Early October 2018

Cooler than normal temps and LOTS of rain defined this period.

Howitzer Poppers have caught some smaller bass recently, the water temps seems to be discouraging the bigger bass from hitting on topwater?  I've had some good success on a Feathered Gamechanger like the one in the picture below.

During one cold and rainy afternoon, I really had some fun with that Gamechanger:
17" Bass:

27" Channel Catfish!  (2 online sources suggested a weight of 9.4 lbs):

18" Bass:

21.5" Bass!

Although I had fished this pond pretty hard all year, I had not caught the bass above since November 15, 2017...almost a  year ago!  It gained 1/4" in length.

Another day was warmer and fairly calm.  Found some Common Carp willing to hit flies.  This one was 29":

This one measured 25":

Caught a few crappies:

Some bluegills....a few Pumpkinseed Sunfish:

As well as some other feisty bass in the 15"-16.5" range:

Mid-November 2017

The weather continues to get colder and windier.  We had days that were forecast to be in the 50's, but then it never made it that warm.

For some reason, I've really struggled to catch bluegills and crappies, which are typically about the only thing reliably biting this late in the season.

As sort of a continuation to my previous post about fly size for bass, I went fishing for bluegills & crappies, and ended up only catching some decent largemouth bass.  The first two hit a microjig under an indicator, so I switched to a small shad fly and caught one more.

And by the way....on this particular day I fished 3 ponds....I got skunked at the first two.  The next time I fished the same 3 ponds, I caught fish at the first two, but got skunked at the third.  So....I guess the point might be "the fish are always biting somewhere"?

And they were hitting the larger flies again.

Unpredictable fishing seems to be the name of the game this month.  A couple weeks ago I caugth bunch of decent crappies from one pond.  So, one day I took the afternoon off work to flyfish for them again since the wind was strong from the same direction.  I hoped the crappies would be along that same windblown shoreline where they have been before.
Caught one.

But it was the only one.  I missed a few good strikes, and only managed to land one more fish....a bass.
So I headed to another pond to try and target bluegills.  I caught some:

As I was fighting one of the bigger bluegills, a BIG bass took a swipe at it right in front of me.  That was exciting!  I switched flies twice before I felt like I was using something that big bass might strike.  A couple casts later.... BAM!  That was pretty cool, and even better that I was able to fight and land it.
21.25"....the biggest bass I've caught all year!

I didn't weigh it, but some bass weight/length tables I found suggested a weight of 5.7 pounds....this is a very good bass for Iowa!  As far as I can recall, this bass probably ranks as the 5th largest bass I've caught in Iowa.

Just when I assumed I'd probably caught nearly every bass in this particular pond....This one shows up!  I was stunned by the unexpected.  After releasing the fish, the adrenaline gave me jelly legs for about 20 minutes....and I kept making these weird involuntary sounds of disbelief and even talked to myself a couple times.  This fish turned me into a crazy person!  Pretty fun!

I feel the open-water season drawing to a close.  The ponds WILL freeze over for the winter, as they typically do here in Iowa.  I'll fish the open water as long as I can and as the weather allows.  Whatever happens...this has been a pretty darn good year for flyfishing...and this bass was an exclamation point on the season!

Enjoy your Thanksgiving, everyone.

Early November 2017

The air temperature dropped quite a bit.  Highs have been in the low 40's, lows have been in the mid 20's.  The ponds are cooling off significantly, and will likely be freezing over before the end of the month.

I got out on fishing on Saturday, November 4th.  With the cool-down, I wasn't expecting much. I waited for the air temp to get above 40, and headed out the door for some local public ponds around 11am.

At Pond #1, I used a 4" Gamechanger fly for bass.

Clearly my tying skills could use some help.... :)

I had fished this pond with the same fly a week previously and had done well.  This time, the bass seemed to remember the fly.  I caught 3 decent bass, but missed a number of other strikes that just looked like the bass were charging the fly or swiping at it, but not eating it.  At least one of those actually DID eat it, and I still somehow missed it on the hookset.

At Pond #2, I put on a shorter version of the same fly.  Tied with the same materials, but total length of about 3.25", and with only ONE joint.  For comparison, the typical Gamechanger often has 4-5 articulated sections/joints.  This shorter version retained good action, while being much quicker/easier to tie, and lighter/easier to cast.

The bass loved it.  I caught 8 bass in this pond.  I saw one HUGE bass, but it didn't seem interested in eating at the moment.

At Pond #3, bass could often be seen chasing shad at the surface.  I mainly stuck with the same fly, although I eventually lost the fly to a fish and had to try some other patterns.  I caught 5-6 bass at this pond.  2 guys with baitcaster rods/reels and bass lures came down and fished for about an hour.  They left without catching anything.

At Pond #4, I tried for crappies.  One part of the pond can be really good for crappies when the wind is blowing into it.  But today the wind was calm, so I wasn't expecting much.  I ended up catching a bass, 2 bluegills, missed a fish that might have been a crappie, and then finally landed just one crappie.  It measured 12.25".

I covered some water after that, but did not manage to catch any more fish.  I quit around 6:30pm.

Last Week of February, 2017

Still seems crazy that we even have OPEN WATER right now.  It has cooled of a bit since our week of unseasonably warm weather....but we've still had some warm days and cooler days.

I flyfished on Monday during my lunch hour.  The previous week I was catching lots of crappies, but this cooler week, I didn't catch any crappies at all.  Just a couple bluegills and a 9.5" Hybrid Sunfish:

Then I flyfished again that evening, for about an hour before it got too dark.  Caught a few more bluegills from a different pond, and a Pumpkinseed Sunfish:

On Tuesday, temps hit @ 60 around noon, but then started cooling off into the low 50's a couple hours later after the wind shifted to out of the north.  I started fishing around 2:30pm.  My buddy Jay caught a couple crappies, but I couldn't get any decent strikes.  I put on a bass fly I call the Jerkbait Fly, because its foam underbody allows to nearly suspend high in the water column.  I've tied it in various colors.  Here's some I tied last night:

I ended up catching 3 bass and missing 3 others.  Biggest was a beautiful 20"!

Here's the smaller ones:

Summer / Fall Bass on Topwater

Don't forget about Largemouth Bass at this time of year!  They feed aggressively as the water cools down through Fall.  And yes, they definitely will hit topwater flies.
Here's some nice fish from this month:

19"

18"

17"

17"

This healthy bass measured 19.5":

Topwater Bite is Slowly Improving

First week of May, 2015, in Central Iowa...
Nicer, warmer weather has settled in at last.  Some dreary days of intermittent light rain, and some breezy sunny days...Highs in the 70's.  Many Largemouth Bass have started to nest, and will be spawning very soon.
The non-spawners seem most willing to hit topwaters right now...or any fly for that matter.

Looking at the top and bottom bass in the above pictures...they look really similar...but they were caught several days apart...

Crappies have been striking the big flyrod bass poppers.  Occasionally one will even get hooked!  The males are on nests, and in the local ponds it appears the females may have dropped their eggs now.

Bluegills are making nests.  And Pumpkinseed Sunfish are sitting on theirs.

And the baby ducklings and goslings are already out of their nests and patrolling the ponds.

Bass on Topwater - October 2, 2014

I went flyfishing after work last night.  Weather was cloudy and windy.  The public pond I visited had a horrible 20' wide solid band of matted algae around the entire perimeter.

I really only fished one shoreline, and worked it one way with a chartreuse mylar bugger, hoping for crappies on the outside edge of the algae.  No crappies, but I did catch a couple bass a a few bluegills.

Still hoping for crappies, I worked the shoreline back to my starting point with a microjig under an indicator.  Not much action on that.

By this time, it was pretty dark, but I switched to a blockhead-style popper to try for bass.  It took me forever to actually get it on my line, because of the poor light conditions.  Within a couple casts, I caught a small bass on it.  Then I moved back down the shoreline to the next spot, and made a cast or two.  After a great strike, I had a nice fish on, and somehow managed to land it despite all the algae I had to bring it through.

It was a 20" Largemouth Bass, and one look verified that it was the same fish I had caught twice before this year on flies.  I was so happy to have caught it again....after releasing the fish, I just went home.

Topwater Bassin' Still Going Strong - September 7-8, 2014

Sunday evening, I flyfished for a bit before dark.  The bass on this trip averaged significantly smaller size than normal.  The last fish of the evening, as it got dark, was more like what I was expecting:

They all hit a yellow blockhead popper, as you can see WAY DOWN THERE:

During lunch today (Monday), I flyfished a local public pond.  I caught a couple Hybrid Sunfish on the blockhead popper:

Then a 16" (guesstimated) bass:

After losing a second decent bass, right before I headed back to work, I caught this hefty 19" bass!  This is the biggest bass I've caught from this pond, although I'm certain there are a couple of even bigger ones.

Both bass eventually dove into the thick algae beds on the bottom, and it was very difficult to drag them back into shore.  I felt lucky that my shredded line or rod didn't break!