August 23 & 25, 2024

Drove to central Iowa on Friday afternoon.  Got into town with enough daylight left to visit a local public pond.  Caught a bunch of bluegills and a few bass, then finally caught what I was hoping to catch.... 2024 Flyrod Species #82...Pumpkinseed Sunfish!

Pumpkinseed Sunfish

Possible hybrid?  Mostly Pumpkinseed.

Drove back to Saint Louis on Saturday afternoon.  Sunday I chose to stay closer to home, and went after Redear Sunfish.  Caught some small ones, and also Largemouth Bass, Bluegills, and Green Sunfish.

Redear Sunfish

Green Sunfish

Early May 2018

Early May has been (mostly) warm, occasionally cool, some light rain every few days....more of a typical "Spring" that we had heretofore been lacking this year.

Bass started guarding beds in most of the local ponds by May 5.  That shut the bass bite down considerably for me, but some have still been caught.

Bluegills have been pretty active...not quite nesting yet.
I did catch this dandy 9.25" Pumpkinseed Sunfish:

Pumpkinseed Sunfish, 9.25"

Crappies have been hitting well, with the males now seemingly guarding nests (I haven't seen them on nests, but they are hitting really close to shore, so I assume this is what is happening).

I finally caught my first flyrod Channel Catfish of the year, 19":

I caught the catfish while flyfishing for carp.  They are SO MUCH FUN!  The biggest one recently has been this 28.5-incher:

And some other ones in the 25-27.5" range (one fatty was only 23.5", but made up for it in GIRTH) ;o)

All the carp and the catfish were caught on Hybrid Carp Fly pattern variations:

Overall, the fishing has been fun...fairly steady....nothing "lights out amazing".  I'll take it!

Icefishing February17,2018

Jay and I formulated flexible icefishing plans for Saturday.  We didn't know where we might find safe & accessible ice, so we had a series of "contingencies". 

Fortunately(?) the first place we tried was accessible.  The ice looked "iffy"....lotsa bubbles trapped in the ice, surface cracks....but not really honeycombed.  6.5" of ice.  We fished here most of the day, before hitting another place for the last couple hours.

Fishing alternated between very good, to zero throughout the day for each of us....usually only one of us was having success at any one time.  And then the fish would completely disappear for both of us.  Very bizarre.

Despite not catching much for hours at a time....we had fun and we did catch some decent fish!
We caught some crazy-aggressive chunky Hybrid Sunfish:

Hybrid Sunfish (presumably a Bluegill / Green Sunfish cross)

Even the Pumpkinseeds seemed more aggressive than the bluegills:

Pumpkinseed Sunfish

(BTW...the bottom right fish in the picture above is a Pumpkinseed hybrid.)

We didn't catch any crappies, and just a few bass.  This was the biggest of the day at a chunky 20" (see picture at the top of this post.)

I was looking down the hole when that one showed up and hit!

In other news....remember the ice rod that got ripped out of my hands and flew down the back in January?  Well...that pond's water is typically pretty stained all year.  But on Saturday I discovered it was strangely clear....I could see my lure tipped with a waxworm down to 8' +/-.   When we had arrived at the pond, Jay had initially drilled a couple holes to check ice thickness/quality.  Before we left that pond for the day, I decided to try and fish those holes since we couldn't find fish anywhere else.  I picked a hole that was over 6' of water.  I didn't mark any fish.  I dropped my lure/waxie to the bottom....then noticed something off to the side a bit.  Looked like my lost rod laying on the bottom!  I drilled 2 more holes before getting directly over the top of it.  I put on a rattle spoon and dropped it down.  Within a minute or two, I managed to hook THE CORK HANDLE (not the line or rod or eyelet like you would expect)....and reeled it up. I GOT MY LOST ROD BACK!!!  We decided the chances of finding it and retrieving it were astronomical.  CRAZY how everything worked out like that!  The uncharacteristically clear water was definitely the biggest factor.

Anyway....pretty cool stuff!  Oh....and no muskrats this time, but I did look down a hole once to see a ginormous bullhead slowly swimming just a couple feet under the ice.  I would have loved to catch it...I reeled up as quickly as I could, but it never turned or showed any interest and was quickly gone from view.

8-8-2017

In addition to some bass and bluegills, I caught a couple beautiful Pumpkinseed Sunfish while flyfishing this evening.

Pumpkinseed Sunfish

Fishing on April 16, 2017

Beautiful day on Sunday!

I didn't get out to fish until mid-afternoon.

Found some Grass Carp in a corner of the pond, in the shallows...like in 18"-24" of water.  They had the mud stirred up, so they were nearly impossible to spot.  Occasionally there would be a big swirl, and on very rare occasions, a fin or back.  I was still forced to blind cast instead of casting to targets.  I very briefly foul-hooked 3 grass carp, but didn't have any strikes.  I eventually gave up and moved on.

I caught 4 nice Pumpkinseed Sunfish on a chartreuse microjig.  I caught 1 small bass on a blockhead popper, one one on a black mohair leech, one on a chartreuse microjig.  I lost one crappie, but landed the second one.  Bluegills were hitting a wide variety of flies, including suspended flies, floating flies, and swimming flies.

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I flyfished during lunch today (Monday, April 17).  Caught bluegills and crappies.  The fish weren't particularly aggressive.
I did have a Garter Snake slither along the shoreline right in front of me:

September 16-18, 2016

Quick update on some flyfishing I've done in the local public ponds.

September 4, 2016

I've been doing quite a bit of flyfishing for bass this season.  I wanted a change of pace.  I decided to focus on sunfish on Sunday morning.  Didn't even try a bass popper, can you believe it?   :)

Specifically, I was hoping to catch some Pumpkinseed Sunfish.  The water was very muddy, due to all the ducks and geese migrating through the area.  They really really ruin the water clarity.  You'd have to see it to understand...but this pond had recently good water clarity (for Iowa) of 2-3' or more.  Sunday, water clarity varied in some parts, based on waterfowl usage....but at its worst, was maybe 2".  Very bad.

Anyway, I used a microjig under an indicator much of the time, and was oddly plagued with many fish throwing the hook, even though it was very sharp.  Lost a couple really good fish, which might have been either nice bass or BIG Pumpkinseeds.

In addition to good numbers of Bluegills, I did catch just one beautiful Pumpkinseed Sunfish.

The muddied waters may have had the positive effect of encouring the crappies to move into the shallows.  I landed two of them.

Even though I wasn't fishing for them, I caught at least 8 Largemouth Bass.  Nothing over @ 14"....
Here's the smallest of the day:

Pumpkinseeds of Summer

I've been catching some Pumpkinseed Sunfish lately (mid-July).  I think they are done spawning, but I've heard they tend to remain in relatively shallow water all summer.  Although chartreuse has been a great fly color for Pumpkinseeds in the past, they've been hitting pretty well on black lately.  They fly that has done the best was a simple unweighted #8 fly of black rabbit fur tail and UV black mylar chenille body.

Pumpkinseed Sunfish

Pumpkinseed Sunfish

And a few bass...nothing over 16" lately, though.