Weekend Flyfishing Report, 4/26/13 - 4/28/13

My buddy Jay joined my Friday evening, to flyfish a local public pond...the one with the Pumpkinseeds in it.
We both caught Crappies, Bluegills, Hybrid Sunfish, and a few Pumpkinseeds each.  I also caught a couple Largemouth Bass.
Here's one of the Pumpkinseeds that Jay caught:

Sunday I flyfished a public pond in a nearby town.  I caught 10 Crappies and 23 Bluegills in about an hour.  The biggest Bluegill was this 9.5" female:

Sunday evening I flyfished another local pond, hoping to maybe find a crappie or two.  No such luck.  I did catch a couple Largemouth Bass, and 18 feisty Bluegills.

Weekend Report - April 20-21, 2013

I have to say that in the middle-to-later part of the week, the cold weather and almost constant rain really had the fish put down.  The cooler influx of water would have been very welcome during the summer months, but the water really hasn't had much of a chance to warm up yet locally.  What we ended up with was basically an influx of cold water into the local ponds, colder than the water that was already there, waters rose 2-3 feet in most ponds, strong wind and wave action stirred up the water and turned it muddy...reducing visibility considerably.  I got skunked at two out of 3 ponds during one stretch in the later 1/2 of the week.

But this weekend, the sun finally came out, the wind died a little bit, and the air temp warmed up some.  The fish were as ready to play as I was!

Saturday around noon, I got to flyfish for a couple hours.  I paid my 3rd visit to the local pond where I had discovered the Pumpkinseeds.  I spent most of my time in the shallow channel area between two pond basins.  I used a gold microjig under an indicator, and caught some Crappies, Bluegills, Hybrid Sunfish, and 4 more Pumpkinseeds.  The last two trips were made in the evening under cloudy conditions, and I felt the pictures didn't do justice to the coloration on these beautiful Pumpkinseeds.  So I took advantage of the sunlight and snapped plenty of pictures:

Saturday evening I also got out again, this time to another local pond.  There was a lot of dead time between fish as I worked my way around the pond until it got too dark to see.  I ended up catching 8 Crappies and 11 Bluegills, using a chartreuse microjig under an indicator.

Sunday evening I got out once more, and visited a 3rd local pond.  The wind was blowing strong, the pond was REALLY muddy, and there was a rainstorm approaching.  I started flyfishing where water was flowing into the pond, and the water was a little bit clearer than the rest of the pond.  I set the chartreuse microjig just  12" under the indicator, because I knew the water wasn't deep here, and I proceeded to catch a decent number of really nice, hard-fighting Bluegills up to 8.5", and a couple of Hybrid Sunfish up to 9" long.  Each fish was really stout, and each fought extremely well.  I was pretty excited about those bluegills!  I'd left my camera at home, otherwise I would have taken some pics for sure.  The spot died, so  I also hit a few other spots around the pond, and caught a few more scatter Bluegills and 1 decent 13" Largemouth Bass.  Before I left, I went back to that first spot and caught some more really nice Bluegills again.

New Pond, Visit #2

My first trip ever to this pond (as you will remember from my previous blog), last week, resulted in catching a bunch of bluegills, and a fair number of Hybrid Sunfish and some Pumpkinseeds.

Last night's flyfishing outing, my second trip ever to this pond, I again caught a bunch of bluegills, decent numbers of Hybrid Sunfish…

...but I didn’t catch any Pumpkinseeds for the first hour.  I recalled that the first trip I had tried 3 different colors of microjigs, and almost all the Pumpkinseeds hit the chartreuse.  I also recalled that I thought I had a crappie on last trip, but didn’t land it.

Unlike last trip, this time I saved a little bit of remaining daylight for fishing the channel and beyond.  The north end of the main pond turns into a narrow channel that cuts across to the backs of some townhomes sort of near my neighborhood. There it opens up again into a smaller pond basin area.  Actually, the smaller basin looked bigger than I thought it would.  I didn’t really get to fish the smaller pond area, except right where it connects to the channel, because it just got too dark to see my strike indicator.  Anyway, at first I was still using a gold microjig that I had used on  the main big pond area.  I went up the channel to just beyond where it first widens out slightly.  I was casting towards the far shoreline, and caught a couple crappies!  I ended up catching at least 7 crappies scattered throughout the channel area.

I also caught 3 bass this time.  2 were small, one was a nice feisty “medium size”….maybe 13”. 

Right after I caught that bigger bass, I threw back in the same spot and hooked another something nice.  I thought maybe it was another bass.  It turned and ran straight up the channel and angled towards the opposite shoreline.  I mean it ROCKETED up that channel!  It was peeling line out of my hand and off the reel.  And I was using a 6wt!  In hindsight, I should have horsed it more.  My line would have held, but I was worried about the hook pulling loose.  In the end, the fish found some weeds/muck, and got free.  DANG!  Whatever it was…it was NICE.  Not like 10lb catfish nice…but a solid fish and FAST/strong!  I really wonder what it was.  I still suspect bass (maybe 18-19” range?), but it could have been grass carp, BIG crappie…heck, it could have been a muskrat!  There was at least one swimming around the area around dusk.

Anyway, it was exciting.  As the cloudy light started to get dark, I did switch to a chartreuse microjig, and caught more crappies in the channel, and 3 more Pumpkinseeds…plus a few more bluegills.  Here's a couple of the Pumpkinseeds:

So…all in all it was an interesting evening of flyfishing.  That channel area is intriguing.  It is not very deep, and I have a feeling by late spring/summer it will be overgrown with weeds…so I think I will try to fish there a bit more while the weather is still cool.

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!