Evening Fishing, 4-11-2011...Nice Crappie!

4-11-2011
Local Public Pond
Fly-fished
Time Fished: 7:30pm-8:30pm
Weather: Sunny/dusk, 61 degrees F
Wind: 15mph from the North
Fish sought: Bass
Fish caught: 9 bluegills, 1 crappie
Best pattern: microjig

The wind was finally blowing out of the right direction for me to try some topwater poppers for bass. No takers along the short stretch of shoreline I fished. A guy with spinning gear on the opposite side of the pond did catch a small bass (<12").

I saw a nice Grass Carp porpoise within casting distance, so I chucked the popper in front of it, but no luck.

I'd seen some surface activity that I figured was bluegills, so I switched to a microjig. The first one (mostly black) got some attention, but no hookups. I switched to one with an olive grizzly marabou tail and an olive sparkle dubbing for the body. I caught all the fish on this.

The biggest bluegill was a chunky 8.5" female, which is the biggest I've caught on the fly rod so far this year.

The fish that got me all excited (and still couldn't fall asleep 2 hours later) was the crappie. It was a BEAST! Its my "Personal Best" on the fly rod, although I've caught bigger on spinning gear. It is a white crappie, and measured 14". It fought really hard, taking line a couple times. I was sure it was a bass, until it finally got closer to shore! I released all the fish, as usual.

Ocotber 9 & 10, 2010 Fly-Fishing Outings

The algae blooms on the local public ponds have been horrific for at least the past 3 weeks.  Most places, the algae mats extend 15feet or MORE from shore, with random floating and submergent algae beyond that.  Its as bad as I've ever seen it.  I'm sure it can be attributed to the deluge of rain that was our Spring and Summer this year, which would have brought a lot of lawn nutrients (and shoreline waterfowl droppings) into the pond.  The nutrients are pretty much locked in the system now, unless cleaner water flushes it out.  The algae, unless removed (not likely), will die off, sink, decay over the winter (hopefully not causing a winterkill...keep your fingers crossed), and the nutrients will remain in the pond in some form or another.

The algae has made fishing from shore difficult, but as long as you don't mind cleaning junk off your hook after each retrieve, its do-able.  The algae is only one issue lately.  The other issue is the bluegills (and crappies) have been ultra-finicky.  Willing to hit almost everything, but not wanting to hang on to anything long enough to get HOOKED.  So, I've been tying up a variety of patterns I normally don't use, in order to try and pinpoint something the fish will take and hold onto longer.

First was a variation of John Scott's CFC October Caddis.  I left the rubber legs/antenna off this example:

A nighttime crappie picked it off the surface near shore:

And here's a bluegill that took a blue version of the same fly:

The most successful pattern last night was this woolly-bugger type pattern, tied with a ginger/brown rabbit fur tail, dubbing of cat hair salvaged from our pet's brush, and some black hackle.

 Here's a couple of the bluegills that liked this:

Here's a parachute pattern with an extended body.

A largemouth bass hit that, and then the thing wouldn't float very well, so I had to change flies again.

And finally...I was staring at some Chamois material while sitting at my fly-tying desk...and it occurred to me to tie up some of these.  I'm not sure if anything like these have been done before (I've seen San Juan Worm patterns tied with double hooks similar to this), so for now I'm just calling it a Chamois Bluegill Worm.

I was excited to try them out on the bluegills.  It needs more experimentation, but it DID catch fish!