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.

Mid-October 2017

Flyfishing for bass has steadily slowed, although I still see them chasing baitfish.  I just can't get them to hit what I'm throwing at them.  Could be more my problem than theirs.

I'm getting a few crappies, but not as many as I think I should be:

Once in awhile, I'll get a Pumkinseed Sunfish:

Or Hybrid Sunfish:

Some bluegills, but again....not as many as I think I should be getting.

Its getting later in the year, so I'm not sure how long I can expect to get Common Carp and Channel Catfish....but I have caught some while flyfishing during my lunch hours recently.

...and another picture of the same 21" catfish....I couldn't decide which picture I liked better:

8-7-2017

Flyfished during my lunch hour.  Caught one Common Carp.

Flyfished in the evening....didn't catch anything for the first 90 minutes.  Eventually caught 3 Hybrid Sunfish, and 2 Largemouth Bass (both 18").  All on topwater.  Today was a low-numbers, good size day.

First Open Water Fish of 2016!!

Hooray!  Its come about 2-3 weeks earlier than expected, which is great!  And it came on FAST!  Just 2 weekends ago, I was icefishing the local ponds, sitting on 11.5" of ice!  And now that ice is gone!

We had a warm week with temperatures that climbed into the 60's, plus some good winds.  As an example of how quickly the ice disappeared, I drove by a few ponds on Friday evening after work.  Most were ~95% ice-covered.  One pond I fish often was 100% ice-covered.  Then by noon on Sunday, every pond I drove by was 100% open water!  I wouldn't have believed it could all have disappeared so quickly!

Anyway...Saturday morning I visited a local lake that just had maybe 50' of open water along the edges on 3 sides of the lake.  Fishing was difficult, but I managed to catch my first pair of open-water fish of the year while flyfishing.

Flyfishing Report, 10-31-2015

Saturday was cloudy, cold (40'sF), breezy, and damp (it had rained earlier in the morning or overnight).

I flyfished a local public pond.  I had fished it earlier in the year and caught some decent crappies, but in the half-dozen trips since April, I had only caught a grand total of 6 more crappies.  I was worried about the population, and also concerned about all the algae and weeds that had rimmed the pond all summer.

The algae and weeds have mostly died off now, but may decompose over the winter, robbing the water of precious oxygen and possibly causing a winterkill.  I hope my fears do not come to fruition.

The migratory geese and ducks have stirred up the sediment in the pond, reducing the water clarity significantly.

The rest of the story is good news.  I found plenty of crappies and bluegills, and they are in GREAT SHAPE right now....all very chunky and healthy!  I caught one 13" bass, and my "pet" bass...the 20-incher I caught 3 times last year...showed up.  She hung out right in front of me for quite awhile.  Because of the mud stirred up by the waterfowl, I could only see her when she was very shallow, right in front of me.  She gave chase to a nice bluegill I had hooked, but she didn't catch it.  I released a crappie back into the water, and as it swam towards deeper water, she appeared and gulped in the front 1/2 of the crappie, then turned and swam off with it still in her mouth.  Pretty cool!

Pretty much all the fish hit a chartreuse 1/80th oz microjig suspended @ 18" beneath a Fish Pimp strike indicator.

And the pictures:

Mid-April Fishing, 2015

We just had a doozy of a cold front arrive, and it looks to be planning to hang around all this week.

The previous week had provided some pretty good fishing, though.

I spent a weekday fishing with my friend Dave, searching for the elusive spawning White Bass.  We both caught fish, but the "target species" was practically a no-show.  I did catch 2, including this chunky female that measured @ 15.5"

I followed that up by flyfishing a local pond.  It was pretty exciting.  It was the same pond where I caught the big bass while flyfishing, that hit and ate a bluegill I was reeling in.  Well...different day, same situation.  A bass followed a bluegill I'd caught into the shallows as I was bringing it in, and grabbed it!  I did the same technique I used last time this happened.  Only, this time it didn't work.  I ended up reeling in nothing at all...except for my microjig, that is.  The bass kept the bluegill, and didn't have to suffer through a brief photo session with me.  And THEN, 10 minutes later, an even BIGGER bass grabbed my microjig!  After a decent battle that mostly involve me holding on while it peeled line, it went airborn and threw my microjig.  It was a BIG BASS!  So, I was on the losing end of both big bass encounters, but I was smiling and enjoying every minute of it all the same.

And I caught plenty of fish, including this really nice Pumpkinseed Sunfish:

Also on Thursday, a buddy called.  He flyfishes.  It was his birthday, and he wanted to catch a new species....a Pumpkinseed Sunfish.  He asked for advice on where to go.  I told him. I checked in with him later in the day, and he managed to catch a couple of these beautiful fish!  How awesome is that???

Saturday rolled around and it was intermittenly drizzling...a gray and dismal-looking day.  My friend Dale G texted, wondering if I was out flyfishing somewhere.  I said no...but that I could meet up with him.  We visited the big bass pond.  As I pulled up, my buddy Jay was just walking towards the pond, and was calling me!  So, the 3 of us flyfished the pond and had a great time.  I fished exclusively for bass, and also caught a crappie.  I had 2 big bass on that both broke my 8lb tippet, using fire-tiger colored craft fur baitfish streamers.  I replaced the 8lb tippet with 10 lb, and landed more bass up to @ 16.5".

Here's what the streamer looked like that the big bass took (twice), and even the crappie hit it!

The crappies were wearing the ultra-dark spawning colors.

Dale was catching a lot of crappies casting out to deeper water and using a beadhead woolly bugger.  He was also catching small bass.  He had a really nice bass chase HIS bluegill in once, too!!  And Dale also caught his very first Pumpkinseed Sunfish, along with plenty of bluegills and hybrid sunfish.

On Sunday, Jay called me to flyfish again, at the same pond.  And once again I started out flyfishing for bass.  I caught bass on a 4" baitfish pattern with a bunny-strip tail, and even more on a blockhead popper.  Those topwater bass are exciting!

I switched to a gold Springbrook Wunder microjig for awhile, and caught bluegills, crappies, hybrid sunfish, a Pumpkinseed Sunfish, and even a bass or two.

Really fun flyfishing!

Lunchtime Lunkers, 10-8-2014

I flyfished during my lunch hour today. Beautiful sunny day, very slight breeze, temperature was @ 63 degrees F.

I caught some Bluegills and a small bass on a Birds Nest nymph, and a really nice Hybrid Sunfish and an 18.5" Largemouth Bass on a blockhead popper.