Fly Patterns, 9-13-2011

Here's some patterns I've tied recently.

#10 Chernobyl Ant/Hopper.  This has been great for bluegills and crappies this summer.

I don't know if this on has a name....basically a biot-bodied dry fly.

This is an example of the Jumpin' Catfish Nymph.  Normally it doesn't have a "shell back" over the abdomen.  I tied it without reviewing the pattern first...Still works fine this way.

Birds Nest

This is a bucktail/calftail streamer...this is the sort of streamer that I have been catching nice catfish on this Summer/Fall.  I've used Craft Fur on some examples.

A generic EP minnow.  I haven't got this one wet yet.

Breaded Catfish a la Fly Rod!

(No, this isn't a blog entry about a recipe for cooking catfish.  Its about a technique I've used a couple of times now on a certain public pond I fly-fish where the catfish have developed a taste for bread, thanks to a host of folks who visit the pond to feed the ducks.)

Headed to a different local pond tonight than the one posted previously (about the big catfish I caught on the Jumpin' Catfish Nymph).

Arrived at the pond fairly late...like 7:15pm or so.  This is the pond Ben and I had used bread to chum up some catfish, which we then enticed to hit bread flies.  I hoped to do something similar tonight.

I had fished the pond a couple times since fishing with Ben, but kept forgetting to bring some bread along.  So, all I caught on those trips were bluegills and crappies. Tonight, I brought some hot dog buns!

Waiting for another angler to clear out, I tied on a white kiptail streamer that I had tied on a #6 hook. I had hits and follows from bluegills, but no takers.  Also while waiting, a young family came down on the opposite side of the pond to toss bread to the ducks.  No wonder the catfish here have such a fondness for bread!

When the time was right, I tossed out some hot dog bun chunks.  Bluegills started attacking it immediately, like a swarm of pirhanas!  It was only a few minutes before the BIG swirls showed up.  I brought my streamer through the activity a half dozen times before THE HIT.  I had a nice fish on, and since I didn't see the take, I was once again HOPING it was a grass carp.  The fish went on some nice runs, and before I knew it, I was into my backing!  How awesome is that?!?!

When the fish wanted to run, I let it, but kept the pressure on.  When it slowed, I worked it back towards me.  It was one of those see-saw battles of give-and-take.  I started taking more, and after 5 minutes or so, I got the fish into the shallows and up next to shore.  I reached down and got my hand on it.  The fish was too wide for me to get a lifting grip on, so I had to set my rod down and grab the fish with both hands to lift it up onto the grass.

BEAUTIFUL Channel Catfish!  It was a solid, chunky fish that measured 27"...definitely the biggest catfish I've caught from this pond...by at least 3.5 inches!  Picture time:

I will say I've caught a fair number of catfish from the pond on a variety of fly patterns over the past several years.  Everything from bass-sized poppers to small nymphs and streamers when fishing for crappies and bluegills.  Tossing bread out seems a bit like "cheating" to me.  I admit I feel a little "weird" about doing it.  But its exciting to see these big fish swirling right in front of you.  I'm not using bread as bait, but as chum.  I'm not feeding fish, I'm still fooling them.  I'm stacking the odds in my favor, by bringing the fish to me and getting them in the feeding mood.

I've read an article or two recently about guys doing something similar when fly-fishing for sharks in saltwater....they'll chum the water to bring the sharks to them, then use giant bright-colored hackle-flies
to toss out.  The sharks will then attack the flies.  Its efficient.

If you have public ponds near you where folks have taken to tossing bread to the ducks/geese...you might want to give this technique a try!  It can work on carp and catfish...and it should work on grass carp too.  But those grassies seem ultra-wary of humans!

45 Minute Evening Outing, 9-8-2011

I had a 45-minute window after supper in which to squeeze in some fly-fishing.  All necessary gear was already loaded in the car...so, I jumped in and headed for one of the local public ponds.  I chose a pond that has a few nice bluegills in it, but they can be hard to locate when they aren't spawning.

I had a #6 Jumpin' Catfish Nymph tied on my line already.  I didn't change, since the big bluegills in this pond could certainly fit that in their mouths.  Here's a link to the pattern...
http://freestateflyfishers.org/jumpin-catfish-nymph/

This was only the 2nd time I've used this nymph pattern, and I like it already!  I worked about a 70' section of shoreline.  I tried casting parallel to the first dropoff near shore.  I cast out towards the middle...I was searching for fish.  One 10" bass.  A second.  A third.  They were all surprisingly strong for their size!  Next I finally landed a bluegill.  Then a fourth bass.

Fishing wasn't fast by any means.  The water right next to shore seemed decently clear, but beyond that first drop-off the water looked rather turbid.  Anyway, I was running out of time.  I walked about 3/4 of the shoreline back towards the parking lot and decided to make a few "last casts" from here.

The surface of the water was starting to calm down a bit, so I cast out and then started looking around for signs of surface activity.  The line tugged against my hand, and my automatic reflexes set the hook.  OH MY!  I immediately knew this was a big fish.  You can't know how much I was HOPING it was a grass carp, since I haven't caught one yet this year.

Line peeled off my reel.  I could see the backing, but there were still a few wraps of line over it when I got the fish stopped.  It seemed like a good 5 or 10 minutes passed before I was able to get a glimpse of what was on the line.  Channel Catfish, and a good one!

I was using 9' 5wt custom TFO BVK rod I recently purchased from a very talented rodbuilder who goes by the moniker of "ApacheTrout" on the Fly Anglers On-Line bulletin boards.  Its a heckuva nice rod!  And I was also using a used Nautilus FW-5 fly reel I also recently purchased and mounted on the rod.

I had attached about 2' of 6 lb test mono to the end of the tippet.  And I knew when I attached it to the tippet that I had "stressed" a short section of the mono, and this was on my mind all during the battle with this fish.  Could I let it run, but put enough pressure on the fish to coax it unwillingly into the shallows without breaking the tippet at that weak spot?  The drag on the reel did its job perfectly during the half-dozen or so powerful runs.

The rod did its job in putting the right amount of pressure on the fish, yet still giving the right amount when the fish shook its head.

I landed the beast, which I felt was quite the accomplishment considering I was alone and didn't have a net with me.
I put a tape measure to it.  The length was 27".  According to a website I found (http://www.fish.state.pa.us/images/pages/fishin1/weightlength3.pdf), the weight would be estimated at 9.4 lbs.  I don't typically concern myself much with weight, but I wondered what kind of strain that "stressed" 6 lb mono tippet was up against.

Chunky fish!

What a mug!

After taking the pictures, I released the fish. Although catfish are quite hardy, I spent a couple minutes gently reviving him until he swam away as if he was late for a meeting.  I made a few more casts and caught a couple more bluegills before heading for the parking lot.

This was my 2nd outing with this rod/reel combo.  I think I can now say it is "broken in". :)  I like it very much and look forward to putting that Jumpin' Catfish Nymph in front of some more big catfish!

Fly-Fished a Local Public Pond Last Night, 9-5-2011

To finish off the holiday weekend, I went fly-fishing to a local pond last night from about 7pm-9pm.
It started off slow.  I could see fish hitting the fly, but they weren't getting hooked, just batting it around.
I figured a surface pattern would do the trick, but I couldn't quickly locate what I wanted in my hip pack.

So I tried a variety of subsurface patterns, and finally settled on a gold Springbrook Wunder.  In the meantime, I had my eye competitive eye on an angler using spinning gear on the far side of the pond.  He seemed to be taking some stuff off his lure...I assumed were fish, but could have been weeds.  He was using a lure under a bobber for awhile.  Then I watched him struggle to reach the lure which somehow got stuck in the back of his shirt.  He finally had to remove his shirt to free the hook.

The Springbrook Wunder worked very well.  I caught at least 20 bluegills and a couple of crappies on that pattern.

As the sky grew dark, I switched to a bucktail streamer I had tied with a short chartreuse craft fur tail, silver mylar cord body, white kiptail, pearl angel hair & chartreuse bucktail wing, and I had wound some chartreuse hackle at the head.  I caught a few bluegills on this, but more crappies (as I had hoped), at least 10 before I decided to quit for the evening.

High Trestle Trail Bridge

Loaded our bikes onto the bike rack Sunday evening and took the family to the bike/pedestrian trail near the High Trestle Trail Bridge.  It is located west of Madrid, Iowa, is about 1/2 mile long, and rises 13 stories above the Des Moines River valley.

Unpredictable Fishing

You think you have one of your local waters figured out pretty well.  Its predictable.  Right?  Not always.  And this keeps fishing interesting.  Or frustrating.  And this is where we throw in the disclaimer:
"Its always nice just to get out."  It is.  At least we ALWAYS have that.

Here's an overview of my experiences at one particular local lake over the past week:
-Trip A.  Wind moderate, fish biting reasonably well.  Caught 14 fish.  This is GOOD (but not EXCELLENT).
-Trip B.  I get a call from a buddy who says the fish are hitting on every cast.  I go.  The wind had died and changed directions.  I'm told, "You should have been here 1/2 hour ago!"  Still caught some fish (like 10), and some decent ones.  This is still OK.
-Trip C.  Relatively high wind (@15-20mph all day), usually means excellent fishing at this lake.  My buddy calls, says he caught only 3 small fish, and it was difficult to cast into the wind.  I go anyway.  I catch 5 small fish in 40 minutes.  This is SLOW.
-Trip D.  Fished during my lunch hour.  Light wind.  Almost no visible fish activity on the surface.  I catch 1 fish.  This is POOR fishing.

I keep going back, knowing the "success meter" will eventually swing in the right direction for me, but it has been declining all week.  The fact is, it changes all the time, and I know I've just not hit it during a peak moment.  Just gotta keep trying.
At least today's fish was pretty.  Its a naturally occurring hybrid sunfish:

Praying Mantises & Hummingbirds 8-31-2011

Have I mentioned Hummingbirds are a tough challenge for me to take a picture of?  I don't have a fancy camera, and I usually see them in the evenings when the light isn't the best for picture-taking.  The zoom on my camera isn't particularly impressive.  Its still fun to try anyway.
Here's what I've gotten in the past week (mostly last night):

 The ones below were from last night.  This Hummingbird popped up from the other side of the fence, then stopped about 5' away and hovered...looking at me.  (This is the 2nd time this summer this has happened, and both times I was holding a camera, but not ready to take a shot!)  I suppose he wondered if I was a threat or not.  Apparently only a slight threat...he went down the fenceline a ways, started feeding on the flowers and worked his way back towards me.

 The reason I was out in the backyard with a camera in the first place was because I had seen this dark brown mantis with green legs, and I wanted to photograph it.

Bath time...

He's looking RIGHT AT ME!



  Below is the 2nd Mantis I saw.

Cool silhouette.

It was light brown with wings.

 Then I saw movement, looked over and saw a 3rd Praying Mantis.  The movement was that it just caught a bee/wasp, and was starting to feed on it.  It was green with wings.

All of this happened in probably 20 minutes...and in that time, I had been standing in just one spot!

Took My Son Fishing

My daughter was busy, but my son was free last night.  My buddy Jay called from the lakeshore and said the words "...Every cast!".
We ate dinner and headed out the door.

As happens often...we missed it.  In the short time before we got to the lake, the wind died and changed directions, and the fish activity screeched almost to a complete halt.  I got to hear the stories of "You should have been here 1/2 hour ago!"

I wanted my son, Carson, to catch plenty of fish, knowing he would have fun doing that.  Instead, he was bored most of the time, but had fun during the exciting moments when he did catch a couple of hard-fighting White Bass.

I caught around 10 fish or so, and there were some nice 14"+ White Bass in the bunch.

I also tried my fly rod for a bit, and managed 1 small Largemouth Bass on a modified Clouser.

Took My Daughter Fishing

I've been wanting to get my kids in on some good fish-catching action with White Bass at Saylorville this month.


So far, it hadn't happened.  We had tried on a couple of occasions, but never hit the right spot at the right time.

I had an opportunity to take my daughter fishing last night. She's 14. She REALLY didn't want to go. I badgered her relentlessly until she caved. :)

We went. We got to the parking lot, and I spotted my buddy Jay, and two other guys (Dan and Don) already there. Jay and Dan were walking back to the parking lot...without fishing rods! First aid was needed on Jay's finger. No embedded hook, but the tip of his finger and fingernail had been nicely sliced by a gill plate of a thrashing fish.

Jay got quickly wrapped up, and we all got down to the business of fishing. Dan was catching fish nearly every cast. Kennedy and I tried some areas adjacent to where Jay and Dan (and Don) were fishing, but I only managed one fat Smallmouth Bass on a topwater:

I had Kennedy elbow her way between Dan and Jay (they didn't mind), and she started catching some decent fish!  In fact, for probably 1/2 hour, she was catching more than ANYBODY ELSE!

Dan and Jay both helped her removed hooks from fish when she had trouble with it. She's been fishing before.  Usually she did fine unhooking the fish all on her own.

It wasn't super-fast fishing, but we caught some. Kennedy had fun.

When we got back to the parking lot to head home, she THANKED ME for making her go. :)

We got home and she went upstairs to take a shower. She called down, "Uh Dad? You've GOT to come here!" She was in the bathroom (still clothed). She held up her hair (its pretty long, as you can see in the picture), and there was a puked-up shad stuck in her hair! OMG, TOO FUNNY!!

I took the shad out of her hair, and my wife said, "Oh, we should have gotten a picture of that!" Yep...bummer. :o)))

Red Tuna Shirt Club

This blog entry is my submission for the Red Tuna Shirt Club and Outdoor Blogger Network Writing Contest.
The topic for this blog is to answer one or more of the following questions:
“What is your dream fishing destination? Who would you fish with? What species would you fish for?”

I like catching bizarre fish, and the bigger the better.  So, I have to say...I have 3 answers to this.

1.  The Amazon River Basin/tributaries.  Why?  Because there are all kinds of COOL, LARGE fish available there.  Anything from Peacock Bass, Red-Tailed Catfish, Arapaima, Pacu, Arawana, Tiger Catfish, ...lets face it, you never know what you might hook next!  It would be fun to chase some of these fish with fly-fishing gear.  Who would I like to fish with?   Jeremy Wade from River Monsters!

2.  Thailand.  Why?  Because they have taken many of the prized freshwater sports fish species from around the world, and stocked them into their waters...both lakes and streams.  Arapaima, giant Mekong catfish, an extensive variety of carp, snakeheads. 

3.  Miami, Florida.  Why?  Seriously, its a fly-anglers DREAM!  They may not have trout...but the list of freshwater species is nearly endless, topped off with many "exotic" species including Peacock Bass, Snakeheads, Oscars, etc.  But that's not all.  There's all the saltwater species as well, such as Bonefish, Redfish, Snook, Tarpon, Spotted Seatrout, and so many more.  What's NOT to love??  I would fish with Cordell Baum, "Bonefish Whisperer".  I have fished with him in the past, fly-fishing for Peacock Bass, Oscars, and other exotics around the Miami area.  I'd hire him again in an instant, and his expertise regarding Bonefish would be invaluable towards catching a large specimen of that species.

So...those would be my choices.  Where would you want to go....and why?

OBN - Up Close and Personal (Macro shots) - Part 2

I decided I really want to post these outdoors, non-fishing picture macros too, to enter into the Outdoor Bloggers Network prompt.

This was a very cool moment, seeing this miniscule Praying Mantis on a Hardy Hibiscus bloom in my yard.

I liked this shot of a wasp on a Hummingbird Vine.

I saw this large Monarch caterpillar in the back yard...and had to use the flash because of the low evening light conditions.

I'd like to say that caterpillar grew up to make this butterfly...but this is a Viceroy Butterly, a benign mimic of the toxic Monarch Butterfly.

Milkweeds are interesting plants, with orange flowers and the seed pods in the Fall.  These baby milkweed bugs will grow up...

...to make THIS colorful adult.

Dragonfly.  Cool.

Cicada.  LOUD!

Not 100% sure on this...maybe a Painted Lady Butterfly.

Buckeye Butterfly

Red Admiral Butterfly

Jumpy jumpy Grasshopper.



Checkerspot Butterfly...found this on our garage door!

Mayfly.