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 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!