Trout Fishing at Lake Petocka - March 29, 2014

Saturday was a beautiful day, but it started out below freezing.  I arrived at the lake @ 9am, and slush was forming in my rod line guides for about the first hour.

Dale G. arrived at the lake first, and had caught 2 trout on flies by the time I arrived.  Wearing fingerless gloves, his hands were very cold!  We split and hit different parts of the lake to try and find more trout.

Of course I would be on the wrong side of the lake!  Dale found some trout about the same time that my friend Jay showed up to flyfish.  We joined Dale, and caught a few fish.  It was spotty fishing, slow but fairly steady.  I left around 1:15pm or so, but returned later in the evening to try again.  I only caught one more fish, which brought my total to 13 trout for the day.  A lot of work for few fish, it seemed, but it was a great day to be outside, and it was still fun to catch some fish.  And some were decent-sized.  The DNR stocks them at @ 12", but I caught some the measured up to 14".

Here's Jay with his first flyrod trout of the day:

And here's some of the trout I caught:

I used mostly beadhead woolly buggers...flashy gold seemed to work best for me today.  I also caught a trout on a beadchain-eye fly I tied to look like a baby sunfish...the fish in the 3rd picture was caught on that, and the fish in the last 2 pictures were caught on a fly I tie that has a marabou tail, gold mylar tubing body, and a few turns of black ostrich at the head.  They like that one!

Allen Olympic Switch Rod - Trial Run

I wasted a bunch of time on Sunday (March 30, 2014)...but when 4pm rolled around, I finally decided to visit a local pond and try to figure out how to cast with the new 12' 5wt Allen Olympic switch rod I got.

For those that don't know, a typical Single-hand fly rod is usually less than 10' long.  A Spey rod is a long fly rod, generally over 12' long, and is designed to be cast with two hands on the rod.  Spey rods make use of specialized lines to make longer casts possible with heavier flies.  They are especially popular for fishing saltwater and for fishing larger rivers for salmon and steelhead.  A Switch rod is sort of between these two types of rods.  Switch rods are usually between 10' and 12' in length, and can be cast using single-hand or two-hand techniques.  I got one with the idea of making longer casts in lakes for white bass, wipers, and trout.

So anyway, it was very windy.  And I had visited another local pond the previous day and found it to be muddied by waterfowl and with globs of decomposing organic material floating up from the bottom.  So, I didn't expect to catch much, if anything.

I arrived, rigged up the rod, and started casting.  I tried a Snake Roll cast, a Snap-T cast, a Switch Cast, and maybe one or two other 2-handed casts, as well as a single-hand Roll cast and Overhead cast.  I'm totally new to this, but I thought I was doing reasonably well.  Next, I figured I may as well try to catch something, to see how the rod feels when hooking, fighting and landing a fish.  I knew I might not catch anything at all.  But then I proceeded to have one of the best days I have EVER had at this pond!

I ended up landing at least 13 Bluegills up to 9", and 33 nice Crappies up to 13"!  What a blast!  I was very happy to discover that these fish put a very nice bend in my Switch rod!

Below is the 13" Crappie.  BEAST!  Fought like a bass!

Below is a 9" Bluegill.

What a GREAT evening!!!

I should mention that I used a 1/80th oz chartreuse microjig set about 18" below an indicator.  I tried slowly swimming some flies through the area, but didn't have any takers.  The indicator allowed a slow presentation, while the wind and waves pushed the indicator slowly along and gave a nice vertically jigging motion to the fly.

Costa Rica Fishing, 3-18-2014

Got back late Thursday night from a weeklong Spring Break trip with my family.  We had a great time, saw lots of cool stuff.  We saw Howler monkeys, white-faced monkeys, lots of big lizards and smaller colorful ones, geckos, big toads, coati mundi, beautiful birds and butterflies, hermit crab...

I scheduled one day for us to do some saltwater fishing.  The sights were beautiful.  Lots of islands and sea arches/caves.  We saw sea turtle, dolphins, frigate birds and brown pelicans, MANY devil rays (many jumping, many just sticking their wing tips above water)...and lots of fish.

First disclaimer: this is near the end of their dry season, and fishing really picks up starting in late May or June.  Second disclaimer: we didn't bottom fish any reefs for some reason...I kind of expected to, since they seem to have some really nice Cubera Snapper in the area...instead, we spent some time trolling and some time casting shallow running and surface plugs with heavy spinning gear.

We found baitfish along the rocky sides of a bay that had a sand beach at the back of it.  The first mate, Mauricio, started casting a saltwater Rapala.  He hooked a couple Crevalle Jacks, and my son and daughter each fought and landed one.  The fights were surprisingly long!  This worked in my favor, because the kids were both worn out and they let me land all the rest of the fish! :)

Mauricio then set me up to cast with a rod.  Heavy spinning gear, lots of work to cast the big plugs!  Every time I cast, it sounded similar to all the line coming off a gas-powered trimmer/weed whacker!  I had some good follows, before a boat came in with a couple of divers.  As soon as the divers got in the water, the jacks disappeared.

We left that bay, and cast around a nearby island, where I picked up a jack on a topwater plug.

We trolled for a few hours.  I got 3 Skipjack Tuna, and a "baby" Mahi Mahi of about 39" (my guesstimate).  I had caught the jacks and tuna before, so I was excited to catch something new!

They cleaned the Mahi for us, and we had one of the restaurants at our resort prepare it for our dinner.  HEAVENLY!!

Great trip!

Oh...and I almost forgot!  Here's a short video clip I took of a "Tuna Frenzy" we trolled through:

First Open-Water Flyfishing Trip of 2014!!

While en return route from my family's Spring Break trip (a post or two on that will be forthcoming), my friend Dale G. sent me a text that he had fished Lake Petocka earlier that day.  It had some open water (still had a lot of ice on it, though), and that he'd caught 48 trout while flyfishing!

I had planned to check it out once I returned to Iowa, but now I KNEW it was ready for fishing!
I was excited.

So, I headed for Lake Petocka the very next day, fly rod in hand.  Long story short, I didn't do nearly as well as Dale had.   I can only speculate on the reasons.  In the first 3 hours of fishing the NW corner, I had only caught 3 trout.  I headed down along the shore, and picked up another before I ran into the NE corner of the lake.  Here I found a small concentration of fish, and fairly quickly caught 15 more trout, all on beadhead Woolly Buggers.  White ones and gold ones worked best for me this day.

Fished the entire length of the west side and didn't catch any more fish.

Here's some pics:

And next is the first video I've shot with my GoPro camera.  I'm still learning how to use it and edit videos...So hopefully they will get better as time goes on.  Anyway, you can see the ice sheet on the lake in the background.  Hopefully this works!

Ice-Fishing w/ Jay, 3-8-2014

Date: 3-8-2014
Time Fished: 10:00am-5:30pm
Water Clarity: From 5" to 6.5', depending on where you were
Water temp: 14" of ice
Species Sought: Any
Fish caught:  Crappies, Bluegills, Largemouth Bass

Planned to maybe hit a few ponds/lakes, but it was fun enough to keep our attention all day.  I drilled a hole and marked a couple fish.  They would come and go....more often they would be GONE than actually present.  Jay showed up after I did.  He drilled holes in usual spots, didn't mark ANY fish.  Finally had ONE show up, and caught it...a crappie that was deep.  He eventually came over by me, and I drilled some new holes as well.  The fish would come in waves, it seemed.  Most often is was a couple fish that would come in.  Occasionally the flasher would be lit up from 3' down to 14'!  The bluegills seemed to be hanging just a bit deeper, while the crappies seemed to prefer 2'-6'.  In some holes, I could see my jig down to 6'. I would sight-fish then.  THAT was FUN!  I had a few crappies that came in just a foot below the ice!  Wish I had video of that!   After awhile, we had to hole hop to keep finding fish, because they would disappear out of some holes, but might come back later.  It wasn't a stellar day by any means, but it was the funnest, most consistent action I've had this ice season.  I didn't do a good job of tracking how many I caught, so I'm underestimating to say I caught at least 23 crappies, 18 bluegills, and 1 largemouth bass.  Lost a decent bass just under the hole.
I started out with a vertical jig / waxie.  Caught a lot of fish on that.  Later in the day, I tipped with Gulp! instead...the crappies and bass liked that every bit as much, but the bluegills hit it less frequently.

Gar Fly Wannabe

If you've tried flyfishing for gar, you already know the obstacles which must be overcome.
In my area, there are primarily Shortnose Gar.  Within a couple hour's drive, I can get to a few Longnose Gar as well, but haven't made that trip yet.

Gar have tough bony, toothy jaws, with very little "meat" to sink a hook into.  There is some "meat" towards the inside of the back of the mouth between the lower jawbones.

This is why flies that entangle the teeth, such as rope flies, are a reasonably good option for catching gar.  It isn't fool-proof and you may typically only land 1 out of 3 good strikes.  I have landed gar on such flies.  One issue is that a 4"-6" rope fly casts like a wet sock on 5wt-6wt flyfishing gear.

This past summer, I tried a few smaller patterns (which had hooks) for gar, some floating, some sinking.  I hooked 5 or 6 gar.  Each one threw the hook when it jumped and violently shook its head.

A friend, Mark (his website:  http://www.backwatergallery.com/ ), has offered invaluable insight and tips.  He's a much more experienced and successful gar flyfisherman than I am!

Based on some of his patterns, I came up with the flies below.  I am very hopeful that THESE will be THE FLY for my future gar flyfishing needs.  Please note...I HAVE NOT YET TRIED THESE OUT.  Well, I have tested them in a sink of water to see how they behaved/sank/floated.  I think these will be really good!
Cross your fingers, please.

Here's the promising features:
1.  Dressed #10 treble hook.  Hopefully at least ONE of the points of the treble hook will find something to grab onto in the gar's mouth.  The dressing provides some lift and appearance of lifelike movement...maybe some fish-attracting flash.

2.  Articulating hook connection to the rest of the fly.  Hopefully the gar will not be able to use the body of the fly to leverage the hook out!

3.  3/16" foam cylinder covering the hook shank.   This seems to improve the action of the fly and help it float (the wire underbody IS kind of heavy after all...as is the treble hook itself). The treble hook acts as a guard to help protect this exposed foam....but if it does get shredded, it can be replaced back at the tying bench.

4.  Wire underbody.  This way, there's no worries that the gar will sever the connection between the fly and hook, and it provides a fairly stiff underbody to tie the rest of the fly on.

5.  Foam body.  Sightfishing for gar is a visual game, so many fish/strikes will be near the surface.  Therefore, the fly needs to be there too.  Foam is the most reliable flotation method, IMO.  The top two flies in the picture above used a narrow strip of foam wrapped up the wire underbody.  The bottom one used size Large Rainy's Float Foam (slit down the side and then slid over the wire shank and CA gel-glued back together).  The top two don't provide QUITE enough flotation.  The middle one will ride on the surface as long as the fly is kept moving, but will sink when stopped.  This can be key to fishing pockets in weedbeds or flooded grass.  The bottom one floats even when stopped.  The action is really good.

6.  Foam protection.  Gar teeth will tear up a fly.  I covered the foam with mylar tubing to give it shine/flash and a fish scale appearance.  Next, I added stick-on eyes.  Then I coated all (even on the treble hook) thread wraps and entire body with Clear Cure Goo (a UV-cured epoxy alternative).  This covering is hard, smooth and slick.  A gar's teeth should NOT get hung up in it to prevent the hook from finding purchase in the fish's mouth.

All in all...this fly appears to incorporate MOST of the desireable features of an effective gar fly.  The last item one could try is some sort of soft but stiff material that could be used ahead of the hook so that it doesn't snag on sticks and flooded vegetation.

I can't wait to try these out!

IceFishing Report, 2-15-2014

a public pond in Ankeny
Date: 2-15-2014
Time Fished: 10:00a-6:00p
Water Clarity: From 5" to 6', depending on where you were
Water temp: way over 14" of ice
Species Sought: Bluegill
Fish caught: 26 Bluegills, 2 Largemouth Bass, 1 Green Sunfish

Jay and I ice-fished a pond he had not fished before, and I hadn't icefished since last year.

I described the situation as I knew it.  Suggested an area for Jay, and I moved off to an area that had produced for me in the past.

Jay totally rocked it.  He was on good numbers of fish most of the day.  He said he caught at least 70 Bluegills, 1 small Crappie, and something like 8 Largemouth Bass (Jay can provide more accurate numbers if he wants).
On the other hand, I struggled.  Fish were not where I expected them to be, and the fish I marked would often just cruise on by.  I told Jay my flasher looked like a dripping tap...fish would show up right on my jig, then quickly drop down and disappear.  Of course the "dropping down" just means the fish were swimming out of the transducer cone.
To Jay's credit, he made the long walk across the pond TWICE, telling me to come over and join him...the second time he brought a 9" Bluegill with him as enticement.  I finally caved.  I drilled about 10' away from him, parallel to shore.  He was in 7' of water with a few weeds, and I was in 2.5' with thick weeds.  So then I drilled 10' on the opposite side of him, and was in 8' of featureless water.  And no fish.  I just 3' behind his hole, closer to shore.  4' of water with weeds.  A few fish, but not very willing to strike.

We started drilling more holes trying to delineate the drop-off , and it turned out Jay had completely Aced a perfect inside pocket with the dropoff turning 90-degrees from shore at that spot.  It was perfect!  And I couldn't reproduce it.  But, we found 5'-7' of water at the edge of the drop-off, there were weeds on top.  Find weeds, have fish.  Move out to 7.5 or 8' of water with no weeds...fishless.
So...it turned out that the fish were close to shore in the weeds...and shallow!  The water was really clear in this area, and I could just make out the bottom 7' beneath me.  I could even see the occasional fish come in to look at my jig.
Still, there were a lot of "lookers".  I caught one 8" Bluegill by sight-fishing.  A while later, I was looking down the hole and saw a pretty nice fish show up.  It ever-so-gently sipped in my jig-n-waxie.  I thought, Hey...that's a nice bass.  And then...Hey...he's got the jig in his mouth!  And then...Hey, I should set the hook!  I did, and it was pandemonium.  I didn't have high hopes of landing the fish or even keeping it hooked on a small jig and light gear.   It just sat and shook its head for awhile, but then did finally start charging around and peeling line.  FUN!!!  I had it up under the hole, sideways, and was giving Jay the play-by-play.  Sometimes the fish get off RIGHT under the hole, and thought it might happen again here...so I just eased off the pressure on the line...enough to keep the hook point in, but enough that the bass could swim away from the hole.  This time, it worked.  The next pass, the bass's head came up into the hole, and I frantically tried to figure out how the grab the fish onto the ice, because it didn't want to open its mouth!  Land him I did, and Jay was there to take the pictures.  18"!

I eventually moved back across the pond, back into really dirty water.  I moved in closer to shore...into 5' of water (but no weeds here), and had a great time in the last couple of hours catching more Bluegills.
Most of the Bluegills were 8" (Jay's 9-incher was the biggest), and the single Green Sunfish measured 7".

A Couple Fly Patterns I Tied Last Night

Isonychia Nymph - Slate Drake Nymph:

And a #2 Craft Fur "FireTiger" baitfish:

100,000 Views!

Feeling the love on Valentine's Day!  I know its just a marker point along the road, but what an appropriate day to reach the benchmark of 100,000 views on my Blog!  How cool!  And it happened on  2-14-2014!

I really appreciate the folks who regularly follow my FishnDave blog, as well as those that just stop by when something in particular piques your interest.  Thank you everyone!  :)

Its been a long road...I started this blog on July 10, 2009.  It took 1,229 days to get my first 50,000 views, and just 453 days for the next 50,000.  That traffic is generated from 377 blog entries so far.  By a large margin, my post entitled "Crappie Fly Patterns" has been my most popular, with 4,783 views so far.
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2010/10/crappie-fly-patterns.html

I plan to keep it going...so please continue to stop by and visit!

Another "Slow News Day"

Not much fishing to report, not many new (to me) flies to show...So...bear with me while I contemplate the extremely unimportant.
I've had an iPhone 4S for over a year now.  I just love the darn thing!  Its amazing what you can do with one of these things.  I take almost all my fishing pictures with it now, and find it really does a stellar job in most situations.  And with the mind-boggling selection of FREE photo-editing apps available, you can make good shots better, and poor shots good.  I probably should have said that in a different order...

Fotor is the app I use most to edit the pictures I take with my iPhone.  Its quick and easy to crop, rotate, sharpen and brighten shots.
This past week I found another free app called PopAGraph.  It allows you to trace the outline of objects you want to sort of "pop off the page", add text, backgrounds, shadows to give sort of a 3D effect.
I played with it...here's some pictures I created, I thought they were just kind of fun..I don't know what I would ever do with them.

It kind of over-enhanced the pink colors on the gill plate of the rainbow trout above.  But the rest turned out rather interesting, I thought.

Next was a really bad picture of my Grass Carp... my daughter took the original picture with her phone, and the I wanted it on my phone really bad at the time, so I took a picture of her phone's screen.  That's why it looks textured like a bad newspaper or comic book print.

And finally, I couldn't decide which background I liked best for this Pumpkinseed in spawning colors, so I did all 3 separately:

Ice Fishing....BULLHEADS?

I did some icefishing with my buddy Jay on Saturday afternoon, 1-25-2014.  The wind finally start to die down (less than 16mph) around 2pm, and by dusk it was actually pretty nice out, besides still being really cold.  It had been windy all week, and the forecast is calling for possible blizzard conditions and really strong winds for most of the next week.  So...we had to try it.

The ice was at least 11" thick.  The water was, unfortunately, stained.
We caught small fish....small bass, small crappies, and small bluegills.  It was still fun.  When icefishing, sometimes the fish you would thumb your nose at during open water season give the biggest thrill.  Why is that?  I caught 2 fish I had never caught while icefishing before....Bullheads!

I caught all my fish on a vertical ice jig tipped with a waxworm.