New Pond, Visit #2

My first trip ever to this pond (as you will remember from my previous blog), last week, resulted in catching a bunch of bluegills, and a fair number of Hybrid Sunfish and some Pumpkinseeds.

Last night's flyfishing outing, my second trip ever to this pond, I again caught a bunch of bluegills, decent numbers of Hybrid Sunfish…

...but I didn’t catch any Pumpkinseeds for the first hour.  I recalled that the first trip I had tried 3 different colors of microjigs, and almost all the Pumpkinseeds hit the chartreuse.  I also recalled that I thought I had a crappie on last trip, but didn’t land it.

Unlike last trip, this time I saved a little bit of remaining daylight for fishing the channel and beyond.  The north end of the main pond turns into a narrow channel that cuts across to the backs of some townhomes sort of near my neighborhood. There it opens up again into a smaller pond basin area.  Actually, the smaller basin looked bigger than I thought it would.  I didn’t really get to fish the smaller pond area, except right where it connects to the channel, because it just got too dark to see my strike indicator.  Anyway, at first I was still using a gold microjig that I had used on  the main big pond area.  I went up the channel to just beyond where it first widens out slightly.  I was casting towards the far shoreline, and caught a couple crappies!  I ended up catching at least 7 crappies scattered throughout the channel area.

I also caught 3 bass this time.  2 were small, one was a nice feisty “medium size”….maybe 13”. 

Right after I caught that bigger bass, I threw back in the same spot and hooked another something nice.  I thought maybe it was another bass.  It turned and ran straight up the channel and angled towards the opposite shoreline.  I mean it ROCKETED up that channel!  It was peeling line out of my hand and off the reel.  And I was using a 6wt!  In hindsight, I should have horsed it more.  My line would have held, but I was worried about the hook pulling loose.  In the end, the fish found some weeds/muck, and got free.  DANG!  Whatever it was…it was NICE.  Not like 10lb catfish nice…but a solid fish and FAST/strong!  I really wonder what it was.  I still suspect bass (maybe 18-19” range?), but it could have been grass carp, BIG crappie…heck, it could have been a muskrat!  There was at least one swimming around the area around dusk.

Anyway, it was exciting.  As the cloudy light started to get dark, I did switch to a chartreuse microjig, and caught more crappies in the channel, and 3 more Pumpkinseeds…plus a few more bluegills.  Here's a couple of the Pumpkinseeds:

So…all in all it was an interesting evening of flyfishing.  That channel area is intriguing.  It is not very deep, and I have a feeling by late spring/summer it will be overgrown with weeds…so I think I will try to fish there a bit more while the weather is still cool.

Lunchtime Flyfishing, 11-15-2012

Different day, same pond, similar results.  Flyfished during lunch at a City pond.
Caught a few trees on backcasts...lost a microjig, tippet and indicator.

Wind was out of a slightly different direction, and not quite as strong.  It was more breezy than windy today.  Sunny!

Used the same color microjig as yesterday, about 2' under the indicator.  Landed 9 Bluegills, 4 Crappies.  Lost one nice Crappie that I watched throw the hook underwater.  The Crappies were all 10"+, with the biggest being a VERY strong-fighting 13-incher.  I compared it to yesterday's 13" Crappie, and determined today's is a DIFFERENT fish!  That is GOOD!

Here's the first Crappie of the day:

...and a pic with the microjig in its mouth:

And this is today's 13-incher:

Lunchtime Flyfishing Report, 10-24-2012

Air temp at 74F.  Overcast sky.  13mph wind from the South.  Might be the last day of the year for 70+ degree weather.  Gotta fish!

I visited a public pond not far from work.  This was a pond I had made my first visits to earlier this year, but hadn't revisited since May 1.

I started out with a yellow Boa Yarn Leech on my line.  I caught a small Largemouth Bass, then had a few tentative strikes.  I switched to an unweighted black Woolly Bugger.  Action picked up then.

I ended up with a "baker's dozen" of decent Bluegills.  They were colorful, so I took pictures of a few of the males:

Some of the bluegills are reaching 8", which is what this chunky female Bluegill measured:

And one pleasanst surprise on this trip was to discover a CRAPPIE in this pond!  Excellent!

7-19-2012 Evening Report

Fly-fished a local public pond last night.  The temperatures have been in the mid 90's to mid 100s (that is Fahrenheit of course, for my international visitors).  Today, the wind changed to out of the North, and the high air temps cooled into the low 90's.

The past few trips to this pond didn't yield any Crappies at all.  I figured the tepid water would have driven the crappies deeper in search of cooler water.  So, I set a Springbrook Wunder microjig about 4.5' under an indicator and tossed that out beyond the shoreline dropoff.  I had to work this very slowly with lots of pauses to keep the microjig almost vertical beneath the indicator.

Success!  I ended up landing at least 10 Crappies, along with 6 Bluegills, 4 Largemouth Bass, and a 10" Yellow Bullhead.

Most of the bass and about 1/2 of the bluegills hit a deer hair pellet fly that was on/near the surface.  I also had a nice fish hit that fly, and broke my line when I set the hook.  It was fresh 9 lb tippet I had tied on earlier that evening!  I suspect it was a nice bass, but it could have been a catfish or grass carp.  I hate not knowing!

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I continue to have line problems.  The previous evening to this report, I went fishing with Jay again.  We fished Saylorville Lake from shore.  Part of the time, I was pursuing carp with the fly rod.  Had one carp strike an egg pattern, and once again I broke my line on the hookset!  I wondered if maybe my hooksets with the 8wt rod I was using were just too strong for the 9 or 10 lb tippet I was using?

Last night I was using a 5wt rod, and had tied on a fresh length of tippet for the evening.  Still broke the line when I set the hook on the nice fish that hit the deer hair fly.  Since I leave my rods strung up in my car ready to go all the time, it is easy to believe that the sun and heat deteriorate line that has been on the rod a few days.  But that was fresh tippet!  I also leave my fanny pack in my car all day, which carries my spools of tippet.  Sun damage is out of the question, but HEAT damage could be the culprit?  That line is easily a year old, and possible several years old.  Maybe I just need to toss all my old tippet and replace with new?  The line LOOKS good and feels strong, and the knots all seem really good (I use the Trilene knot, which I feel is a very strong knot since the line passes through the hook eyelet TWICE).  It really seems like the line should NOT be breaking like it has been...and spooled tippet being deteriorated by heat and time is the only explanation I can come up with at this time.

Bass Gurgler Test,Evening of 5-9-2012

I didn't get out fly-fishing in the evening until fairly late.  I got to the pond around 8pm, and stayed until about 9:20pm.  The weather was good.  Very light breeze, temps were cool (~60 degrees F), and the water clarity was excellent.

I had read James Smith's (of Conyers, Georgia) post about how he ties his Bass Gurglers on the Fly Anglers Online forums.  (third post in this thread: http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/showthread.php?46069-Gurglers-for-LMB ).  I had tied one up with a marabou tail.  I tied it on my line right away.  In my first 4 casts, I had 3 bass on, and landed one.  I occasionally catch a bass or two while fly-fishing this pond, but I can go many trips here and never catch one.  My assessment is that the population of bass in this pond is LOW because of high harvest.  So...having that kind of action on a fly was, to me, ASTOUNDING!  I was thrilled!  So, I took a picture of it (after the first fish was landed):

See those "big lips"?  They really make a lot of disturbance on the surface, and the bass (and other fish) were just going NUTS for it!  I ended up landing 6 bass on this pattern, and lost probably 5 others (including a "biggie").

This wasn't the biggest bass I caught last night, but I didn't bother taking pictures of the larger bass, since it was getting dark and the pictures probably wouldn't have turned out very well.

On that fly, I also caught some NICE bluegills, some decent crappies, and even this FAT green sunfish.  I don't catch many greenies at this pond, but I know there are a few in it.

As it got darker, the action seemed to slow on this topwater pattern, so I switched to a white Boa Yarn Leech, and caught one more bass, and quite a few crappies and bluegills.

So...7 bass from this pond in such a short time, mostly on that Bass Gurgler.  I don't think I've EVER done that well at this pond on the foam bass popper I typically use for bass. Was it the fly?  Was it the weather, time of year, or some other factor?  I'll keep fishing with this fly and see how it goes.

Fly-Fishing Lunchtime Report, 5-9-2012

I hadn't fished for a WHOLE DAY...but it seemed like at least 2 whole days...which is WAY too long for my liking!
Anyway, I decided to hit the young pond again where I discovered carp and buffalo late last week.  The wind was from the direction I wanted it to be, but was a bit stronger than I hoped for to be able to sight-fish.  The sky was mainly overcast, with the sun peeking out once in awhile.  When it was cloudy, sight-fishing was hopeless.  Plus, a retired fellow (because he made a POINT of telling me repeatedly that he was retired) was just finishing his circuit of the pond cast lures for bass.  I think he scared the carp away from the shallows.

During a couple of sunny moments, I did spot at least one carp slowly cruising in open water, and also spotted a few buffalo feeding beneath the surface in open water.  I tried (separately) a San Juan Worm and an egg pattern under an indicator.  Got some really good casts to the buffalo, looked like the fish was going RIGHT FOR the fly...but it kept on going without any signal from my indicator.  The rest of the time when it was cloudy, I fished with a beadhead furl-tailed leech and caught 3 Largemouth Bass and 4 Crappies.  I caught 2 Hybrid Sunfish on the San Juan Worm, and 5 Bluegills.  The Bluegills hit several different flies, including the egg fly, the San Juan Worm, the leech, and a Pheasant Tail Nymph.

So...catching 4 species was good, but I still didn't get either of the 2 species I was HOPING for.

Here's some pics:

The Crappies were sporting their darker spawning coloration:

This is one of the smaller Hybrid Sunfish I've caught...but they are so colorful!

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.

Weekend Fishing Report, 3/23-3/25/2012

3/23/2012
Had 30 minutes of free time after work.  Took advantage of it and fly-fished a local public pond.  Landed 8 bluegills and 2 crappies.

3/24/2012
Called my buddy Jay to see if he wanted to fish for a few hours on Saturday morning.  We decided to meet at Saylorville Lake.  Lots of people fishing there.  I fished for 2.5 hours and used fly-fishing gear along rocky shorelines.  I landed (at least) 25 largemouth bass (all under 12"), 1 bluegill, and 3 green sunfish.  Almost all the fish I caught were within 5' of shore in water 2' deep or less.

All fish were caught on the  Beadhead fly shown above with white marabou tail and  silver holographic mylar chenille body.

3/25/2012
I drove a carpool downtown DM on Sunday, and had an hour to fly-fish at Copper Creek Lake.  Lots of folks out there!  Saw a guy catch a really nice bass....maybe a 4-pounder.
I caught 12 bluegills, most on a Boudreaux, one on a topwater Chernobyl Ant/Hopper, the rest on a black Beadhead Furl-Tailed Mohair Leech.

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Later on, my family settled down to watch a movie we had recently seen, so I decided to go fishing while they watched it.  It was almost dark by the time I started fishing.  I fly-fished from 8pm-9:30pm.  I caught 20 crappies and 13 bluegills.  All fish were caught on an unweighted chartreuse Woolly Bugger. Not bad for fishing in the dark!

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That was 84 fish for the weekend, and brings this month's total to 215 fish.  I checked my fishing logs back to 2006, and this is the most fish I've ever caught in March (even though I was gone for a week on Spring Break).  March typically sucks because we get that time period where the ice on lakes is too poor to fish on, but the water isn't fully open yet, or the water is too cold for the fish to be active.  This year is a FREAK year!

Warmwater Fly-Fishing Report, 3-21-2012

This post is a bit out of order.  Just got back from a Spring Break trip with my family to the Dominican Republic.  I'll probably blog about that here (separately), but THIS is the blog of my first fly-fishing outing since our return to Iowa.

Our flight got in around 10pm, but you never know about possible delays, so I took the following day off work as well.  The kids are still officially on Spring Break.

I'd stayed up late and unpacked, so I was ready to go fishing Wednesday morning.  I didn't get up very early.  The sky was cloudy, threatening more rain to follow the overnight rain we received.  I went to a local public pond and started fishing around 9am.  Fishing was good!  In the next 3 hours, I caught 28 Bluegills, 13 Green Sunfish, and 7 Crappies.  I measured one decent crappie at 11", then caught an even bigger one that measured 13".  That is a very nice crappie for around here, and HUGE for any of the public ponds.  I was very pleased!

Here's pictures of a few of the fish:

Bluegill

A nice Crappie.

Love the colors and patterns!

An 11" Crappie...very chunky fish.

This (and the picture below) is the 13" beast Crappie.  All the others I caught were Black Crappies...this was the only White Crappie I caught this day.

I also spotted this large Bullfrog under the water amongst the rocks near my feet:

Oh...and I CAUGHT a Crayfish on my line!  I saw it walking around underwater, so I dropped my microjig to the bottom near the crayfish and moved it a bit.  It turned and started chasing it.  Once it grabbed hold of the microjig, I lifted it and swung it out onto the grassy area behind me, where it finally let go and dropped to the ground.  Fly-fishing for crayfish!  :)

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I tallied up my fish total for the morning, and discovered I was 2 fish shy of 50.  I decided to hit another pond on my way home.  I fished the 2nd pond for 1 hour, and caught 12 Bluegills.  For the entire 4 hours I spent fishing then, I caught 60 fish total....which works out to an average of 1 fish every 4 minutes.  Not bad!

Evening Report, 3-6-2012

Yesterday during lunch, I barely had enough open water to fish since the local lakes and ponds had all iced over during the night.  Still got it done.
Today was very warm (upper 60's) and windy.  The ice disappeared during the day.  It was still sort of windy by the time I got home from work, but do-able.  It was too nice and warm to NOT visit a local public pond!

I started fly-fishing at around 5:45pm, and fished for one hour.  I used a chartreuse microjig under an indicator. I had a couple strikes at the indicator, and all the fish caught were either near shore or right at the edge of the first drop-off.  Based on these clues, I should have switched to an unweighted pattern without an indicator, but I can be a lazy fella sometimes.  I did ok with the technique I was using...I ended up catching 6 crappies and 2 decent bluegills.

Ice Fishing, 2-19-2012

Crazy cell phones.Why is it that I rarely hear/feel my cell phone buzzing away in my pocket...yet far more frequent are the times I  can feel it buzzing, when it really ISN'T?  Phantom buzzing?
I'd been thinking I should call my buddy Jay and see if he wants to ice fish today.  Well, here it was mid-afternoon, and I hadn't made the call.  I checked my phone.  Jay had left a couple messages before noon, and I hadn't noticed even though my phone had been in my pocket the entire time.

I returned his call, and we made plans to ice fish the next morning, as I had other plans in the afternoon.
We were on the ice and started fishing around 8:30am.We had 8" of pretty good ice under us, as well as some sunken cedar trees with fish around them.  Fishing waxed and waned, but there was always some "chasers" or "lookers" to keep it interesting.

A friend of ours joined us out there around 10:30am.  We all caught plenty of fish.  Very conservatively, I'd say I caught at least 45 crappies and 5 largemouth bass before I left at 12:30pm.  Jay caught even more than I did.  The crappies were very fat and healthy.  I measured a half-dozen of my larger ones (all were released), and they were 11.5-inchers.  Jay's biggest was a fat 12.5-incher.  Most of the bass were small, with the biggest one being  a chunky fish of maybe 12"-13".

I caught some fish on a small Salmo Chubby Darter, but by far the most fish were caught on a Swedish Pimple spoon, which I usually tipped with a Gulp! 1" Fish Fry.

Very fun morning!

Me, happy to have my first crappie of the morning!

Crappie that hit a Salmo Chubby Darter.

Chunky crappies!

Love the subtle colors of a crappie!

Jay, with the biggest crappie of the morning, a 12.5-incher.

Copper Creek Lake Fishing Report, 10-23-2011

I fly-fished at Copper Creek Lake from 4pm-5:15pm.

It was a really nice sunny day, temps in the low 70's, reasonable breeze.  Two other people were fishing when I arrived, and they soon left without catching anything.

There was one fellow taking casual laps around the lake in a kayak.  Lots of folks walking and jogging around the lake.

I used microjigs under an indicator.
These are the ones that were working best:

Springbrook Wunder variant with Olive Mylar Chenille

Springbrook Wunder variant with Gold Metallic Chenille

I only used one microjig at a time, but I went through 4 or 5 because I was getting snagged up on a brushpile. Throughout the fishing time, I also had to stop and retrieve my jig out of the trees behind me. Occasionally when I set the hook, there would be no fish there, and the microjig-and-indicator would come flying up out of the water and lodge in the trees. Sort of embarrassing, but at least it was because I missed a fish.


I was pleased with the fishing. I caught 10 nice Crappies ( 10"-12"; a mix of White Crappies and Black Crappies), 3 Largemouth Bass, and 2 Bluegills.  The Crappies were healthy, chunky fish, and really fought well!

 

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A couple of times I caught fish just as there were parents walking behind me with there young children.  I'd hear them say, "Look, that man just caught a fish!"  So, I'd unhook the fish, set my rod down, and walk over to see if they wanted to see the fish.  The first child was in a stroller.  She just sort of grunted and looked a bit scared of the fish.  The second child was walking and talking.  She touched the fish, and when they went on their way, I could hear her repeatedly exclaiming loudly (and proudly) that SHE had just touched a big CRAPPIE!  She obviously thought that was pretty cool! :)