Canada Trip 2013 - Blog #1

Jay, Jeff, Chris and I have been heading to Nungesser Lake, Ontario every-other-year since 2001.  So, this was trip #7.

We had another great trip!  We had some great rainbows (the light-refraction-on-water kind, not the trout kind), very decent weather, and caught some good Northern Pike, Walleyes, and Yellow Perch.

Our group managed 3 Northern Pike over 40".  We caught plenty of walleyes over 20", with the biggest being a 26-incher that I landed.  We also caught a few Yellow Perch up to almost 11".  We saw and caught a few more Horsehair Worms once again, as well as some big leeches.  Both of those are just a little creepy!

The fishing had its ups and downs.  Typically fishing was good either in the morning or in the afternoon...but not both.  The water was warming up fast, and the fish were transitioning from shallows to deeper waters, and seemed confused on just where exactly they should be...which caused us to do a lot of fruitless searching trying to find fish willing to eat.  A hot spot one day would often produce almost no fish just one day later.  That's all part of fishing.

First, the Fish Pics:

34" Northern Pike, my largest of the trip.

26" Walleye, THE largest of the trip. :)

This nice Yellow Perch may have been one of the several I caught on my fly rod.

I caught a bigger pike on my fly rod during the trip, but this was the first  one.  I was actually targeting perch when it hit.

This Walleye on the fly rod completed the "Nungesser Lake Grand Slam"!

I would say most of our walleyes on this trip hit 3" and 4" swimbaits.  This one munched a 4" Big Hammer swimbait.

This Walleye had a partially digested 5" Yellow Perch sticking out of its mouth when  I landed it.  It still hit an artificial!

The Walleye in the picture above this one shook its head and dislodged the 5" Perch in its mouth.

I've got quite a few fish pics of the other guys...I'll just try to show the highlights...they caught some nice fish!

Jeff with one of his many Walleyes.

Jay with THE biggest Northern Pike of the trip...at 41.5"!

And another dandy Pike!

Right off the dock!!  A fellow in the cabin next to us caught a 29" Walleye off the dock the first  day we arrived in camp!

Chris with a beauty 41" Northern Pike! 

Chris with ANOTHER 40"-class pike!

Chris flat out caught a LOT of nice fish on this trip.  Check out these  Walleyes!

I just realized the fish above and below...ARE THE SAME FISH,  caught on different days!

This chunky Yellow Perch was just shy of 11"!

New Personal Best Flyrod Largemouth Bass

Just caught a 20.25” Largemouth Bass while flyfishing during my lunch hour today.  On a MICROJIG! 

First I went to one pond that I sometimes enjoy fishing, but there was a boat on the water spraying the shoreline with chemicals to kill algae.  So, I went to a second nearby pond, which I don’t really care for much.  Just goes to show…you never can tell!

The grass had been recently mowed there, the water was super-muddy (which is typical for this pond).  Common Carp were rolling/jumping out in the middle of the pond.  Some were pretty big, and THAT peaked my interest!  I cast to them for awhile, eventually gave up on them and started trying to catch some bluegills closer to shore. I went with a black microjig under an indicator.  Not much happening at first.  Something rolled right in front of me, and I saw a small pod of tiny fry.  I also glimpsed the fish turning away, twice.  It looked pretty nice.  I figured it was a bass, but HOPED it was a big Crappie!  In any cast, it was trying to feast on those TINY FRY!  They were hardly more than little black specs!   I worked the spot over for a minute or two with nothing going on.  I walked a few paces down the shoreline, made a cast or two, then plopped another cast back to where I’d seen the bass.  I was looking out at the rolling carp, checked back at the indictor, and saw it sinking beneath the water.  I set the hook, saw the bass as its headed lift from the impact, and then it took off for deeper water.  Fortunately, it only jumped once.

The fight lasted probably 5 minutes.  I was looking for a good place to land it.  Ideally I wanted a spot where the water shallowed up, so I could drag the bass up on it and let it lay on its side in the water while I reached down to grab it.  But there really wasn’t anywhere that was good.   In order to make the landing, I had to grab my leader and hold onto it (which I hate to do, because if the fish makes another run, it can break your line really easily).  I could tell the fish was wearing down, so I attempted it, and this time it worked!

I measured it and took some pictures, then released it and watched it swim away.

After that, I caught 3 crappies and 3 bluegills.  I also had a trio of crappies on that looked pretty nice, but they all shook free.

So… all that was pretty exciting.  Would have been nice to get one of those big CARP! I have a feeling they were rolling and jumping because they were feeding on those schools of fry too!  

Late Start 2013

Maybe we got "spoiled" last year (in 2012)...when it warmed up fast in March and stayed warm all through summer.  This year is completely different.  Here it is first week of June and we still can't seem to warm up into the 70's!  Fish spawning has been very delayed.  Crappies are sitting on nests in some of the local ponds.

In ponds that have decent bluegill populations, there are more crappies on nests than bluegills right now.  In others, the male bluegills are starting to defend nests, but the females are still HUGE with eggs.  They have not spawned yet.

EXTREMELY late start for this year's spawning seasons!

Bass Going Strong on Topwater!

I flyfished last night for an hour at a public pond in a nearby town.  This pond has been getting POUNDED this year by bass anglers.

The water level is up from the recent rains, and off-colored.  There was a good current flowing in through the storm inlets into the pond.  The wind was down, though, which made topwaters a good option, fished parallel to the shorelines.

I only landed 2, but they were decent fish for public ponds around here.  Also lost/missed at least 3-4 others, including one DANDY that jumped several times before throwing the hook.  Maybe I was overestimating...but the thought that went through my mind when that fish was jumping was "6-pounder!".  In reality..probably somewhere in the 4-6lb range.

For the last few minutes of the fishing trip, I switched to one of Dale S's red & chartreuse microjigs, and caught 4-5 Bluegills and 1 Crappie.

Fun evening...those bass are STRONG!

Lunchtime Fly Fishing Report, 5-29-2013

Well, lunchtime fishing was fun today.  The wind had the north shoreline stirred up a bit on the pond I often fish during lunch.  I had a foam bass topwater pattern (the one I started tying last summer) on the line already, so I tossed that out.  I caught at least 5 bass up to @ 18”, lost/missed maybe twice that many more, then switched to one of Dale S.'s red/chartreuse microjigs and caught a bunch of fat bluegills, and lost a crappie.  Fun!!

The biggest bass I landed…I had it laying on the ground while I was getting my camera/tape measure out.  It flopped, I grabbed the line, the line broke, the fish landed in the water under the algae, and took off with my popper still in its mouth!  Rats!  No picture of that fish.   I think I got the same fish to strike once more, but it only swirled on the 2^nd popper.

Grass Carp Nemesis

"Nemesis"...defined by Mirriam-Webster dictionary as "a formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent".  That describes Grass Carp perfectly!

I landed 3 on flies a few years back.  I thought I was pretty cool!  Since then, I've been totally blanked.  I've hooked I don't know how many since then, and landed NONE.  Plus all the others I've seen and cast to and just could not get them to eat the fly!  A frustrating fish for me.  But the personal reward in landing each one is HUGE.  The take, the hookset, the fight...the big ol' fish landed!

I get continued inspiration from guys like the authors of blogs like:

missouriflies.com

flyfishingwarmwater.blogspot.com

flyfishingbum.blogspot.com

Last year I had a nice Grass Carp take a topwater deer hair "pellet" fly I had tied in the Missouriflies.com style.  That was cool!  My line snapped just after the hookset when the fish threw its head to the side.

John and Jeff (from the 2nd and 3rd blog link above, respectively) have had success using the Grand Hopper  pattern for Grass Carp.  I've tried it during my last two flyfishing trips to local ponds, where I knew Grass Carp were in the area.  They certainly seem attracted and interested in the "splat" the fly makes when hitting the water.  They turn and swirl and swim around the fly, checking it out.  But so far, no strikes.  The fish don't seem to be feeding when I am casting to them, so maybe that is the difference?  Patience....I know this can work!

Here's a picture of me from fishing last night (photo courtesy of Dale Sanders).  The water was fairly calm, but part of the sky was sunny, and part was nasty black storm clouds!

Late Spring Musings, 2013

I've been catching fish lately, but nothing really blog-worthy.  (Dave, NONE of your previous report were blog-worthy either!).  Touche.  Well, stop reading right now, then....because this post will likely only be interesting to me.  Consider yourself warned.  :)

As I've written numerous times, I keep an electronic Fishing Log each year.  Each year I have a personal goal of catching 1,000 fish.  Since I started flyfishing, that goal has gotten much easier to reach.  In fact I've not yet FAILED to reach it since starting to flyfish.

This past Sunday (May 19, 2013), I beat the 1,000 fish mark for the year.  I checked my previous fishing logs to see if this was the fastest I've reached 1,000 fish.  Nope.  That honor goes to last year, when I reached 1,000 fish on May 9, 2012...10 days earlier.

Well, comparing years is interesting to me.  You see, in 2012 we had a very early and very warm Spring.  I ice-fished into late February, and then within 6 days of my last ice-fishing trip, I was flyfishing open water on February 25.  In February and March combined, I fished 52 times!

2013 has been very different from that.  A very cool Spring with bad ice that stayed on the lakes much longer than last year.  We had a good snowfall in May!  In fact, I only fished a total of 5 times total in February and March, and between my last ice-fishing trip in early February, I didn't fish at all for 51 days.  I finally got to flyfish open water on March 27...over a month later than last year!  So, only being behind last year's fish-caught numbers by 10 days seems pretty good to me.  :)

And so far this year I've caught 13 different fish species (12 on fly gear), including 2 new species on fly gear (for me)...Pumpkinseed Sunfish and Bigmouth Buffalo.

So, all in all, its been a pretty decent year for fishing so far.

What's a blog post without pictures??
In the past week, we had 2 consecutive evenings with Tornado WARNINGS in our town.  So, in honor of those...here's a picture I took on each of those days while fishing:

But....this IS a (mainly) Fishing Blog, so here's a couple fish from late last week...a big 9" Green Sunfish, and a 12" Black Crappie sporting spawning colors:

Fly Fishing with Dale and Rick, 5-14-2013

Rick Z lives in southern Iowa, just a few miles north of the Missouri border.  Rick is an avid fly fisherman, creative fly tyer, and manages the fishery for approximately 60 ponds in his area.

Rick's method of fish management on these ponds revolves around harvesting bluegills under 10", all crappies, and bass only if at least 3 bluegills are also removed for each bass.  Something like that.  If I  have misquoted the numbers or ratios incorrectly, the error is completely mine.  Contact Rick if you want the full explanation.  He has also added one or more Flathead Catfish to certain ponds that had an overabundance of stunted panfish.  The results?  He says that in about 5 years, you will have much bigger crappies and bluegills, because the population is kept thinned enough that the remaining fish have plenty of food available to allow them to grow.  Some of these ponds now have bluegills up to 12", and Crappies up to 20"!

My assessment after visiting a couple of these ponds is that...it's working!

I made arrangements for my friend Dale S and I to go flyfish with Rick on a couple of his favorite ponds.

The first pond we visited looked great...nice size one size lined with timber.  The problem we noticed right away was the water clarity.  Rick said normally the pond is fairly clear.  But within the past week they had a downpour that dumped 6" of rain in a short amount of time, followed by several days of strong winds that kept the sediment suspended.  My guesstimate was that you could see into the water only about 1.5"!  Certainly that made it hard to gauge what depth the water was that we were fishing, and also made it very difficult for the fish to spot our flies.  We fished the pond for about 2 hours anyway.

Rick and Dale both noted they each had one or two bites, but no fish.  Worse, Rick broke his fly rod!  I caught 14 bluegills up to 9" long, 2 bass that were twins at @ 13"each, and a crappie that was @ 10".  I used 2 patterns that Rick had tied and given us, and caught fish on both.  One was a black Boa Yarn Leech with red plastic eyes.  I caught a couple bluegills on that before I lost it.  Another was a gold sparkle eyelash yarn leech pattern. It seemed big, the the bluegills loved it, as did the crappie.  I lost that fly to a tree overhanging the water.  I caught the bass and a few smaller bluegills on a gold microjig with a black tail.

Dale S took this picture of Rick at the first pond.  I'm WAY in the background..on the dam...in front of Rick's hat.

Apparently there is a thriving Amish population in the area.  We saw a few road signs that said "BEWARE OF HORSE DRAWN TRAFFIC".  And we saw such traffic.

After lunch, Rick led us to a 2nd pond.  Here the water was still stained, but it was a bit clearer than the first pond.  We were all into fish soon.  We each caught bluegills and crappies.  I also caught a bass.  The crappies weren't too big, but the bluegills were BEASTS!  I measured a good number of 9-inchers, and they were freakishly deep-bodied fish.  Very healthy indeed!  Rick said he had caught 12" bluegills from both ponds we had fished, and I can believe it!

We kept the bluegills and crappies we caught for Rick to clean for a few meals.

Photo courtesy of Dale S.  Rick and I with a basket of fish!

Oh....and while fishing the second pond, Rick broke his rod!  So between the 3 of us, we had 2 broken rods on the day!  What are the chances of that ever happening?

Blue Heron Lake, 5-10-2013

On Friday I had the day off work again, so I went fly fishing at Blue Heron Lake in West Des Moines.  I wanted to target short nose gar.  Mark D had tipped me off about gar spawning there a week or two before when we had a very warm day...right before some really cold weather that then shut the fishing down.

Anyway, I got to the lake around 11:30am.  I put on the hip waders I had gotten for Christmas, put on my waist gear bag (big glorified fanny pack), grabbed my fly rod and headed down the trail to the lake.  I hadn't gotten far when I saw a fellow with a fly rod walking towards me.  What would the chances be?  "Mark?" I said.  "Yeah."

I had corresponded with Mark for several years, but we had never before met in person.  This made my whole day!  Mark didn't have to leave right away, so he very kindly offered to walk back to the lake with me and show me some spots where he had been seeing fish lately.  The first spot held plenty of gar, he assured me, but the fish weren't showing themselves yet.  We moved to a second area.  Mark said there were carp spawning there around some shallow flooded weeds.  There wasn't much action there at first, but as we stood and talked, the action picked up.

Turns out it was Bigmouth Buffalo that I saw spawning, but there were a LOT of Common Carp around feeding behind the spawning buffalo, and also feeding in the shallow weeds.  Since gar didn't seem to be active yet, I decided to chase some carp.  They were quite serious about their feeding, and were fairly oblivious to my presence.  Some swam right up to my boots!  After catching a fish or two, I realized I  could just dangle the fly straight down under the rod tip to present to fish that were quite close to me.

I stayed until @ 2:15pm.  In that time I managed to catch 6 carp on flies.  I used a Mr. P's Carp Carrot pattern.  Here's a picture of me hooked up with the first carp of the day.  Mark snapped the picture right before he had to leave.

Here's some pictures of a couple carp I caught.  One measured 25", and the other measured 26".  I didn't measure the others, but one or two might have been a bit bigger.

You can see a large hook in the bottom of this one's gill plate.  I removed the hook before releasing the fish.

I ended up spotting 7 gar in the shallow weeds.  One ate the fly, one I snagged on the outside of the jaw.  Both jumped and threw the hook.  I could have caught more carp.  It was fun, but the wind was picking up, making line control more "work".

On the way out, I almost stepped on this Garter Snake!

Fly Fishing Report - May 9, 2013

My new friend Robert R was in town.  Robert is a GREAT guy, who loves fishing as much as I do...which is saying something!

We went to Ada Hayden Lake in Ames, Iowa.  I hoped the recent cold weather would have the rainbow trout active along the shorelines.  The day started out breezy, cloudy, with just a bit of drizzle.  As soon as we arrived at the lake, we saw thousands and thousands of buffalo constantly streaming along the shorelines...EVERY shoreline.  I put on a nymph and tossed it out in front of some, and immediately had a Buffalo on.  I could see the fish had the fly in its mouth, and was close to shore.  My leader got wedged under a rock, and in the time it took for me to free the line, the fish freed itself.  Darn!  No other Buffalo had any interest in the fly.

I spotted one trout along the shore, and cast near it.  It turned and headed for the fly, but it didn't find it, and disappeared before I got another cast off.

I started casting out away from shore, and soon had a fish hit a Chili Pepper...twice.  It didn't get hooked either time, but I clearly saw the white flash.  It could have been a trout, but I thought it looked more like maybe a crappie.  I switched to a white beadhead Woolly Bugger, and soon had a Wiper on the end of my line!  I landed the fish, it was 15.5" long.  Not big as Wipers go, but definitely a fun fish on a fly rod!

I switched to a gray-over-white Clouser Deep Minnow.  Over the next 90 minutes or so, I landed a total of 9 Wipers.  They ranged from maybe 13" up to 16.5".

Very fun!  They seemed to be scattered around, rather than schooling together.  I had to keep moving to pick up a fish here and there.

Robert's fishing was interrupted by some long business-related conference calls, but he managed to catch a couple good crappies.

After a quick lunch we visited Peterson Pit East.  It is connected to the Skunk River, and the river was high and muddy.  The water in the pit was up into the brush and trees all around the lake.  There was no way to access the water and fish it from shore, so we headed back to Ada Hayden.  The wind had died some before lunch, and the Wipers bite had slowed.  So we decided to try some other areas of the lake for panfish.  We didn't find any.  I stopped at a culvert that had a bit of water flowing into the lake.  There were some Buffalo and a few small carp near it.  I thought maybe I could get the carp to strike, but could not.  One Buffalo swam towards shore near where I was standing. It was mouthing some flooded grass, looking like it was feeding.  Hey, if it was eating, why not try to feed it?  I dropped a nymph in front of its mouth, and it sucked it in.  I set the hook, and the hook lodged in the lip.  HOORAY!  My first Bigmouth Buffalo on a fly!  It barely fought, but it did slowly head away from shore, where it was instantly bombarded by 3 or 4 male Buffalo who were trying to mate with it.  They were pushing the fish away from me!  I thought they would knock my line loose from the fish's mouth, but everything held as intended.  I landed the fish, and she measured 28"!

Later in the afternoon, Robert and I flyfished a pond not far from my house.  We each caught Crappies, Bluegills, Hybrid Sunfish, and Pumpkinseeds.  Here's Robert with one of the beautiful Pumkinseeds:

I also managed to land a couple bass:

Fishing had been slow all day, but we caught fish and really had fun!