Evening Fishing, 6-4-2010

I drove by a pond I was hoping to fly-fish for bluegills, but found too many people along the shoreline. So, I drove to another city-owned pond that I haven't fished this year. Its a decent-looking pond, at least 12' deep, edged with limestone rip-rap, fountain in the middle...but there is a horrible ring of algae around the entire pond, out to about 12' to 20' from shore. I've only ever caught tiny bluegills from this pond, so I rarely fish it. But Jim ice-fished it a couple winters back, and had several fish break his line, plus he said he caught some decent bluegills. I never doubt what Jim says. :icon_salut:


My success was dismal, and only managed to avoid a SKUNK by catching this Green Sunfish on a Gurgler:

By the way, in another pond I fish, the little Green Sunfish are spawning right now.  Check out the egg-filled belly on this little gal!

Anyway...ss the sky darkened, I decided to hit the original pond I was going to try. The other anglers had all left!
They didn't leave me many fish, it seemed.

I switched flies to a brown nymph thing I had tied up. I caught a couple bass and a few medium-sized bluegills. After it was completely dark, I finally landed a decent bluegill, this nice 9" female that was fat enough, she may still be full of eggs, although the spawn is several weeks past.

Just a few casts later, a big hit! Oh WHAT A FIGHT! I'm sure I'll still lose my share of big fish, but I have pretty much learned that if a big fish wants to run...LET IT RUN. It took a while (which is part of the fun anyway, but I never want to overplay a fish), but I finally landed this 22" Channel Catfish.

After releasing it, I check my tippet, and it was very scratched up and STRESSED...like when you pull on a plastic bag so much it stretches but doesn't break. I didn't feel like changing the tippet just then, so I called it a night.

Evening Report 4-7-2010

The day-long rain stopped, the sun came out, the wind died...made for a nice evening, except it was sort of cold. It was 48 F as I headed for the pond. I had an 1.25 hour time slot to fish, between 7:45pm and 9pm.

This was "experiment night". I had tied up some flies earlier in the evening, plus had some previous ties I wanted to try out.

There was already a "Rabbit Fly" on the line, so I started with that.

Didn't take long to get the first crappie.

I think I caught one more fish on it, then switched to a very small (1"-1.5") EP-style minnow and caught a couple crappies on that:

Then switched to a craft fur minnow about 2.5" long...olive over bright yellow over white, and caught at least one crappie on that:

Then I put on a fly I had tied up last night. I had planned to tie up Joe Cornwall's Crappie Killer (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3434069&id=52479137997), but changed the body from chenille with tinsel ribbing to using estaz. I figured it would add flash, as well as some bulk for night fishing. I used pearl estaz on one, and the GRAND size chartreuse pearl on the other. I tied on the chartreuse one. This fly worked really well! I caught pretty good numbers of crappies on it, even after it got dark.

I also tossed it over in front of a storm culvert that empties into the pond. I figured the current from today's rain would bring some fish there. First cast yields a good fish! I admit I was sort of hoping for a catfish, but it turned out to be a rather chunky bass. I didn't measure it, I would guess it at about 15".

I wondered if a boa yarn would still outfish the new (modified) Crappie Killer fly. I put on a silvery-gray one. First cast...Crappie! But then that was about it for that fly. Maybe they couldn't see it as well as the usual yellow one I use? But I've done well on that color at night last year, so I know it can work.

But, for the remaining time I had left, I went back to the modified Crappie Killer. Caught more crappies. And last fish (again) was a bluegill. For a 7.5" bluegill (not very big), it is a mystery how he got enough of that big fly (#6 3xl streamer hook) in his mouth.

So, total was (at least) 17 crappies, 1 bass, 1 bluegill.

I fished last night (3-31-10) from 10pm-Midnight. It was such a beautiful night, I HAD to try it. With the warmer temps, and very little wind, I figured the fish would be going CRAZY!

I figured wrong. Sheesh, where were all the fish? I fished around almost the entire pond, and didn't find willing biters anywhere. Well, a couple, but not many. For my two hours of effort, I caught 3 small crappies and 1 largemouth bass. The bass was 18", so I guess that was the high point of the night(...besides the great weather and getting to go fishing).

Night Fly-Fishing 11-13-09

We had an unseasonably nice evening on Friday night, so after supper and a bit of time with the family, I headed to a local pond to do some fly-fishing.
It was slow, as it has been for several weeks now. But, I did manage to catch a few fish. I stuck with the #8 yellow boa yarn leech pattern, and landed 3 crappies, 3 bluegills, and this 19" channel catfish. The catfish was a nice surprise this late in the year, and put up an excellent fight on my 5wt fly gear.

Night Fly-Fishing 9-19-09

Beautiful night last night...calm...mid-60's. No ducks or geese on the pond!! Great night for fishing, right? YEAH!

Well, really fishing was S-L-O-W. I fished for a about 2 hours...from 7:30pm-9:30pm. Caught 10 crappies, 5 bluegills...and a minnow.

A muskrat had been swimming along in front of me, and kept splashing everytime I would move or cast...but he'd come right back up and continue to swim around in front of me...like 20 feet away. Finally, it swam along the shoreline to my right and then swam to the bank, where I could no longer see him. Just a couple minutes later, I hooked something big...and it splashed a several times, and I was sure I'd hooked that darn muskrat. It swam across in front of me, so I turned on my cap light...and it was a fish! The minnow. BIG MINNOW!

It was a trick to land by hand, alone in the dark, but I managed. The "minnow" was a 29" Grass Carp. SWEET!!

Plugging the length into a couple of weight-to-length conversion equations specifically for Grass Carp yields an average calculated weight of 12 lbs. Not bad for the 5wt fly rod!

I used a yellow boa yarn leech pattern again, although I had started off the evening trying something like a Thunder Creek minnow pattern tied with yellow calf tail...(had some bumps on that, but no fish).

Night Fly-Fishing 9-10-09

Had family activities after work last night. Got home from those around 8:20pm. It was such a nice night, even though it was dark already...So, I decided to go fly fishing at a local public pond.Used a yellow Boa Yarn Leech, and did pretty well. Fished for 2 hours, and stopped when I reached 40 crappies. Also caught 4 bluegills, and 1 channel catfish.The bluegills were smallish. The crappies were "medium-sized"....averaging around 9", but I measured one bigger one that went 11". The catfish was 20.5".