Crazy Good Bass Evening 7/12/2017

There had been "heat advisories" all day.  @ 5pm some rainstorms moved in.  Nothing heavy or long, just got everything wet.  The rain stopped after dinner, it was really nice out (cooler) and calm.  It was a later start than I'd prefer, but I really wanted to go fishing.

Drove past a few ponds, and my steering wheel turned me to where I needed to go.  Started fishing @ 7pm.  It turned out to be one of those precious few crazy-good evenings of fishing.  Like you could do no wrong.  I flyfished topwater for bass.  At one point I caught bass on 3 consecutive casts into the same small area.

Biggest 3 bass of the evening measured 19", 19", and 17".  Several more were in the 16"-16.5" range.  I also lost a big one that spit the fly after a couple minutes fight, and had 2 fish break my tippet during the hookset.

I could see pods of tiny shad (guessing...but I do know there are shad in here) scattered many places, and fish would occasionally blow up on them.  In several instances, bass were going hi-speed horizontally airborn, attacking and chasing baitfish.  A couple had to have cleared 6' horizontally.

Nice Hybrid Sunfish were attacking the baitfish as well.

Crazy good evening!  Oh, and I did pick up tick #7 from around this pond.  Fortunately none have attached.

Mixed Bag Flyfishing, 9-14-2014

I visited a local public pond on Sunday evening.  I flyfished from 5pm-8pm.  Hard to believe it is pretty much completely dark by 8pm!

There were hundreds of wild geese and ducks scattered all around the pond, and they had the shallow areas pretty well muddied up.  Deeper areas were reasonably clear, and most of the algae mats around the shoreline were gone.

I switched back and forth between a blockhead popper (trying for bass), and a chartreuse mylar bugger (unweighted, trying for everything).  I caught one decent Largemouth Bass and a 9.25" beastly Hybrid Sunfish on the blockhead popper, along with a smaller Hybrid or two, and some aggressive Bluegills.  A large bass broke my line and stole one of the blockhead poppers!

9.25" Hybrid Sunfish...inhaled the blockhead popper!

On the mylar bugger, I caught 4 Crappies, 1 nice Largemouth Bass and some smaller ones, a couple Hybrid Sunfish, and 3 beautiful Pumpkinseed Sunfish.

While I was fighting one of the Pumpkinseeds, a BIG bass attacked it right in front of me!  I tossed some flies around for it, be never saw it again....although I had some really good strikes on a blockhead popper that never got hooked up.

Evening Flyfishing, 5-28-2014

Flyfished last night at a pond that SKUNKED me during the ice season.  Turns out, there ARE fish in it!
I caught over 20 Bluegills (biggest by far was 8"), 5 Crappies (to 11"), 4 Pumpkinseed Sunfish (to 8"), 7 Largemouth Bass (to 14"-15"), and 1 Hybrid Sunfish that seemed HUGE (but measured at 9.25").

Also saw some Grass Carp.
Here's the beast Hybrid:

And here's a Pumpkinseed.  I thought maybe it was too dark out (I was wearing sunglasses), so I took a picture with and without a flash.  I thought the differerence was interesting:

Most of the fish were caught on a chartreuse microjig under an indicator.

Back to the Schoolyear Grind

My kids have been back in school for a few weeks now.  After school activities have resumed as well.  To me, that means its back to being difficult to find time to go fishing.

But you gotta do what you gotta do.  So, last night I dropped my son off at one of his activities, and then flyfished for about 75 minutes just before dark.  It was a public pond in a nearby 'burb.  I fished a variety of flies, caught a few bluegills, before I finally settled on what the FISH wanted, rather than what I wanted to use.  The fish wanted something that floated on the surface.  I ended up catching 15 Bluegills (biggest was a nice 9.25" fish), 1 Hybrid Sunfish (a big chunky 9-incher), and 1 surprise Crappie.

Both of these fish fought really well.  The bluegill in the bottom picture..I seriously thought I had a 13" bass on the line..it even took line out of my hand!

Pumpkinseeds & Hybrid Sunfish!

Last night I fly-fished from @7pm-8:15pm.  I visited a pond just a few blocks from my house that, odd as it may seem, I had never fished before!  The pond is probably @ 6 years old (?), and I'm not exactly sure when it was first stocked.  I've seen folks fish it, see them catch fish that, obviously, were big enough to catch.  :)
I decided to try it.  The weather was crappy...37 degrees F, breezy, overcast, damp (it had been raining/drizzling sporadically throughout the day).

I stuck with my favored tactic of late...a microjig under an indicator.  Long story short, I caught @ 28 Bluegills, 10 Hybrid Sunfish, and 6 Pumpkinseed Sunfish.

Hybrids are cool because they are so aggressive and fight REALLY hard!  Of the 20+ public ponds in my town...I'm not sure I've ever caught a Pumpkinseed before.  If I did, I probably  assumed it was a Hybrid Sunfish.  But last night, catching multiple Hybrids and Pumpkinseeds at the almost the same time...There was a marked difference between these fish.  So...I am EXCITED, because I can now add Pumpkinseed to my "Fly Rod Species List"!
Here's some pics:
Here's 3 Pumpkinseeds

At @ 7", this was one of the bigger Pumpkinseeds:

And here is an 8" Hybrid Sunfish:

I'm looking forward to fishing this pond around spawning time...and get some good pics of these Pumpkinseeds in their spawning colors!

Fly Rod Grass Carp FAIL, 9-16-2012

I was able to squeeze in 1 hour of flyfishing (after driving time) this weekend.  I fished a public pond about a 40 minute drive from home.

I started out flyfishing for panfish.  I caught 2 Bluegills and a Largemouth Bass.  Then this 9" Hybrid Sunfish hit.  What a fight, and what a beast!  All fish were caught on a #8 yellow Boa Yarn Leech.

I had seen a few Grass Carp swim by in the shallows.  One nosed up to the surface  to touch my floating fly line.  I tried dropping flies ahead of them, and they showed slight interest, but mainly they just continued swimming on their way.  So, I tied on a "MissouriFlies.com"-style deer hair pellet fly.  I tossed it out and soon had a (previously invisible) grass carp come up and check it out.  It nosed the fly, but then swam away.  A few casts later, another Grass Carp (that I had not seen before) came up and nosed it, then tried to suck it in, missed, and then tried to suck it in again.  I watched the fly disappear into its mouth.  I set the hook, the fish thrashed its head, and my 2x tippet snapped....with a sound like a pellet gun firing.  CRACK!

DANG IT!  I have hunted Grass Carp more diligently this year than ever before.  With complete failures too numerous to count at this point, I still have hooked more grass carp this year than ever before (including a couple years ago when I actually landed 3 Grass Carp!).  I've even had some pretty good fights.  But I haven't landed ANY of them this year!  I know my 5wt is not matched to such a task...but I also know Grass Carp CAN be landed on it, because I've done it before!  Ug.  Another miss.  But this one was especially exciting because I actually got to see the fish come up and suck in that fly.  THAT is a first in my Grass Carp experiences.  It will be a confidence builder for future situations, at least, knowing they will come up and hit this style of fly.