and jam both hands into the muddy water and I luckily found its pectoral fins to grab onto, and lifted it onto shore.  WHEW!

It stayed still in the grass as I took a quick measurement (24") and a couple pictures.  2 websites I found suggested this fish weighed 6.3 pounds.  As thick as this fish was, I'm sure it was ALL of that!

I released her back to the water, and she swam away immediately.  I resumed my fishing, and caught another dozen or so bluegills before I called it quits.  Man...that wind can beat you up!

Fly-Fishing Report, 4-2-2012

When you fish as often as I do, and post reports on most of those trips, it gets really hard to come up with a catchy title for the blog post.  Hence the boring titles I usually use, along with the date of the fishing trip.  Just for kicks, maybe I should start making up completely nonsensical titles that have nothing to do with the post, but may have some comedic value?  How 'bout "Eliot Spitzer Steals Canine Droppings from my Yard"?  Or, "Sasquatch - A Binge Leaf Recycler!"?  "Angry Trout Falls Off an Iowa Mountain"?  "Chew First, Then Swallow"?  "Angler Tells His Version of the Truth"?

I hopped over to a local public pond last night for some evening fly-fishing.  It was good.  Caught plenty of Bluegills and Crappies on a variety of fly patterns.  3 kids (2 girls around 10 years old, 1 boy around 6 years old...totally guessing on these ages, of course) had been working their way around the pond, trying to spot small fish that they were trying to catch with their hands.  They didn't manage to catch anything, but as they worked their way closer to me, they saw me catch a fish, so they ran over to see it.  I probably caught at least a dozen more fish, and they took turns holding the fish and releasing them back to the water.  They all thought that was pretty cool!

Later on, my friend and fellow fly-angler Dale S. stopped by the pond for some fishing.  He was also catching plenty of fish.  He had got a new 12' 5wt (switch?) fly rod, and generously let my give it a try for a bit.  Casting it was interesting...and I managed to catch a few fish while I was at it!  It was getting dark, and Dale had to leave to get some other stuff done.  Before he left, he asked me if this was about the time the catfish had started hitting last week.

I worked around one corner of the pond, catching more fish here and there. It was very dark, and I was about done fishing.  I put on a yellow Boa Yarn Leech, and decided to start working my way back around the pond the way I had come, towards my car.  I cast out, and started looking around at the water, the ducks, the stars...when the surface of the water just EXPLODED about where my fly was as I was slowly working it back in.  Holy Crap!!  For some reason, my first thought in situations like this is "Maybe I accidentally snagged a muskrat?"  Then its, "Maybe its a GRASS CARP!".   As that initial splash subsided, I noticed movement in the water coming right for me.  This was weird, because while I assumed it could be the fish I was fighting, I also felt through my rod that the fish was farther out from shore, and moving to the side.  I turned on my cap light, shined it onto the movement in the water and discovered a very chubby TOAD swimming frantically towards shore from the direction of where the fish had struck my fly.  Maybe the fish had been following the toad when it hit?

It was a fairly long battle...I didn't see the fish for probably 5 solid minutes.  Back and forth...I followed it down the bank for probably 35 yards, scaring a few frogs into the water as I walked along.  In towards shore, then surging back out to deeper water again.  I finally got its head next to the bank once, saw that it was a catfish, got down on my knees to reach down to grab it...and off it ran again.  Dang!  Another couple of minutes passed before I was able to bring it in once again.  I got on my knees again, reached low and grabbed one side of the fish.  No way could I hold it with one hand, so I set my rod down and grabbed the thrashing fish with both hands behind the pectoral fins and hoisted it onto shore.  LANDED!!  I saw something that looked like weeds coming out of its mouth, so I reached down the line to unhook it...and the fly just fell right out of its mouth!!  What the heck??  The hook must not have been in the skin, but just pressed against its jaw bone!  With that much fighting, the only thing that kept the hook from coming out must have been the constant pressure I had maintained.

I measured it...27 inches!!!  Nice full belly, wide head...must be a male.  I snapped some pictures, carried it back to the water, revived it for a few seconds, and it was ready to swim away.  I didn't even make another cast.

Group Fly-Fishing Outing, 3/27/2012

My friend Ben had a couple of  fly-anglers (Mark and his wife, April) that he wanted to bring to one of the local public ponds for an evening of fishing.  Ben is originally from Utah...Mark and April recently moved to Iowa from Washington State, where they fly-fished for salmon and steelhead in one of the larger rivers there.  Pond fishing is still a fairly new experience for them.  They took to it like....fish to water!  :)

April has ideas and aspirations to maybe become another April Vokey (fly-fishing guide/author).  Why not? ... same first name, similar passion for fly-fishing!

I met up with them at the pond around 6:30pm.

We were all catching Crappies and Bluegills.  Not super-fast fishing, but relatively steady.  It was windy and warm.  Chartreuse microjigs seemed to be working the best.

There was occasional "big fish" activity at the surface... swirls or splashes.  Not a lot...but some.

April hooked into a big fish, and the rest of us came to offer assistance as she fought it.  The fish was landed, and April caught her very first Channel Catfish ever...on a fly rod!  It was a CHUNKY 23.5" fish.  Awesome!

A little bit later, I hooked into a big fish as well.  It put itself "on the reel" and did NOT want to come near shore!  It was a really nice Channel Catfish too!  I didn't measure it.

See the microjig?

Next I caught another bluegill (I ended up landing 5 Crappies and (at least) 15 Bluegills for the trip).  Then I hooked what I thought was a much heavier Bluegill or Crappie.  When I got it to shore (it was getting pretty dark by this time), I thought maybe it was a small Channel Catfish, which would be weird, since they aren't usually able to spawn successfully in these ponds.  Turned out to be a 10" Bullhead!  A "first" for me on the fly rod!

Bullhead on a fly rod...who woulda thought??

Very enjoyable night!  Got to fish with Ben, met some new friends, caught a big fish, and a new fly-rod species!

Evening Report, 5-9-2011

Hatches.  As fly-anglers, we like to identify a hatch, and then match the hatch to catch fish.  Well, last night there was an EPIC hatch going on.  It was CRAZY!

I didn't get out until after sunset, but the sky was still light.  I think it was around 8:45pm when I started fishing, and I stayed until 11:30pm.

When I arrived, there were dimples on the surface of the pond...fish were picking off emergers and adults.  I couldn't really see what that hatch was.  I used a Gurgler style foam topwater, and caught a crappie and a handful of bluegills.  I wanted more crappies, so I tried something else that didn't get much attention.  There were some bigger splashes occasionally, that looked like bass chasing sunfish near shore.

I started seeing what I initially thought was some large flying insect skittering over the surface of the water.  These would get harassed by fish, and occasionally disappear in a big explosive strike from below.  Well, I finally saw a few of these "bugs" swim over to shore.  And the realization finally dawned on me as I started looking around along the shorelines.

There was a HUGE hatch going on…of TOADS! Holy buckets, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so many toads at one time. They were croaking, mating, swimming ALL OVER the pond! It was CRAZY!  I would turn my cap light on them, and they would be hopping all over each other, many puffing out their throat sac and filling the night with their loud music.  Sometimes it got so loud, I wanted to turn down the volume on that music.  Too bad there wasn't more light...I could have gotten some sweet videos of all this.  At times, I would walk down the shore 20 feet or so, turn around, and shine my light on the water...and see dozens of glowing eyes on the surface of the water following me!  The weren't scared at all.

Occasionally one out in open water would disappear in a BIG splash. I tossed a bass-sized popper for quite awhile, and had a couple half-hearted strikes, and caught a crappie on it (crappies LOVE toads!...right?).

With other patterns, I caught a grand total of 6 other crappies, 3 bass, 9 bluegills, and a 23.5” channel catfish. The battle with the catfish was a long give-and-take episode.  It was a nice fish, so I took pictures.

Also had a HUGE explosion on a bait right before I left. Several casts later, I realized my fly was gone…so whatever it was broke my line. I think it may have been a grass carp!  I headed for the car without tying on a new fly.


So…fishing was sort of slow despite all the "activity" going on, but it was really fun just being out there and seeing all those toads!

I fly-fished with my friend Jenni last night. I had REALLY hoped to get her a grass carp last night. Had some follows, but no hook-ups. BUMMER! But she also wanted to catch a bass. So, I put a bass popper on her leader, told here where to stand, where to cast. She walked down the rocks to the water's edge, had the fly resting on the water while she adjusted her feet to some "comfortable rocks"...and a bass took the popper right in front of her! She was VERY happy!

She let me catch the next one, which I estimated at 17":

She fished for more bass, and had something BIG on for a solid minute...maybe 2, but it eventually broke her line. Later on, she spotted the popper floating, and was able to cast out and retrieve it!

I fished for the grass carp for much of the time, but finally switched to bluegills and hybrid sunfish. I was catching them within seconds of the fly landing in the water. San Juan worm worked really good.

While fighting a 7” bluegill on my fly rod, I saw something chase the fish near shore, so I let it swim and struggle a bit longer…and the bigger fish grabbed it. He then swam slowly but directly to the complete opposite side of the pond while I fed line. After a minute or so over there, he started swimming back along one edge of the pond, and I started retrieving line. He got into an area where I was concerned he might tangle me up in some cables, so I started putting pressure on him. He started fighting. I was concerned the bluegill was just still in his mouth, and that he would spit it out. But, I landed it! Just the very tip of the bluegill’s tail was sticking out of the bass’s throat. I tried to gently pull the bluegill out of the bass’s stomach, but it wasn’t going to come out easy (thanks to the bluegill’s dorsal spines!), so I just cut my line and let the bass keep his meal. Pretty cool! I measured it at 19"!

Then we started talking about how she really wanted to catch a catfish, and wondered what fly would work best. I explained how I usually just catch them while fly-fishing for bluegills. And then I caught one!