Quick Smallmouth Bass Trip, 9-4-2014

I decided to try flyfishing for Smallmouth Bass after dinner.  By the time I drove north to the river, it was @ 6:20pm before I finally waded out into the stream.  The river was only slightly higher than my previous trip earlier this year, but seemed a bit dirtier as well, from a recent rain.  Overall, conditions were decent, though.

I knew there wasn't much time to fish.  I fished the same section I hit before, but this time I finished it in about 1.33 hours, compared to @ 4 hours when I was here a month ago.  Run-and-Gun wading!

I didn't work any area thoroughly, just hit good spots briefly, and quickly plowed through the barren stretches.

I started out with a yellow Blockhead Popper, and caught one Smallmouth Bass on it, plus missed a second, and had a 3rd shake free after a few seconds.  I switched to a large-ish chartreuse Cactus Chenille Bugger with lead eyes, and caught three Smallmouth Bass and one Hybrid Sunfish.  I was looking forward to fishing some large boulders in the last section of stream before finishing, but there was another angler there...so I just cut up the bank and walked back to my car and left.  I did stop and ask how he'd done, and he'd caught a half dozen Smallies with spinning gear, and lost a very nice one right at his feet.  He was there when I arrived...I don't know how long he'd been fishing, but he was working that last section pretty slow and methodically.

Anyway, no big fish for me, just 2 "medium-sized" bass in the 11"-13" range, and a couple smaller ones.

Flyfishing for Smallmouth Bass, 7-27-2014

My better half told me I could go fishing...so I HAD to go.  I WANTED to go.  Unfortunately, it was REALLY WINDY.  That severely limited my choices.  I could try to flyfish some local ponds by putting the wind at my back and fishing the calmer water on the upwind side.  But, I've been flyfishing topwaters for Largemouth Bass at the local ponds quite a bit lately, and the local reservoir and river still have high waters.

My better choices were limited.  I considered a small river for Smallmouth Bass.  This river had effectively dried up each of the past two dry summers.  There were only shallow intermittent pools left, and these may have largely frozen during the winters.  This definitely hurt the entire river's ecosystem.  Water had been high in this river early this year, and I wasn't certain it would even be wadable yet.

So, those were questions that needed answers...Would the trees adequately block the wind?  Was it wadable?  Were there any decent fish worth catching?

I went.  The stream section I intended to fish was busy with people...canoers/kayers/anglers/folks walking around.  Its a small stream, a guy can pretty easily cast a fly to each bank from the middle of the river in most areas.  Anyway, I quickly checked Google Earth for alternative access locations, and picked one nearby.  I walked upstream on shore, then waded back down and flyfished a 1/2 mile stretch of river back to my car.

Mosquitos swarmed me as soon as I got out of my SUV and started gearing up.  They badgered me the entire walk up the narrow dirt path through the woods as I headed upstream.  They left me alone, thankfully, as soon as I got in the water and started wading.

Smallies often like yellow or chartreuse, so I first tied on a chartreuse mylar bugger (basically a Woolly Bugger with no hackle) with beadchain eyes.  It didn't take long...a half-dozen casts in, I watched a wake bulge its way towards the fly.  Fish on!

Decent little Smallmouth Bass of @ 11" to start the day!
I saw a sucker (the only one I saw all day, as it turned out) on the far side of a section of fast water, and made some casts that tumbled right by the fish, but the sucker was uninterested in it.

Now that I had seen the water depth/clarity, I felt reasonably confident a topwater might get some attention.  I tied one to my line.
The first strike on the topwater was a dinky, but aggressive, Smallie:

I fished an interesting short rocky rapid with an especially large submerged boulder on the downstream side that was sitting in a small calm pocket, but surrounded on 2 sides by faster water.  That looked GOOD!  I landed 3 fish from that rock, and lost one more that was probably the biggest one.

That popper continued to work well for me.  Here's 3 pics of one fish that was one of the better ones for the day (it was too tough to decide which was my favorite picture of it):

I came to a spot that looked really good, but it had just gotten worked over by a guy fishing with spinning gear.  The current was too fast and deep for the popper to be effective, so I switched to a crayfish pattern under a strike indicator, a technique that Tim Holschlag finds to be extremely successful for Smallies.

It worked, I caught one!

As I moved past that spot, I continued in the wake of the spin-fisherman.  I switched to a yellow blockhead-style popper.  This worked well too! (I think the first two are pictures of one fish):

The fish really seemed to like that popper, but it broke off on a fish and I lost it.  I saw it float away, so the fish is still OK.

I switched back to the pre-formed foam-head style popper that I was using earlier (the green one).  The final stretch of river didn't look as good as some others I had fished upstream...but there were some large scattered boulders around.  I cast near one and the popper got attacked.  I couldn't tell which side of the boulder the Smallie dove down on...my side, or the downstream side.  It was a strong fish!  My line broke again.  I didn't see the popper float back up.  I tied one another popper and made a few more casts, then called it a day.  It took me @ 4 hours to work that 1/2 mile stretch of river.

Anyway, my expectations had been low, so I was extremely satisfied with the number and size of Smallies I was able to catch in this stretch of river on this day.  :)

Good Day of Fishing, 6-5-2014

I took Thursday off.
I decided to flyfish for Smallmouth Bass.  I tried a Chartreuse & Yellow Clouser first, with no takers.  I switched to a #6 F-C Pearl Shiner, and started catching fish.  The first two fish were nice 17" Smallies.  17" marked a new fly rod personal best of Smallmouth Bass for me.  My biggest ever is a 20-incher.

Then I caught a smaller bass @ 12", then had another big bass on.  That one shook free while I was focusing on reeling my slack line back on the reel.

The big Smallies seemed to stop hitting after that...I caught 11 more smaller ones.

I also caught my first IOWA fly rod Northern Pike.  It was only @ 18"-19", but it was still fun, and it was nice that it didn't cut my line before I could land it!  It hit a Clouser.

I caught a 9" Crappie on the Pearl Shiner as well.

I thought this empty Dragonfly Nymph case I found in the water was pretty cool:

After leaving there, I went to a public pond.  I caught at LEAST 40 Crappies (all 10" or less), 8 Bluegills, 1 Largemouth Bass, 2 decent Hybrid Sunfish, and 1 very beefy 8.5" Green Sunfish.  Most were caught on a Chartreuse microjig under an indicator.  There was another guy fishing the pond...he may have caught one or more fish.  At one point, I was pulling small crappies in every few seconds for about 20 minutes

And then later in the evening after dinner, I went out again, even though I was pretty exhausted.  I caught at least 30 Bluegills, and one 13" Largemouth Bass.  Some of the Bluegills were really nice fish.

The females appeared to still have at least some eggs.  Some of the males had such incredibly DEEP bodies, that their throat/chest areas began abruptly much lower than the rest of the head.  Kind of hard to describe.  Hopefully you can see it in the 2nd picture below.

It was quite a day of fishing!

Flyfishing Report, 10/21/2012

Saturday was an absolutely perfect, beautiful day for fishing.  So of course I didn't go.

Sunday was nearly as good, and I managed to head to the Skunk River north of Ames for an hours-worth of flyfishing in the late afternoon.  The river looked better, our recent rains have made a small improvement on the river, and there is now a small current flowing in the river...it isn't just stagnant pools anymore.  Its still really shallow, though.

I was hoping to find some suckers, but didn't see any.  I wet-waded, and my feet got cold, so this is probably the last wet-wading trip of the season for me!  Despite my polarized sunglasses, the glare on the water prohibited me from sight-fishing.  I was casting blind.

I started out fishing a small wet fly, and caught 2 Smallmouth Bass.

As you can see on the fly, I was dredging up plenty of gunk even though the fly was lightly weighted with only a small glass bead.  Since the water was so shallow, I switched to a foam topwater...a Chernobyl Ant/Hopper pattern.  I caught 8 more Smallies on that, lost at least half that many more (barbless hook), and also caught one decent Bluegill.

The Murdich Minnow

I'm a big fan of the Fly Fish Ohio website.  Lots of great info there, and tying instructions for a good number of useful fish-catching fly patterns.  The website's Publisher, Joe Cornwall, wrote a book called Fly Fishing Warm Water Rivers.
http://www.flyfishohio.com/Fly_Fishing_Warm_Water_Rivers.htm

When I purchased my second copy of his book (long story), he sent me a fly he had tied up for Smallmouth Bass.  On the website, there is an excellent write-up about the pattern, and step-by-step tying instructions.
http://www.flyfishohio.com/Murdich_Minnow.htm

One thing that especially caught my attention in Joe's write-up is his mention that this pattern was very successful on catching Ohio River Wipers.  Those Wipers are accustomed to chasing/eating shad, just like our local Wipers are.

So, I finally sat down this weekend to tie up a few. The one change I made was to cover the head/attach the eyes with Sport & Outdoor GOOP adhesive.  I unsuccessfully tried 3 different stores looking for the Liquid Nails Clear Small Project Adhesive.  This version of the GOOP sounds like it has the same attributes as the Liquid Nails product...it is waterproof, dries clear, and remains flexible.

I can't wait to show these to some fish this Summer/Fall!