Mid-May 2021

Caught some interesting fish lately.

Shortnose Gar:

White Crappie:

Black Crappie:

Largemouth Bass:

Some really big Bluegills lately!  Lots of 9"+....including three 10-inchers and one 10.5-incher!

Check out the throat on this male!

10"...same fish as above

10.5"

(same fish as above)

10", same fish as above

Yellow Perch

Channel catfish...caught on consecutive casts, then lost the fly I caught them on.  

Creek Chubs

Longear Sunfish

Warmouth:

and some smaller Warmouth:

I caught 2 Redspotted Sunfish from 2 different areas:

 (the fish above and top fish below are the same fish)

Dollar Sunfish:

Bantam Sunfish:

Green Sunfish:

Skunk!

 

May 1, 2021

Flyfished on Saturday.  Pretty slow fishing...took 6 hours to grind out 10 fish!

But I caught some nice fish and good variety.

I caught some nice Freshwater Drum:

The biggest one is my new Fly Rod Personal Best... 25.5".  So strong!  :

I caught my first Shortnose Gar of the year.  I had 6 or more good gar strikes on a larger fly,  but couldn't hook one until I went with a much smaller fly.

Last year I caught a walleye and some sauger at this place....today I caught my first Saugeye (Walleye/Sauger hybrid):

 

Caught a Goldeye that looked like something chewed on it.

Lost a nice catfish about 12" away from netting it.  I was bummed.

First glance, this fish looks like a smallmouth.  I've never heard of anyone catching a smallmouth from this place.  I've caught largemouth bass, kentucky spotted bass, and a few odd-looking fish.  The fish I caught this time had the lower flank stripes of a spotted bass (which smallmouth bass do not have), but it didn't have the lateral line stripe that KSB have.  More than anything else, it looks like a Redeye Bass, but those are only in the Coosa River system in Georgia/Alabama...and they have white margin on the top and bottom of their tail fin, and an iridescent patch in the upper rear quadrant of their eyeball....neither of which this fish had.  So....its a hybrid black bass of some sort.

 

April 24, 2021

Flyfished in the rain for much of the day.  Creek was fast and muddy, so I didn't fish it.  Decided to try for Koi and Goldfish again.  The cold snap of the previous week (a couple days with lows below freezing, and snow) seemed to have put the fish down.  Few fish were seen.  Managed to make do, however, and eventually caught 3 Koi and 1 Goldfish.

Went to another place, caught a couple bluegills.

Tried a 3rd pond and caught largemouth bass, bluegills, crappies, a hybrid sunfish and a redear sunfish.

April 17, 2021

 Flyfished an urban creek.

Caught my first Goldeye of the year:

And my first Smallmouth Buffalo in Missouri:

Also caught 9 Freshwater Drum, pretty nice ones, up to @ 20" long.