Flyfishing for Goldfish?!

I've hit a local pond a couple times in the past week or so. I'd fished it once before a couple years ago, hoping to catch some of the big goldfish I'd heard live there. I didn't catch any goldfish then, just some small crappies and bluegills.
I caught 2 Goldfish one day last week. The first measured 12.25", a new PB for me. (two pics of each fish below)




The second measured 12 1/8".




Yesterday evening I tried again. Along with the small bass, crappies and bluegills, I caught 2 more Goldfish.
The first was 11.75":




And the 2nd one was a bronze-colored behemoth of 13.25" ( a new PB) with impressive girth! Based on my measurements and calculations, this fish likely weighed in excess of 2.5 lbs!

My PB Iowa Crappie on Fly

My buddy Jay surprised us both when he caught a chunky 14" White Crappie while flyfishing a local public pond on March 28, 2020.  A surprise, because it was probably an inch longer than any crappie we'd caught there previously over the years.  It was a really beautiful fish!

On April 1, 2020, I was flyfishing that same pond, solo, late in the evening.  Fishing was very slow, I'd only caught something like 1 small bass, 2 crappies, and 4 bluegills.  And then not far from the location where Jay hooked the 14" crappie, I hooked a big crappie.  After seeing it was a white crappie, I had visions that this was probably THE EXACT SAME FISH that Jay had caught...and how cool that would have been.  But then I measured it...my fish was an inch longer...15"!  To me, it also seemed a bit thinner than Jay's crappie.  Still, a beautiful fish!

My biggest crappie measured 16" and was caught in Illinois.  So this 15" crappie is my biggest in Iowa, and my biggest on a fly rod.  Caught on a 1/80th oz chartreuse microjig suspended under an indicator.

Late March 2020

Air temperatures and waters remain cold.  But fish can be caught.  Mostly crappies, but also bluegills and a few bass.  Still mostly flyfishing a chartreuse microjig under an indicator for now.
19" Bass:

16" bass:

And the biggest crappies so far this month, caught by my buddy Jay...a 14" White Crappie:

Open Water in Central Iowa, March 2020

The local ponds here in central Iowa were still iced over as of March 1 & 2, 2020.  Then I spent March 3-5 in St. Louis, MO. Iowa had some warm weather and STRONG winds during that time...so by the time I got back on March 6, the ponds had opened up.  I grabbed the fly rod and hit a couple public city ponds on Saturday, March 7.

Pond #1:  I spent about 2.5 hours here.  Saw one 4" fish swim out of the shallows...that was the only live fish I saw the entire time.  Didn't catch anything, obviously.

Pond #2:  Spent about an hour here (had some evening dinner plans that sent me home).  Caught a lotta fish.  Mostly crappies, as well as a few bluegills, and a 17.5" bass.  Most fish were caught on a microjig about 18" below an indicator.  I also caught a few of the crappies on a Micro Gamechanger. 

These fish were surprisingly active for being in water that had been iced over just days before.
First open-water fish of the year:

2nd open-water fish of the year:

Central Iowa Icefishing, Feb. 1, 8 & 16, 2020

Mostly really slow days of icefishing....uncooperative fish.  But, enough fish were caught to keep us interested.  Some of the better fish included 3 bass that measured 18", 18.5", and 21.5", respectively.

The 21.5-incher:

And another view of the biggest one:

Central Iowa Icefishing - January 25-26, 2020

Had about 4 hours to icefish on Saturday.  Visited a pond where I caught quite a few 18"+ bass in 2019, but the action had tapered off considerably around mid-year after I saw 3 guys catching and putting bass in a 5-gallon bucket.  I wanted to check the pond out during the winter to see if some of those nice bass were still in there.

Well..I caught 18 bass, 5 bluegills, 1 green sunfish, and 1 hybrid sunfish.  NONE of the bass were over 13".  So, looks like the damage to the population of bigger bass by those 3 guys was pretty thorough.  That's really sad, selfish, and misinformed. 

Anyway, some of the bluegills were pretty nice...some were 9"+.

We visited 2 ponds on Sunday.  The first pond, my buddy Jay caught a couple bass right before I got there. His nephew Nathan also joined us.  I drilled a half-dozen or more holes, fished a few of them.  Saw just one fish the entire time.  The other two guys didn't catch any more either.  We moved to a 2nd pond.  This was also pretty slow, but we all managed to catch fish.  I did ok.... Caught 6 or 7 bass (none over 14"), at least 8 crappies, 2 pumpkinseed sunfish, and over a dozen bluegills.

While I take pictures of some of the fish I catch, its always been about the fish, so if you go through my blog archives, there are very few pictures that I am actually in.  I got the iPhone 11 recently, and it has a much better "selfie" camera than my previous iPhone 6.  So, I'm starting to experiment with including me in more of my fish pictures, as you can see above. We'll see how it goes.

2019 Iowa Flyfishing Summary

Another year of flyfishing has wrapped up.  It was a good year!  Here's the overview and highlights:
Species
I caught 22 species on flies this year.  They are:
Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Rock Bass, Bluegill, Hybrid Sunfish, Pumpkinseed Sunfish, Green Sunfish, Redear Sunfish, Black Crappie, White Crappie, White Bass, Channel Catfish, Black Bullhead, Common Carp (and Mirror Carp!), Bigmouth Buffalo, Smallmouth Buffalo, White Sucker, Creek Chub, Hornyhead Chub, Brook Trout, Brown Trout, and Rainbow Trout.

13 of these species were from Ankeny public ponds!

18" Fish
I've arbitrarily chosen 18" as the length of fish that I keep track of.  I mainly keep track for data to provide to folks who might think flyfishing is only for small fish.  (In my own opinion, 18" is a satisfying-size fish of many species, while also being challenging in that it pretty much discounts all panfish species such as bluegills, redears and crappies.  Crappies can exceed 18", but that size is pretty uncommon.  I've never heard of an 18" bluegill...but can you imagine if they grew that big??)

Anyway....I caught 60 fish on flies that were 18" or longer (plus some more while icefishing), a combination of largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, carp, catfish, brown trout, bigmouth buffalo and smallmouth buffalo.

Master Angler-sized fish
I caught 10 MA-sized (20"minimum) Largemouth Bass on flies (plus another one while icefishing), 1 Bluegill (10" min.), 1 Carp (32" min.), and 1 Brown Trout (18" min.).

Carp
I caught fewer carp this year, only 10.... but one of those was my Personal Best at 35" long, 22.5" girth, and calculated weight of 22 lbs.

Catfish
I caught far fewer catfish this year...only landed 3 Channel Catfish on flies this year, plus 3 Black Bullheads.

Bass
Here's the big story.  2019 was by far my best year of 18"+ bass on flies.  I caught 43 (plus 2 more while icefishing)!  These were caught from 10 separate bodies of water, which is a very positive sign of the future of the local fishing.  10 of these bass were 20" or bigger (plus another one while icefishing).  These 20"+ bass came from 4 different bodies of water, another good sign, as opposed to being from just one or two ponds.  6 of the 20"+ bass were caught between Oct. 3-Nov. 9.  Unexpectedly, two 20" bass were caught in July.  The monthly breakdown of 18"+ bass looked like this:
February-2 (icefishing)
March-2
April-3
May-8
June-12
July-6
August-2
September-2
October-3
November-5

I carry way too many flies with me...I don't USE that many!

Here's what those 18"+ bass were caught on, and how many were caught on that style of fly:
Gamechangers(and all variants): 17
Howitzer Head Popper: 11
Microjig: 7
Blockhead Popper: 6
Foamhead swimmer: 1
Woolly Bugger variant: 1

So...carry Gamechangers, Microjigs, and some good big Poppers....and you'll be set.  And the Microjigs only came into play starting in the month of October.  So, the rest of the year is Gamechangers and Poppers.  There it is....the secret of my success!

Other
Jay and I made 3 trips to NE Iowa streams this year.  This added 7 or 8 species to this year's list.  I don't think I can remember all the streams we visited....so I'm not going to try to list them.  Despite the weather (very hot, very cold, rain), it is always fun and the surroundings are beautiful.

All fish were C&R'd.
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I'm very thankful for all the nice fish caught this year.  I hope your year of fishing was as enjoyable, and your 2020 is even better!

December 2019

No big fish were caught, but when the ponds weren't ice-covered, the crappies and a few bass were still willing to strike.  The best tactic was  a microjig under an indicator (flyfishing, of course).

Sometimes a Micro Gamechanger worked well also, which was surprising considering how cold the water was.
These Micro Gamechangers are @ 2" long.