Fly-fished a local pond in the evening on 7-22-2010.  Fishing has been rather slow lately.  I've been catching fish, but nothing particularly noteworthy.  Its been really hot and humid lately, and the City has sprayed some sort of chemical around the edges of some of the more popular ponds to help get rid of the mats of algae and some of the aquatic weedbeds along the shorelines.

The crappies must be hanging in deeper water during the daylight hours, because I haven't been catching ANY until the sun goes down.

I did get this really fat 22" Channel Catfish, and it was GREAT fighter!  It was released, of course.  Given the time of year, I wonder if might have been full of eggs?

I also caught this 10" crappie.  Not huge, but pretty decent for this pond.

Weekend pics - mid July 2010

A nice Hybrid Sunfish caught on my fly rod.

Lightning!

Wasp

Damselfly

Dragonfly

Bumblebee

Another wasp...

Center of a Sunflower.

Turkey Vultures

The GOOD Summer Bugs!

I took these pics around the yard recently:
Dragonfly

Red Admiral Butterfly

I don't recall what the name of this one is. 

Black Swallowtail Butterfly

OK, I know these last 2 aren't bugs, but who doesn't enjoy a colorful sunset?

Carp Pictures, But Not Fishing

I had a late lunch with my family at the floating restaurant of a nearby marina.  It was a great day to hang out by the water, and have a couple (or more...hey, we were there for 4 hours!) brews.

Anyway, its fun to go there and see the big carp swimming around hoping for an easy meal of table scraps.  It would be even MORE fun to hook into some of these fish with a fly rod!

I mean...look at this!  Sipping food off the surface like trout! :o)

Ankeny Summerfest 2010 Fireworks

I shot these from our back porch with a handheld Nikon Coolpix S640 digital camera.  Sweet little camera!

Joe Cornwall's "The Orange Nymph"

Here's a link to the Fly Anglers On-Line "Fly of the Week" write-up I did for Joe Cornwall's "The Orange Nymph" fly pattern.
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/fotw/2010/fotw20100712.php

"Warmwater" Trout Fishing?

Our fishing club, Central Iowa Anglers, had our monthly meeting last night. We held it at a small public lake, and had a fish fry....the food was excellent! Afterwards, many of us fished.


This lake is an old borrow pit. It has a shallow shelf around it, then a drop-off to deeper water beyond. No significant structure to speak of. The water is relatively clear, compared to other lakes in central Iowa.

I spotted some bluegill beds in the shallows, and there were some good-sized bluegills on them. I had a number of hits, but the fish were quickly spitting the fly back out. I only caught one bluegill, but it was a good 8"-8.5".

This lake was stocked with trout for the first time this past fall & winter. It was a "put-and-take" fishery. They weren't expected to survive the summer water temps. One of our club members spotted a small group of trout near shore, where a field tile was draining cool water into the lake. I started off with a small nymph, similar to a Prince Nymph, but with some modifications. I caught one or two trout on that, but it was slow. I tried some other things with no success. I tied on a small wet fly tied using grizzly marabou for a tail, and small gold mylar braided tubing for a body. The trout LIKED this! I ended up landing 8 trout total. I'd caught trout on flies before, but used spinning gear at the time. Most of my trout are caught while ice-fishing. So, these were the first trout I'd caught on fly gear! Hooray!

Normally when I go trout fishing locally, it is on "stocking day", when the catching is sometimes fairly easy. But these fish have been in the lake now for probably at least 6 months, so are more saavy than freshly stocked fish.
Here's some trout pics from last night:

2010 Fireworks

With poor weather forecast for 4th of July fireworks displays, we went to nearby town of Slater, Iowa, for their fireworks exhibition on July 3rd.

Mulberry Carp

I fished the Cutty's campground lake for a bit on Saturday morning, July 3rd. My kids and I had walked around the perimeter of the pond first, just looking things over. I saw some small carp "clooping" on the surface in a downwind shorline pocket. They were eating the cottonwood seeds that were collecting there. That seemed like a potential spot to fly-fish, but very difficult, since I'd have to get some sort of dry fly right in the path of a feeding fish. Unfortunately, they don't swim in a straight line when feeding, so it would be total guesswork on where to place the fly, and hopefully avoid spooking the fish while doing it.


We continued our walk around the lake. We saw a big turtle (not a snapper or softshell, it had a red spot on its cheek..probably a slider?), a large bullfrog, got dive-bombed by a protective pair of Eastern Kingbirds(?), got shadowed by a swan that followed us around in the water, and picked up some pretty mallard feathers that were a brilliant blue on one side.

I found a mulberry tree with ripe fruit that hung over the water. I looked into the water to see if there were any fish visible, but saw nothing. I picked a few berries and threw them in the water. Within seconds, a carp sucked them in. Sometimes, 2 or 3 fish would be visible going for the same berry. They weren't big, but they were there, and feeding. We finished our walk. I retrieved my fly-fishing gear, and returned to the mulberry tree. The fish seemed attracted to the berries hitting the water, so I dropped my flies onto the water hard, and then suspended them just under the surface. The first to takes, I missed when I set the hook, and the flies ended up wrapped in the tree branches above the water. Lost both flies. I switched to the opposite side of the tree, and tied on a purple boa yarn leech. I caught 2 carp on that, and though they were small, they were fun. The activity seemed to put the other fish down, so I left after that.