New Pond, Visit #2

My first trip ever to this pond (as you will remember from my previous blog), last week, resulted in catching a bunch of bluegills, and a fair number of Hybrid Sunfish and some Pumpkinseeds.

Last night's flyfishing outing, my second trip ever to this pond, I again caught a bunch of bluegills, decent numbers of Hybrid Sunfish…

...but I didn’t catch any Pumpkinseeds for the first hour.  I recalled that the first trip I had tried 3 different colors of microjigs, and almost all the Pumpkinseeds hit the chartreuse.  I also recalled that I thought I had a crappie on last trip, but didn’t land it.

Unlike last trip, this time I saved a little bit of remaining daylight for fishing the channel and beyond.  The north end of the main pond turns into a narrow channel that cuts across to the backs of some townhomes sort of near my neighborhood. There it opens up again into a smaller pond basin area.  Actually, the smaller basin looked bigger than I thought it would.  I didn’t really get to fish the smaller pond area, except right where it connects to the channel, because it just got too dark to see my strike indicator.  Anyway, at first I was still using a gold microjig that I had used on  the main big pond area.  I went up the channel to just beyond where it first widens out slightly.  I was casting towards the far shoreline, and caught a couple crappies!  I ended up catching at least 7 crappies scattered throughout the channel area.

I also caught 3 bass this time.  2 were small, one was a nice feisty “medium size”….maybe 13”. 

Right after I caught that bigger bass, I threw back in the same spot and hooked another something nice.  I thought maybe it was another bass.  It turned and ran straight up the channel and angled towards the opposite shoreline.  I mean it ROCKETED up that channel!  It was peeling line out of my hand and off the reel.  And I was using a 6wt!  In hindsight, I should have horsed it more.  My line would have held, but I was worried about the hook pulling loose.  In the end, the fish found some weeds/muck, and got free.  DANG!  Whatever it was…it was NICE.  Not like 10lb catfish nice…but a solid fish and FAST/strong!  I really wonder what it was.  I still suspect bass (maybe 18-19” range?), but it could have been grass carp, BIG crappie…heck, it could have been a muskrat!  There was at least one swimming around the area around dusk.

Anyway, it was exciting.  As the cloudy light started to get dark, I did switch to a chartreuse microjig, and caught more crappies in the channel, and 3 more Pumpkinseeds…plus a few more bluegills.  Here's a couple of the Pumpkinseeds:

So…all in all it was an interesting evening of flyfishing.  That channel area is intriguing.  It is not very deep, and I have a feeling by late spring/summer it will be overgrown with weeds…so I think I will try to fish there a bit more while the weather is still cool.

Pumpkinseeds & Hybrid Sunfish!

Last night I fly-fished from @7pm-8:15pm.  I visited a pond just a few blocks from my house that, odd as it may seem, I had never fished before!  The pond is probably @ 6 years old (?), and I'm not exactly sure when it was first stocked.  I've seen folks fish it, see them catch fish that, obviously, were big enough to catch.  :)
I decided to try it.  The weather was crappy...37 degrees F, breezy, overcast, damp (it had been raining/drizzling sporadically throughout the day).

I stuck with my favored tactic of late...a microjig under an indicator.  Long story short, I caught @ 28 Bluegills, 10 Hybrid Sunfish, and 6 Pumpkinseed Sunfish.

Hybrids are cool because they are so aggressive and fight REALLY hard!  Of the 20+ public ponds in my town...I'm not sure I've ever caught a Pumpkinseed before.  If I did, I probably  assumed it was a Hybrid Sunfish.  But last night, catching multiple Hybrids and Pumpkinseeds at the almost the same time...There was a marked difference between these fish.  So...I am EXCITED, because I can now add Pumpkinseed to my "Fly Rod Species List"!
Here's some pics:
Here's 3 Pumpkinseeds

At @ 7", this was one of the bigger Pumpkinseeds:

And here is an 8" Hybrid Sunfish:

I'm looking forward to fishing this pond around spawning time...and get some good pics of these Pumpkinseeds in their spawning colors!

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.