2nd Week of July 2020

The sale of our house closes this coming week.  We've closed on the home we purchased in Missouri.  This is our last week in "Temporary Housing" in Iowa, before moving to St. Louis.

Lots of stuff to do, but I still managed to get out flyfishing a time or two more.

I caught one more big Goldfish, my 18th big Goldfish of the year.

Also caught more channel catfish and black bullheads.

I've lived in central Iowa for 45 of my nearly 52 years.  I'll miss it.

I'm looking forward to exploring the fishing near our new home.

My PB Iowa Crappie on Fly

My buddy Jay surprised us both when he caught a chunky 14" White Crappie while flyfishing a local public pond on March 28, 2020.  A surprise, because it was probably an inch longer than any crappie we'd caught there previously over the years.  It was a really beautiful fish!

On April 1, 2020, I was flyfishing that same pond, solo, late in the evening.  Fishing was very slow, I'd only caught something like 1 small bass, 2 crappies, and 4 bluegills.  And then not far from the location where Jay hooked the 14" crappie, I hooked a big crappie.  After seeing it was a white crappie, I had visions that this was probably THE EXACT SAME FISH that Jay had caught...and how cool that would have been.  But then I measured it...my fish was an inch longer...15"!  To me, it also seemed a bit thinner than Jay's crappie.  Still, a beautiful fish!

My biggest crappie measured 16" and was caught in Illinois.  So this 15" crappie is my biggest in Iowa, and my biggest on a fly rod.  Caught on a 1/80th oz chartreuse microjig suspended under an indicator.

Early November 2018

Feeding carp were located, but I could not detect any strikes when I presented them with flies.

I tied up these on a "chartreuse whim"...a Gamechanger, and a Howitzer Popper:

In one pond, at least, bass were still hitting topwater fly patterns (bass poppers) thru the first week of November...in fact, one day they were charging top-speed from up to 30' away to smash the fly on the 2nd pop!

Feathered Gamechangers were still working as well:

As I write this on November 14, we've had some rather cold weather in central Iowa so far this month.  This past weekend, I visited 5 ponds....2 were 100% ice-covered, 2 were 65%-75% ice-covered, and one pond was completely ice-free.  I fished the ice-free one, and one of the partially-open ponds.  I only caught fish out of the ice-free pond.  Over 25 Crappies, plus 4 bluegills and a bass in a few hours of flyfishing.

LATE OCTOBER 2018

Fishing seemed to slow the 2nd half of October.  The three-and-a-half months of rain finally let up in central Iowa, the waters cleared up some....and the bass weren't hitting most of the time.  Persistence pays off, of course.  Feathered Gamechangers worked well for awhile, then success on that trailed off.  Surprisingly, in at least one pond the topwater bite actually heated up towards the end of the month, despite having ice on the car windows some mornings, and daytime highs in the mid-50's.  Water temps should be in the upper 40's?

17.5" Largemouth Bass on Feathered Gamechanger

17" Largemouth Bass on Howitzer Popper

Bass on a Howitzer Popper

Tried for carp several times.  Caught one, but most of the time there were either few signs (bubbles) of feeding carp, or even when the signs were apparent and the fish were presented with the fly, strikes were undetectable.

27" Carp on a fly during the lunch hour.

Crappies are starting to show up more.  I haven't targeted them, but will have to do that soon.  Also, the Urban Trout program has stocked waters nearby recently, but I haven't made the effort to pursue those fish.

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:

Second Half of September 2018

Locally, we've been pounded by rain this September, and it continues.  Reservoirs and rivers are very high.  As in...Saylorville Lake is currently 32 feet ABOVE NORMAL POOL.  Pretty unusual for this late in the season.  And the Des Moines River below Saylorville is flowing at 17,000 CFS, when typically at this time of year it flows around 1,000 CFS.

At least the local ponds remain fishable.  And the cooler weather we've been having seems to be killing off the algae blooms.  There still are some, but much less than, say, a month ago.

This is a chunky 28" Channel Catfish that hit a flyrod bass popper.  Estimated weight of 10.6 lbs.  Great surprise, fun battle!

Caught a smaller catfish and a carp during a flyfishing lunch hour:

For bass, I've tried mainly flyrod bass poppers and subsurface Gamechangers.  Both have caught fish, but the bass seem to be responding to the topwaters better at the moment.  The largest bass recently have been an 18" and a 17" fish:

I've been tying up more Gamechangers...I'm getting better results as I gain experience.

I had a bit of excitement recently... I was bringing in a small 11" bass, when a huge fish tried catching it.  I'm guessing it was a BIG bass.  I tried throwing on a bigger Gamechanger that looked like the bass, but did not get any strikes on it.

First Half of September 2018

Quickly got on the board early in September with some good bass.  I flyfished one pond for the first time ever...and caught some bass with the biggest two being very healthy 16" and 17" Bass on a Howitzer head bass popper fly pattern:

A couple days later, at a different local public pond, I caught some more bass, included TWO 19" bass.  Again on flyrod bass poppers.  That's a great day around here! :)

Once the ponds warmed up and the weeds and algae took over the shallows, Carp had been very hard to target with flies.  They weren't feeding close to shore, or at least not in areas/ways that I could spot them and present a fly to them.  We'd had a bunch of rain and the temps cooled off, and I managed to finally get another carp during my lunch hour.  This one measured 26".  It hit a John Montana's Hybrid Carp Fly variant.

Other than that, fishing has been challenging.  I've been catching fewer fish...mostly smaller bass.  I had an exciting moment one evening when I hooked up with a small 11" bass, and something BIG (assumed it was a really big bass!) tried to catch & eat it while I was bringing it in to shore!

I've seen some decent catfish feeding in the shallows, but have not been able to get them to strike the flies I had on at the moment.

I did actually fish for panfish for awhile.  Caught some bluegills and even a couple crappies.  Also caught some Green Sunfish.

I hope fishing pics up soon!
In the meantime, I've been tying some flies: