Addendum..Another Catfish!

After catching a couple catfish on flies yesterday during lunch (see previous blog entry), I had some time in the evening to kill while waiting for my kids to finish their extra-curricular activities.  So, I flyfished a public pond in a town @ 20 miles from home, from about 6:50pm to 8:20pm.

The weather was cold (@44 degrees F), breezy, cloudy, and rain drizzled periodically.  Because the bluegills and crappies still seem to be hitting light, I used a microjig under an indicator.  I ended up landing at least 18 Bluegills, 2 Crappies, 1 Largemouth Bass, 1 Hybrid Sunfish, and 1 Channel Catfish.  The catfish was a big surprise, I'd never caught one in this pond before.  And it was a DANDY!  I measured it at 28.5" long.  According to data provided by the State of Pennsylvania, that lenght approximately correlates to a weight of 11.2 pounds.

The catfish was a GREAT fight.  Fortunately I had confidence in my line/rod/reel.  The weak link was the microjig.  It has a small, thin-wire hook than can straighten out under pressure.  I was afraid to put too much pressure on the fish because of that hook.  Big fish hate being in shallow water, so every time I'd get the fish near shore, it tried to run back for deeper water.  The hook was in the soft but tough corner of the mouth, which is the perfect spot, and allowed me to turn the catfish's head when it ran.  Once I got it into the shallows, I had to step into the clammy cold water to grab the fish.  Man, that is exciting stuff!  :)

Wouldn't you just know that the catfish layed nice and still on the ground while I measured it, but while I was digging out my camera, it decided to do some barrel rolls on the ground, tangling it in the line and covering itself with debris.

Early Season Catfish Plan

I love it when a plan actually works like I hope it will.
Its been a couple weeks since the ice finally melted off the local ponds/lakes.  We've had a few warm days over the past week, finally.  Last night and this morning, we got our first decent RAIN of the season.  The rainstorms didn't last long, but the rain came down hard when it did.
I thought...hey, the runoff should bring some much needed water into the local ponds.  One fish that really likes water flowing into a pond is Channel Catfish.
So...my hope was to try and catch some catfish on flies during my lunch hour today.  I had the pond and the spot picked out in my mind.
Admittedly, the deck was somewhat stacked against me...There USED to be some large catfish in this pond, but I had not even SEEN a catfish in this particular pond during the past 3 years.  And...catfish LOVE warm water, and the local ponds are still pretty cold.  Add to that this storm front is bringing cold weather back.  They've even put possible SNOW in the forecast two days from now!
Sometimes, catfish can be extremely picky about what they will strike.  Sometimes they'll hit anything.

Today...well...Although I was dreaming of catching a catfish, I was flyfishing for crappies and bluegills like I usually would.  The area of the pond I had decided to target did have a trickle of water running in, was very muddy, and the water in the pond was high enough to cause some current from its outflow.

I used a chartreuse microjig @ 18" below an indicator.
I missed some lazy strikes.  The first solid hookup with a fish turned out to be...a Channel Catfish!!!  Hooray!!  At 14"-15" range, it was probably the smallest catfish I've ever caught in this pond.  But it looked very healthy.

I was hoping I was onto something...but it could VERY easily have been a fluke.  Maybe a dozen casts later, the indicator sank again.  Fish on!  And...  Another catfish!!!

It was roughly the same size as the first...so I'm guessing they are the same year-class of fish...and may have either been spawned in the pond, or stocked by the City or other interested parties.  Regardless, I was VERY happy to find some catfish in this pond again, and catch them on my fly rod.

Well...that was it for catfish, in the short time I had available.  I did miss a few more strikes, and landed two more fish.
One was this nice 11" Crappie:

And the other was this NICE 8" Green Sunfish...which had just a HUGE belly on it:

All things considered, I was pretty excited about today's lunchtime flyfishing excursion.  :)

First Trout of 2013

I was trying to decide where to flyfish last night.  I decided to try a nearby lake that had been stocked with trout in January.  I never know what to expect at this lake.  It can be tough.

I fished from shore from about 6:15pm until 8pm.  When I arrived, it was sunny, 57 degrees, with a 10mph wind from the North.  I fished a short section of the SW and South shorelines, where the waves were pushing into shore.  The water was clear and high.  I gave my Cabela's Hip Waders their maiden voyage.  But, once I stepped off the shallow rocks along the shoreline, I was sinking into the soft sand-covered clay bottom, so I just stayed on shore.  I was also using my new 9' 6wt TFO BVK rod, and Lamson Konic reel loaded with an Airflo 40+ line.  That line casts really well, even into the wind!

I started out using a heavily weighted Chili Pepper pattern.  I saw a couple small swirls down along the shore and tossed it that way.  First trout of the year was a TINY little fella...The DNR doesn't stock them this small, typically, so I was wondering if there was some natural reproduction going on in this lake?  Maybe...maybe not.

I made some casts towards deeper water, but wasn't getting the strikes I was hoping for.  So, I switched to an unweighted black Woolly Bugger.  I tossed that around in shallow water.  I ended up landing a total of 12 Rainbow Trout, and had a few others come unbuttoned.  Almost all the trout I caught came within about 3' of shore.  I pulled at least 6 or 7 trout out of one small area.  At first I thought maybe there was a slightly deeper hole there caused by wave action that was pounding a shoreline feature.  Later, I walked over and looked.  Nada.  It looked just the same as everywhere else, so I can't explain why I caught so many fish from that spot.  Must have just been my lucky night.

Trout #2 was bigger than #1.

And a bit later, I liked all the spots on this nicer fish:

As the light faded from the sky, the wind died down, and the lake surface smoothed out somewhat.  I could see fish hitting small bugs on the surface.  I cast to some of these areas with that Woolly Bugger, and got a couple follows, but no strikes.

There was a gentleman fishing not too far away from me.  He was using spinning/casting gear.  It looked like he tossed some lures, but mostly was sitting motionless, so I assume he was fishing some sort of bait.  I didn't see him catch anything...but I was pretty intent on catching my own fish to pay close attention.

More Tying

I've been playing around with ideas, as usual.  Nothing original, of course.
Here's a Shannons Streamer I tied and then used markers to make a Firetiger / Perch / Bluegill pattern:

And then I tied up some Full Motion Minnows, which is pretty much comprised of all rabbit fur:

I also tied up on Crafty Minnow, which is pretty interesting in that it forms a bulky head without using a dubbing loop.  This isn't the best example, but gives you an idea....I plan to tie a few more to get the head shaped even better:

First Flyrod Fish of 2013!

Got back from a family Spring Break vacation earlier this week (will blog about that soon!).  Finally, the local ponds and lakes are starting to open up.  Some still have ice on them, a few are completely ice-free.

Wednesday (March 27) after work, I visited a local pond with my flyrod for about 45 minutes.  There was ice covering about 1/4 of the pond.  I walked beyond it to start fishing.  First cast with a chartreuse microjig/indicator resulted in a Crappie.

Not a jumbo, but fun all the same.  I ended up with 10 crappies and 4 bluegills.

On Thursday, I flyfished a different pond during my lunch hour.  That pond was 60%+ ice-covered, and the open water shoreline was ringed with about 20' of floating weedy/algae/gunk.  Messy fishing.  I landed just one Bluegill.

Thursday evening I flyfished the same pond as the previous evening.  All the ice was gone, although a neighboring pond about 100 feet away was still 50% ice-covered.  I flyfished for @ 2.25 hours.  For awhile it was a fish on nearly every cast.  I ended up catching at least 30 Crappies and at least 23 Bluegills.

The fish were in shallow water near shore and were aggressive.  Most fish came on the chartreuse microjig/indicator rig, but I also caught a few of each species on this:

I am SO glad to once again be flyfishing in open water!

Tying with Odd Materials

While the season/weather conspires against me actually doing any flyfishing, I continue to tie a fly or two.

This past week, I went to a Michael's craft store to pick up some items for a project my son wanted to do.  While there, I walked through the yarn section.  They had the usual great selection of wool yarns...but the yarn skeins that caught my eye on this trip was their excellent color selection of Patons Bohemian Yarns and Martha Stewart Glitter Eyelash yarns.

The Bohemian yarns are a really thick, heavy chenille-type yarn.  Some really great patterns that use this material are Rich McElligott's Wonder Worms and Shannon's Streamer.  I have some white already, so although I turned an appreciative eye towards the other colors I saw, I didn't buy any.  I think I might go back and remedy that this week, though.

I've never been a fan of Eyelash Yarns.  I personally don't think their action is that good in the water for what I would use them for.  On the other hand, I did see some pretty cool "bass jig flies" tied with the stuff, and it looks like that would be a perfect fit for this material.  The GLITTER Eyelash yarn has a lot of mylar flash built right into it, and it started some ideas in my head, so I bought 4 colors:

I've only tied up a few flies with it so far.  Here's what they look like dry:

...and here's what they look like AFTER getting wet:

I like the wet look on these.  I think they will be especially good fished quickly in still water...or in the river, since the current will help them keep a streamlined shape.

In the clearance yarn rack, I saw a single skein of a HUGE yarn called Loops and Threads "Festive Fur"....in an excellent chartreuse color.  (To quote Left Kreh...."If it ain't Chartreuse, it ain't no use!").  This is a super-thick yarn that makes Bohemian Yarn look malnourished. I measured the Festive Fur...and it is 1/2" diameter when dry.  I wasn't sure how best to show scale of this yarn, so I stuck a pair of my fly-tying scissors in the skein:

Its so thick...I envision using this for heads on baitfish patterns.  It should really push a lot of water.  I also tied up a furled-tail pattern that I hope fishes similar to a Senko.  One problem is this pattern might be pretty heavy to cast once it gets soaked with water!  We shall see.  I'm hoping the bass will LOVE it!  The smaller fly below...I hope is small enough to attract Crappies.  It should work great after dark, when the fly pushes a lot of water making it easy for the fish to find at night.

The color is perfect..it definitely lights up under a UV light!

I'm open to suggestions anyone might have on patterns to tie with ANY of these materials.  For example, I think the orange-colored Glitter Chenille might make a decent body on a crayfish pattern...it already has built-in legs!

Crayfish Fly Patterns

Confession....I have only used crayfish fly patterns a couple of times.  The first time, a large fish broke me off just a few seconds after the hook-set.  Crayfish are a great food source when fish can find them, so I keep looking for better patterns to tie...with plans of eventually fishing them.

Last week I was searching the web for fly patterns for Largemouth Bass, and I ran across a pattern that REALLY caught my eye.  Although the colors are different, as near as I could determine that pattern is called May's Clearwater Crayfish.  I couldn't find a recipe or tying instructions, only pictures on the Orvis website, where they are sold.  Here's a screen capture of the one that I saw in a video that originally caught my eye (its the one on the far right):

The Orvis website shows this:

I did the best I could with trying to figure out how to tie the pattern, and made some material substitutions.

Although the pictures appeared to use a 60-degree jig hook, I used Mustad 32756 90-degree jig hooks.  The first one I tied on a #4 hook.  I made my own eyes for these.  On this one, I used Turkey as the carapace.

Really doesn't look much like the original.  Hey, it was a first attempt!  :)

Next, I tied one on a #1 Mustad 32756 90-degree jig hooks (#4 and #1 were the only sizes I had).  For this one, I used brown Furry Foam for the carapace:

I tied up a 3rd one, also on the #1 hook, and once again I used Turkey for the carapace:

I compared the last two:

I like them both.  The Fuzzy Fur is easier to work with, and a softer feel for the fish.  But I like the mottled color of the Turkey carapace.

Here's a comparison of those crayfish (which as you may have noticed do NOT have claws, but are still unmistakably crayfish), and some of Missouriflies.com "Rough Dub Crayfish" that I tied (if they don't look good, its my fault).  My Rough Dub's are smaller in overall size than my May's Clearwater's.  The Rough Dubs also have claws, and are MUCH quicker to tie.  I like them, too.

I'd still like to figure out how to tie them so they look like the one on the right side of the 3rd picture in this post.  For now, I like the May's Clearwater AND the Rough Dub crayfish patterns....so I guess I will keep tying a few of both.  And then hopefully I can try them out on the fish later this year!

February 2013 Fly Tying

The local waters are still ice-covered, but the quality and safety of that ice has been questionable.  So, I haven't been fishing in weeks.  I really haven't been tying too many flies either, but I have gotten a few done.

Mostly, I've been tying flies for crappies, and also for largemouth bass.  The crappie flies are my usual top-producers...nothing really new there.  For Largemouth Bass, I had some good success with a topwater pattern last year.  Now, I've been trying to tie up mostly bluegill/baitfish imitations to see if I can coax some nicer fish from my local waters that might not be willing to strike the topwaters.  Some of these I've tied before...I just have never used them much.  My plan is that I actually WILL use these more this year.

Anyway, on to the flies:

I tied up some #2 size EP fiber bluegill patterns:

I've also tied up some Craft Fur Minnow variations (these may also work well for white bass/wipers):

...and some zonker strip worms:

Well, I might as well show what I've been tying for crappies.
Chartreuse Springbrook Wunder-style microjigs:

Chartreuse Woolly Buggers:

This fly is experimental.  I thought the big deer-hair head would push a lot of water, and also help the fly suspend...in short, this should be a great fly to use after dark!

And these featherwing streamers just LOOK great!

Ice-Fishing, February 3, 2013

My buddy Jay and I headed to Big Creek Lake on Sunday morning.  We fished from 8am to 2pm.  Weather was decent, mostly cloudy and high temperatures in the lower 20's Fahrenheit.  Ice thickness was a solid 12" of quality clear ice.

Jay used his handheld GPS to locate an old brushpile.  We drilled several holes in the area before locating the brush, then drilled more holes to cover the length of the brushpile, which topped out near 12' of water, and was placed on a slope that dropped down into around 27' of water.

I fished a great hole, and the fish were active.  I had plenty of good solid strikes on jigging spoons tipped with plastic, and tungsten jigheads tipped with plastic.  I could not hook any of these fish!  At most, I had fish on for less than 2 seconds, or two feet of vertical reeling, before they shook free.  It was fun to be getting so many strikes, but frustrating not be able to land any of them.  Jay used a jighead and waxworm, and landed a half-dozen bluegills, mostly chunky 7.5"-8" fish.

The bite died there for both of us...the fish seemed to just disappear.  So, we headed across the lake to look for some other fish.  The first think I noticed was that the water clarity on the west side of the lake was excellent.  I could see my jig down at least 10'.  We drilled a lot of holes, and found some good-looking structure, but no fish.  We drilled some holes in featureless areas, and actually saw some fish that would move in, and quickly move back out again.  We suspected these were White Bass, which can be a lot of fun to catch while ice-fishing.  I used a jigging spoon tipped with plastic, and Jay used a jigging spoon tipped with a waxworm.  I caught two White Bass, and missed several other good strikes.  Jay landed at least 3 White Bass, before these hyper-active fish disappeared.  My biggest White Bass measured 10".

Before we left, we stopped by the brushpile where we had started the day, to see if any fish had shown back up on it.  I didn't find any fish, but Jay managed to catch one or two more nice bluegills.

Weekend Ice-Fishing Report - January 26-27, 2013

I got out to do some ice-fishing both days this weekend!

On Saturday, my friend Jay and I visited a local public pond.  We fished from 8:15am to 11:45am.  The fishing dropped off noticeably after 10:30am.

Using a 4mm tungsten jighead tipped with a Micro Nuggie plastic, my first fish of the day was a 13" Crappie!

I ended up catching 5 Crappies, total, and the others were all in the 10" +/- range.

I also caught at least 14 Bluegills (nothing big...up to 7.5").

Using a Swedish Pimple jigging spoon tipped with a green Micro Nuggie plastic, I landed 4 Largemouth Bass (chunky 13-inchers).

A couple bigger bass got off at the hole after some really long and excellent battles.  I got to see two of those bigger ones, since the ice was clear, and both shook the hook just under the hole, or even up into the hole.  I guessed one to be at at LEAST 17”, and the other one was just enormous…easily a 4lb fish, possibly 6lb range, which is pretty darn big for Iowa, especially in a public pond.   

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On Sunday, Jay and I braved the ice-covered roads and fished the same pond again.  Overall fishing seemed just a little slower, and once again the fish seemed to noticeably hit less frequently after 10:30am.  I used the same gear as on Saturday.

This time, I caught a couple tiny Bluegills before hooking my biggest Crappie of the day, another 13-incher!

I caught a total of at least 6 Crappies (including one on the jigging spoon), and the others were in that 10" range again.

I also landed at least 13 Bluegills.  The bigger ones showed up under my ice-hole about 3'-5' deep over 9' of water.

I only caught 3 Largemouth Bass on Sunday, but the biggest one was a healthy 17-incher.  The others were the chunky 13-inch fish.

I enjoy smoking a cigar while I am fishing.  I don't inhale the smoke (at least, not on purpose), I just enjoy the flavor.  Sometimes when icefishing, the enjoyment factor is marginal.  When icefishing inside a pull-over portable ice-shack, even with the ventilation flaps open, the smoke can get rather painful on the eyes.  Several times, it just got to be too much, and my eyes were just stinging and streaming tears, making my nose run like a faucet.  What a guy will endure just to enjoy a good cigar!  I smoked 2 cigars on Sunday.  During the second one, I saw something large swim under the relatively clear ice.  It was moving towards my ice-hole.  And then it swam UP the icehole, and the MUSKRAT poked his head up and perched his front feet on the lip of the ice, facing right towards me.  It was comical.  After swimming around under the ice, it must have needed a few breaths of fresh air.  Unfortunately, it probably got a lungful of smoke and stinging eyes for his efforts.  He only stuck around for 5-10 seconds before diving back down and swimming away under the ice again.

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I thought I’d share a gear review.

For the last couple of seasons, using fly-fishing reels for ice-fishing has started to become very popular.  The fly reels don't coil line nearly as bad as spinning reels do, so there is less lure-spin down in the water below the ice.  I’d bought the Black Betty ice-fishing fly reel, and mounted it on a used St. Croix ice rod I bought from my friend Mike G.  That Black Betty reel sucks.  I absolutely hated it.  Even with the spool loosened as far as I could, the reel needed too much effort to reel backwards to let line out.  Its an attractive reel, it just isn't for me.  I will be getting rid of that reel at my earliest opportunity.

As a replacement, I bought the Ice Hopper Tight-Liner reel from Sportsman’s Direct.  (I just looked, and it appears to have been taken off the website?  Must be out-of-stock?)  I unspooled the line off the Black Betty, and respooled all that backing and line onto the Tight Liner reel…and mounted the reel on the St. Croix rod.  I put a Swedish Pimple jigging spoon on it, tipped with a green Micro Nuggie.  I used it Saturday and Sunday this past weekend.  Both days I caught bass on it, which all went on some amazing runs.  Even the one crappie I caught on the spoon fought well!

(See the top picture of this thread to see a picture of reel, along with a bass caught on it.)

I LOVE that reel!   Its exactly what  I was hoping for.  Fits great in the hand.  To let line out, you just reel backwards.  Sometimes the mono sticks on the reel (gets wedged between other line wraps, or whatever), so you have to manage the line a bit so you don’t end up reeling it backwards back onto the reel!  That’s not the reel’s fault, though…it would happen to any fly reel.   When a fish takes off running, you palm the reel to put some pressure on it (I had the drag set pretty light, but those bass were pretty strong.)  I landed 7 chunky bass, the biggest was a 17-incher.  Lost a couple larger ones (see the report above from Saturday).  Also caught at least one crappie on that set-up.

Early 2013 Ice Fishing - Trip #2

Ice-fished some brushpiles on a local reservoir on Saturday, January 5th.  My buddy Jay joined me, as well as our friend Chris and his son Nathan, and another friend Jim.  The ice was 9" of  solid, clear ice, with just a dusting of snow on top in most places, and bare ice on the rest.

A Conservation Officer checked up on us, which was nice to see.  He visited for awhile, hoping to see us catch something.  We'd fished for over an hour before he arrived, and drilled plenty of holes over several brushpiles, but hadn't even SEEN a fish yet!  I finally caught a Largemouth Bass before the Officer left us.

Jim was the last to arrive, soon after the Officer left, and located a brushpile that hadn't been fished yet this season (no old holes over the top of it), and he started catching fish.  He called us over.  He caught more fish. I caught a few Crappies up to 11", another bass, and a bluegill  here.  Then the action died.

Black Crappie

White Crappie

We drilled more holes around that brushpile, but no more fish were located.  Eventually, Jim, Chris and Nathan left.

Jay  covered a large area with his electronics, and located another brushpile that hadn't been fished yet.  We were on fish immediately.  I caught another crappie or two, a couple more bass, and lost a nicer bass just under the ice when it tangled in my transducer cable.  The action here ended abruptly, just after both Jay and I had some huge 18"-2' of solid red (fish) show up, then disappear.  Whatever it was spooked the other fish away.  We couldn't find a single fish after that.

It was odd how few fish were on these brushpiles.  Last ice-season, the fish were stacked on them.

I used only jigging spoons tipped with ice-fishing plastics (no live bait), and ended up with 7 Crappies in all, plus the 4 Largemouth Bass and 1 Bluegill.  It was fun, but considering how much time we spent, the catching rate was not good at all.

New Year's Day - 2013

Last weekend, I could have gone ice-fishing.  I had the time, my gear was ready...I just simply chose not to. Very weird!

But I did go ice-fishing yesterday (New Year's Day).  I visited a public pond in town that I had not ice-fished before.  I had fly-fished it during open water, and thought I knew where the fish would be holding.  I was wrong.  Since I marked no fish at the first 5 spots I tried (4'-7' deep), I decided the fish must be in the deeper water.

Turned out the fish were scattered in small groups or singles, and constantly on the move.  They were in 10'-14' of water.

I drew a nice fish in using a jigging spoon, but it just followed the spoon up and down without striking.  I switched to a tungsten jig tipped with a Gulp! Waxworm.  Live waxworms and maggots are great ice-fishing bait, but over the last couple of years, I've determined to weed myself off the crutch of using live bait, even during ice-fishing.  I've discovered live bait isn't necessary, even during the tough conditions of winter.

I fished about 4.5 hours, and most of the time was spent waiting for the next group of fish to show up.  If they didn't show up for 10-15 minutes, I would move to another location.  I ended up landing at least 14 Bluegills (biggest I measured was a fat 8-incher, and all were really close to that length).

I also caught one crappie, which was cool, because I'd just caught one crappie during the open-water season here...and supposedly they were never stocked here.  I also caught a largemouth bass of about 12", and lost another just below the hole that looked considerably larger.

I discovered that releasing a fish back into the hole would immediately make the small group of fish beneath my ice-hole disappear.  I could NEVER catch more than one fish from any group of fish.  So, one time I tried just putting the landed fish on the ice until the group moved away, to see if it made a difference.  That time, I caught about 6 fish from the group before it moved on.

There were a LOT of Canadian Geese flying around most of the morning!

Also, the ice was a very safe 7" thick everywhere I measured.  Air temp started out in the morning at around 5 degrees Fahrenheit, and was supposed to reach 17 degrees F (I never checked to verify that).