Fall 2014 Urban Trout

I flyfished Lake Petocka in Bondurant last Friday and the first 4 days of this workweek.
Weather conditions varied widely, from 70's to 50's, and wind from glassy calm to 30mph.

Success varied widely as well.  In order of the 5 days fished, trout landed were as follows:  27, 6, 4, 89, 17 (+1 perch).  So, one great day, and a couple of very disappointing days.

I tried a fair number of patterns.  I caught fish on many.  I would say my best-producer was probably a #10 or #8 nymph hook with an orange or dark-colored glass beadhead tied with a sand- or brown-grizzly marabou tail, Canadian olive or Canadian brown simiseal dubbing in a dubbing loop palmered up the hook shank.

Lake Petocka Trout, 5-3-2014

I think I’m pretty much done trying for trout until Fall.   I caught 3 on Saturday morning.  It was a lot of work, but they were pretty nice fish for around here!  I measured one chunky trout at 14.5”, and another was about that length, possibly 15” but a bit slimmer.

The fights were EPIC on the Allen Olympic 12' 5wt switch rod!!!  The 14.5-incher, I was CERTAIN I’d hooked a big brooder!  It dove deep, headed for open water, came up and made a BIG SWIRL, and was fighting strong!  The other nice one rocketed straight across in front of me, the line was SINGING as it sliced through the water…faster than a PIKE!!!  And then it made some some absolutely spectacular speeding porpoise-like jumps out of the water.  It was fantastic!  Its rare to get such awesome fights out of these stocked fish, but it certainly shows what they are capable of. 

I know there are some good trout still in the lake, but "return on investment" recently has been pretty low.  2 of my last 3 trips there resulted in SKUNKS (likely due to the weather conditions), and overall it seems like the comparatively few trout remaining in the lake have moved out away from shore and into deeper water.  I'm not prepared to chase them there yet on fly gear.  Hopefully many of them will survive the summer and be even bigger this coming Fall.  :)  I'm already looking forward to that.

Lake Petocka, evening 4-24-2014

4-24-2014
Lake Petocka
Cloudy, 10 mph wind from NNW
Time fished: 6pm-9pm
Fish sought:  Brooder trout!
Fish caught: 8 Rainbow Trout, 2 Smallmouth Bass

I definitely SAW a lot more fish than I caught.  The action was not fast by any means....it was some work, but fun.  I used my switch rod, which allowed me to reach fish much further away than I would have been able to reach with my regular fly rod.

Plenty of surface activity.  I couldn't buy a fish on topwater, though.

I tried a lot of flies, and only caught fish on two of them....an unweighted black woolly bugger, and a Chili Pepper with a small beadhead.   Maybe I should have tried the Chili Pepper earlier in the evening.  I put in on just before dark, and caught 2 Smallmouth Bass on it about 20' from shore, and 2 trout on some long casts towards the middle of the lake.

Its fairly rare to catch a smallmouth bass in this lake, its rather bizarre that I caught 2 in the same evening.

At one point, I brought one fly right in front of me, watched a trout swim up from underneath, inspect it, refuse it, and swim away.  They CAN be finicky.

One of the last trout I caught was a pretty nice one and really chunky.  It was so dark, I didn't bother measuring or trying to photograph it.

LOVED that sunset last night!

Trout Fishing at Lake Petocka - March 29, 2014

Saturday was a beautiful day, but it started out below freezing.  I arrived at the lake @ 9am, and slush was forming in my rod line guides for about the first hour.

Dale G. arrived at the lake first, and had caught 2 trout on flies by the time I arrived.  Wearing fingerless gloves, his hands were very cold!  We split and hit different parts of the lake to try and find more trout.

Of course I would be on the wrong side of the lake!  Dale found some trout about the same time that my friend Jay showed up to flyfish.  We joined Dale, and caught a few fish.  It was spotty fishing, slow but fairly steady.  I left around 1:15pm or so, but returned later in the evening to try again.  I only caught one more fish, which brought my total to 13 trout for the day.  A lot of work for few fish, it seemed, but it was a great day to be outside, and it was still fun to catch some fish.  And some were decent-sized.  The DNR stocks them at @ 12", but I caught some the measured up to 14".

Here's Jay with his first flyrod trout of the day:

And here's some of the trout I caught:

I used mostly beadhead woolly buggers...flashy gold seemed to work best for me today.  I also caught a trout on a beadchain-eye fly I tied to look like a baby sunfish...the fish in the 3rd picture was caught on that, and the fish in the last 2 pictures were caught on a fly I tie that has a marabou tail, gold mylar tubing body, and a few turns of black ostrich at the head.  They like that one!

Lake Petocka Stocker Trout, Fall 2013

I went flyfishing for "stocker trout" at Lake Petocka on Saturday, October 26.  It had been 8 days since they were stocked.
I fished from 9am-3:45pm.  Weather was mostly sunny, high temps reached around 50 degrees F.  Wind was 10-15 mph from the NNW.  I put some hip waders on and waded out to about knee deep.

I used a #8 Beadhead black Woolly Bugger for a good part of the day.  I experimented with a few other colors, caught fish on most of them, but the black seemed to be the trouts' preference on this day.

I ended up catching 67 Rainbow Trout.

I measured one at @ 14.25".  I landed one that I suspect was significantly larger, but it flopped off my fly as I was carrying it back to shore to measure it.  I could have tried to grab it, but I just let it go on its way.
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On Sunday, October 27, I flyfished the lake again in the evening..from 4pm to 6:45pm.  The last hour was fairly worthless.  I ended up with landing 21 Rainbow Trout.  The best fly this time was an unweighted white Woolly Bugger.

Stocker Trout, Fall 2013

Its that time of year when the DNR stocks trout in a handful of lakes across Iowa, as part of their Urban Trout Fishing program.  
On Sunday afternoon, I visited one of the lakes that were stocked on the preceding Friday.  The lake is 22 acres in size.  I wasn't there on stocking day, so I don't know the exact number, but typically they stock 1,500-1,800 trout at a time here.   I fished for quite awhile before I found a few fish.  The ones I found seemed to be "loners", not grouped up like they sometimes are.  I caught 13 while flyfishing, and lost a nice bass around dusk.  The bass jumped 3 times, dove, and then the hook pulled free near shore when I attempted to horse it in order to land it.

I took Monday off work to flyfish it again.  This time I found more fish, or maybe they just hit better in the mornings?  I caught 30 in the first hour before it slowed down.  It was slow but relatively steady fishing the rest of the day.  I ended up catching 107 trout, and 1 smallmouth bass.  That was way better than the day before!  Now, yes, that's a lot of fish.  My previous best was 88 fly-caught trout in a day, and a friend of mine had caught 42 while flyfishing on Sunday morning.  First, I hoped to beat his number, then I wanted to beat my old number, and then I was so close to 100 that I just had to keep going....

I had skipped lunch (it was in my car, I just didn't want to take a break to walk over and "refuel"!, plus it was cold...(started out at 35 degrees F, but eventually climbed to 48 degrees), windy, and I was standing calf deep in the water all day wearing some hip waders.  When I got done...I suddenly discovered I couldn't feel one foot.  My back was sore.  By the time I got home, I could barely stay awake.  I WAS BEAT...happy and satisfied...but BEAT!  And...I think I burnt myself out.  I wasn't that excited to go the next day, so I didn't.

I'm wondering if I should have left sooner...but what would you do?  The fish were biting, and there was nowhere else I needed to be.  Catching fish has always been my favorite way to pass the time.

Lake Petocka - Nov. 1-4, 2012

Lake Petocka was stocked with 1500 Rainbow Trout on Thursday at Noon.  I took Thursday and Friday off work to fish it.

Thursday morning I fly fished a local public pond to waste some time before heading to Bondurant (Lake Petocka).  Using a chartreuse micro jig,  I landed 100 small fish...81 Crappies, 15 Bluegills and 4 Green Sunfish.  Not bad for two hours of fishing!

At Lake Petocka, fishing was tough after the stocking.  Most folks left fishless.  Maybe one or two caught their 5-fish limit.  I did better than most, and caught 5 trout and 1 chunky Largemouth Bass, but it took me all of 2 hours to accomplish that.  I also fished my way around nearly the entire lake.  I didn't keep any.

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On Friday, I fly fished Petocka for 6 hours.  I fished one corner of the lake for awhile.  Caught 10 Trout there, before my friend Dale G. called and said he'd been there awhile longer and had caught 18 fish where he was.  He told me to come down and fish with him, if the action slowed where I was.  It did slow.  I caught one more trout before heading over to his corner of the lake. I saw a few small pods of fish working quidkly along the top of a drop-off, and landed 2 trout from those groups.  Then the action died at that spot.  I saw some more fish further down the shoreline, so I started following where I could see fish.  I caught quite a few more fish, at least one from almost every small group that came down along the shoreline.  Dale came down and fished by me.  The action slowed.  I headed back to the corner of the pond where I had started the morning.  There were fish there...quite a few!  I was catching fish on nearly every cast for awhile, and Dale came over to see what was up.  We both caught fish here.

For the day, there were lulls in the action, but overall it was fairly steady.  I used a variety of fly patterns.  White was a very effective color this day.  I ended up catching and releasing 64 Rainbow Trout.  Some were caught by casting straight out with beadhead White Woolly Buggers.  Others were caught on Blue Thunder Streamers worked along the top of a drop-off when small groups of 3 or 4 trout would come along the bank.  And others were caught on unweighted white Woolly Buggers cast really shallow along the shoreline when small pods would come in and search for food within 4-5' of shore.  And still others were caught on a gold Springbrook Wunder microjig suspended about 10"-12"under an indicator in a small pocket of water with 2-5' depth.

This one hit an unweighted white Woolly Bugger.

This one hit a glass beadhead dubbed-body softhackle.

This one hit a Blue Thunder streamer.

Hard to see...but a number of fish had sort of rosy-pink bellies.  I assume this might be the coloration of a spawning male Rainbow Trout?...since most of the fish with such bellies were dripping milt.

This was Trout #60 of the day!

Dale G. And I fished together much of the time.  He even supplied some buffalo meat sticks to help re-energize us after noon.  They were tasty, thanks Dale!

I finally left when a very rude Dad used his 3 year old son as an excuse to cast into the small area we were fishing.  Really irked me.  Don't misunderstand, I thought it was great the guy brought his son out to try for trout.  But fishing really close to other guys and then casting the son's rod (with a huge bobber on it) over in front of those other guys into the area they had clearly been fishing for some time, and then moving himself between the son's rod and the closest guy and start casting dead-center where the established angler had been casting and catching fish.  Dale was that guy first...and he left without complaining.  So then the Dad picked up his gear and moved over by me and repeated the same situation.  Each time he would cast his son's giant bobber over in front of me, I'd turn and look right at the dad.  He wouldn't make eye contact with me at all.  But it was ridiculous and obvious what he was doing, and it was outrageously and sickeningly rude.  What a horrible example he was setting for his young son!  I just reeled in and left as well, and saw the  dad then move into my position and start casting over by the guys that had come down to fish on my other side, but were not crowding me.  Unreal.  I'm still pissed.  The Dad finally hooked a trout, and handed the rod to his son to reel in.  THAT was a good move, and I admired him for that.  But with a lake full of fish and tons of vacant shoreline to choose from, to crowd out people who are catching fish is still unacceptable.

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Unexpectedly, I found myself with some time to go fishing on Sunday, Nov. 4.  I headed back to Lake Petocka.  The sky was overcast, with occasional light drizzle.

I first fished the last spot where I had caught fish on Friday. Not much going on there.  I had only made about 10 casts when I got a phone call.  Dale G. was at the lake again, and had seen my car.  There were fish where he was, so he invited me over.  Fish indeed!  The two of us were soon catching plenty of fish.  Guys next to us bottom-fishing with bait just looked on and shook their heads.

Because of the weather, I had my hoodie hood pulled up over my cap.  After awhile, I became aware that I was being watched.  I looked to my left, and there was a guy standing about 6' away, facing me and just looking on with a scowl on his face.  "Hi," I said.  He said "I'm just going to watch you."  Weird.  "OK," said I, and turned back to the business of fishing and catching.  The guy just watched me for about 20 minutes!  At one point he asked to see what I was using.  I showed him, and went back to fishing.  He finally moved about 25' down the shoreline and fished.  Turns out he was using spinning gear.  He was casting into an obvious pod of trout, but not catching any.  Over about 1.5 hours, he did land 3 or 4.  That's him in the background of this picture (of me holding a rather fat toad of a trout!):

Dale caught plenty of Rainbows as well:

Fishing eventually slowed.  Dale had to get on home.  That guy to my left who had been watching me caught one more, and decided to leave.  His pod of trout were still there, so I moved over and caught a bunch more fish from that pod before it slowly moved beyond my casting range ( plus I was casting into the wind).  I ended up catching 78 Rainbow Trout in 4 hours!  Pretty good day!

Dale pointed out later that my total trout caught over 2 days (64+78=142) amounted to nearly 10% of the fish that had been stocked!  Actually, I need to catch just 3 more trout (since I had caught 5 on Friday, so a total of 147) to make it an official 10%.  I think I can "get'er done"...if I can find time to get back over to the lake!  :)

Lake Petocka Fly-Fishing Report, 11-7-2011

I took the day off yesterday (Monday) and did some fly-fishing for the trout at Lake Petocka. When I requested the day off work, the forecast was for 10 degrees warmer than what it turned out to be, and low temps almost 20 degrees warmer than it turned out to be.


Still, it was a nice, sunny morning and early afternoon, with reasonably low winds.

Fishing was S-L-O-W. Very few "rings" from surfacing fish within casting distance of shore. No big groups of fish. In talking with some folks, there was some great fishing a week ago, and reports are that folks were keeping a lot more than their legal limits. I even talked to a couple guys out there who said they had caught their limits (a week ago Saturday), took them home, then came back. They left it to my imagination as to whether they kept any on their 2nd trips of the day. But anyway, all the harvesting (both legal and illegal) seems to have cut the trout population down considerably over the past 3.5 weeks. That's good from the DNR's point of view that the fish get "used" and enjoyed. It just makes fishing a lot more challenging.

Most folks I saw out there yesterday who were using lures or live bait didn't catch ANYTHING. The best I saw was one guy using minnows...he took home 4 trout.

Comparitively, I did well and caught 9 trout on flies....8 Rainbows and 1 Brookie. I stayed about an hour-and-a-half extra trying to catch "1 more fish to make it an even 10"....but it was dead, and it didn't happen.

I tried surface patterns as well as nymphs under an indicator, but didn't catch fish on them. I did best with streamers like beadhead woolly buggers and simple patterns using gold mylar tubing bodies with a marabou tail. Although fish were very rarely visible from shore, I caught almost all of my fish within 15' of shore.

Fly-Fishing for Trout at Lake Petocka, 10-25-2011

The 10-day weather forecast suggested that this MIGHT be the last 70+ degree day for the year.  Such a nice day should be spent outdoors FISHING, so I took the day off from work.  I had stayed up until almost 1am the previous evening tying flies for the day's adventure, so I was tired when the alarm went off at 6am.  I went back to sleep until almost 8am.  I looked out the window, and the remaining leaves on the trees were still...it was very calm.  ALRIGHT!  I figured that would help me located some trout near shore once I got to the lake.

I quickly got dressed and descended to the kitchen.  I looked out the back windows and...WIND???  Darn!  I knew it was coming (forecasted 10-15mph winds), but I hoped I would be at the lake before it started to blow. Oh well.

I ate breakfast and quickly got the few items I needed into the car and headed to the lake.  When I arrived, there were already 4 cars parked around the lake with fishermen scattered around the shoreline.  I parked, and decided to walk around the lake until I saw signs of trout, or otherwise found a spot that looked worthy fishing.

I had walked about a 1/3 of the way around the lake, when I saw some boils and swirls.  TROUT!  As I got closer, I could see a dark patch about 20' off shore, which was a pod of trout.  I had a yellow Boa Yarn Leech on my line from fishing for bluegills, crappies and bass the previous evening, so I tossed it out beyond the edge of the pod.  I didn't want to cast or retrieve directly through the pod in case this would make them scatter, so I tried to pick fish off the edges.  I caught the first Rainbow Trout of the day on that Boa Yarn Leech.

Since I had a good visual on the pod of trout, and found them to be willing to hit flies, I switched to a Blue Thunder streamer pattern, originated by Ian James.  I didn't have purple Flashabou, so I used pearl Krystal Flash under a thin topping of purple bucktail.

This was one of the patterns I had tied the previous night, and I wanted to see what the trout thought of it.  Turns out....THEY LOVED IT!  I was catching fish or missing strikes on nearly every cast for quite some time.  I caught both Rainbows and Brookies on it.

Although the streamer was holding up really well to catching all those fish, I eventually I had to take the fish-shredded remnants of the streamer off my line and try some other patterns.  I caught quite a few fish on a beadhead softhackle nymph pattern:

And a few Rainbows on an olive Woolly Bugger with black hackle:

An angler who had been fishing unsuccessfully about 70 yards away with spinning gear and an in-line spinner noticed my success, and he moved his gear down to the opposite side of me. He fished there for a bit, but wasn't catching anything. He was amazed at how the fish were going after the fly I was using. He came over and asked what I was using. I said I would show him, and just then missed a good strike. My line, leader, tippet and fly flew out of the water and wrapped around John's (that was his name) spinning rod. I laughed and said, "Well, there it is!" We disentangled our gear, and he looked at the streamer. He said he has a fly rod, but has never really used it. He was amazed at how I was able to catch fish on nearly every cast (a slight exaggeration). I told him how I had spotted the fish, showed him the darker patch of water that was the pod of trout, and told him how I was trying to pull fish off the edges of it. I also told him to go ahead and walk down beyond the pod, so we could each cast to the fish from opposite sides. Over the next hour or so, he caught 5 trout on his spinner, compared to around 30 that I caught on flies. He got more and more interested in fly-fishing, and would sometimes just watch what I was doing, and ask questions. I tried to get him to try casting my rod, but he refused. I told him I at LEAST wanted him to see what one of those trout feels like on the end of the fly line, so I cast out about 20 times, and let him work the fly back in (by this time, I had a beadhead nymph under a strike indicator). He missed a few fish, but he eventually hooked, fought and landed 2 Rainbow Trout. He thought that was fantastic! He was saying how he was going to have to dig out his unused fly rod and start learning how to cast, so he could do this on his own. RIGHT ON! I also told him how fly fishing also works really well for Crappies, Bluegills, Bass, Catfish, Carp....just about everything!

John took this picture of me with a Brook Trout:

Anyway, the action had declined, but we had spent a good hour talking about fly-fishing and whatnot. He had kept his limit of 5 trout, which he wanted to give to his neighbor. He needed to get home and clean the fish, so we parted ways.

I had already caught 43 Rainbow Trout and 4 Brook Trout by this time. I moved to the opposite side of the lake so I wouldn't have to cast into the strong wind anymore. There wasn't much fish activity over there, but I stayed and fished. I caught a few more Rainbow Trout, then tied on a foam Chernobyl Ant/Hopper. I caught a couple more Rainbows and a Bluegill on it. It wasn't floating as well as I wanted, so I put on a larger foam Hopper. I caught a Brook Trout on that, which I thought was just fantastic!  The two pictures below are of the same fish.

Final fish tally was 48 Rainbow Trout, 5 Brook Trout, and 1 Bluegill. What I had hoped to achieve this day was to catch a good number of trout (did that) on fly-fishing gear, I wanted to catch at least a few of the Brook Trout on fly gear (did that), and catching one on a surface pattern was really icing on the cake! Although the action had started off very fast and then tapered off to almost nothing...I was very pleased!

My buddy Jay called and said the White Bass were hitting really good at the local reservoir, so I decided to give it up on a GREAT day of fly-fishing for trout at Lake Petocka.  I left at around 3pm, stopped by my house to pick up appropriate White Bass fishing gear, and headed for the reservoir to meet up with Jay. But THAT report is in the NEXT blog!