CIA Holiday Party / White Elephant Gift Exchange

One great benefit of membership in Central Iowa Anglers fishing club is the comraderie.  Folks that you can talk fishing with incessantly, and NOBODY EVER gets tired of hearing more!

The December White Elephant party is ALWAYS a great time, and this year certainly followed that tradition.  It was held at the Okoboji Bar & Grill restaurant in Johnston, Iowa.  We had a good turn out, something like 30 or more members were able to attend.

Lots of laughter, good stories, swapping of fishing experiences, tips, and reports.  The White Elephant Gift Exchange is really fun, but it is also just a small part of what really makes the gathering AWESOME.  In short, its the PEOPLE that make it so great!

The following are pictures taken by CIA Member Ivan Brehmer.  I'm using them here without his permission, but I don't think he'll mind.  :)  Since this is MY blog, I'm only including pictures that I was actually in.  I'm the jolly dude in the sort of plaid shirt with glasses and seasonally fashionable start on my winter goatee.  The fellow in the mustard-yellow sweatshirt sitting next to me is my buddy Jay.

I have no idea what we were looking at, but since I'm not the only one looking, let's pretend there really WAS SOMETHING THERE!

One waitress took care of all of us!  She did good.

Dan Y. considering which gift to steal (no worries, its all part of the game!).

Jay wonders where people find some of this junk!

Nice guy that I am, I was trying to get our youngest member, Will, to get interested in the gift I had already gotten.  It included a Scheel's (sporting goods store) gift card!  I think he was more dazzled by boxes of LURES!  I'm certain I would have been at his age too!

Matt G, unpacking the box of goodies he selected.

I lost track of how many times Nate tried to steal the gifts Jay had!  They were good gifts, naturally!

It was funny, because last year I took a REALLY nice gift to the exchange...a Sage fly rod!   And folks fought over it, even though a few of them didn't flyfish.  That gift was brought back again this year by the person that won it last year, guess that decided they couldn't use it after all!  It was one of the most popular gifts to "steal" once again this year!  And the gift I brought this year, a Black Betty ice-fishing reel that I tried last season but didn't like, was also one of the most "stolen" gifts this year!  Maybe it was because I put it in a Victoria's Secret gift bag?  Heck, its no secret (pun intended) that some of the BEST gifts we get are the ones our wives bring home in those little VS bags!  :)

Icefishing Fly Patterns for Panfish

Here's some icefishing flies I had tied last year, using microjigheads and beadheads:

Mark Anderson is a fellow member of Central Iowa Anglers.  Mark absolutely LOVES ice fishing!
He has a blog, and if you enjoy icefishing and want to learn more, it a great read!
http://icefishanderson.blogspot.com/

Around mid-summer of this year, Mark approached me to tie some ice-fishing "flies".  Maybe "flies" isn't the best word to use here.  They were mainly tied on tungsten ice-fishing jigheads, so they are ice-fishing jigs.  But, it is something any fly tyer can do.

Mark had some specific ideas of what he wanted tied, based on the various ice-fishing conditions he often encounters.  In some waters, natural colors and textures are very important.  In other waters, bright UV colors are often best for both Bluegills and Crappies, as well as the occasional Yellow Perch.

We tossed around Mark's ideas, I made some suggestions based on my own experiences and observations, and we agreed on a variety of patterns to try.

(Below is under UV light):

(Below is under UV light):

Early reports from Mark have been that he has gotten very positive reaction from the fish on the ones he has tried.  If you want to find out more, hopefully Mark will be posting something about it on his blog later in the season once he has completed more field testing.

'Tis the Season!

'Tis the Season....for tying flies.

The temperature here was 1 Degree F when I dropped my son off at school this morning.  Local ponds are frozen over.  Ice will be thick enough to be safe for ice-fishing soon.  In the interim, its a good time to sit

down at the vise and tie up some flyfishing patterns for next year.

I'd also been tying some flies through the Summer and Fall, but didn't post them here.  So, let me  back up a bit and show some of the patterns I've been tying in the 2nd half of 2013.  My apologies in advance if I've posted some of these on my blog previously.

***Disclaimer:  I'm not suggesting any of the flies below are "originals" or "first-of's" or "first ever's".  All are based, in part or in whole, on previously existing patterns.  I'm not good about remembering  (or caring about) names of fly patterns, so I have left most of them out of the descriptions below.  ***

First off, I was tying some flies for Gar.  I've caught gar on rope flies, but those things cast like a wet sock, and 3 of 5 good strikes never get landed on those anyway, in my experience.  So, based on some fly patterns a friend of mine has been using for gar, I tied these up.  They have a small #10 treble hook (resharpened!) trailing a body tied on a wire shaft (with metal loops at each end).  When I flyfish for gar locally, they are almost all Shortnose Gar.  These are made about as "bomb-proof" as possible.  The "hinge" between the hook and the body serves to minimize the leverage the fish can apply to shake the hook free when they typically jump and shake their heads.  I haven't got to try these out yet.

I did well with this style of streamer at times this year...especially on Crappies and Smallmouth Bass.  I really like the way these look, both in and out of the water, and I just really enjoy tying them for some reason.

Although I did pretty well catching Wipers on Clouser Deep Minnows this year, I still haven't settled on my favorite fly for White Bass & Wipers, so I've tied a variety of patterns that SHOULD catch some fish.  Like these EP Minnows:

And these:

And these mainly Craft Fur baitfish...

A fellow whose word I trust noted that in addition to shad-type patterns, Firetiger seems to be a good color for Wipers and White Bass.  And in fact, another friend of mine caught a HUGE 18 lb Wiper on a firetiger-colored crankbait!  So...I believe them!

Then I was also tying for the local stocker Trout season in late Fall.

And late season (before ice-up) is a great time to catch crappies.  This color microjig (under an indicator) works really well in a few places I flyfish.

Jointed baitfish patterns seemed all the rage this year.  I only tried one briefly this year, without success.  I will try them again, definitely...but they are SO COOL, I almost hate risking LOSING one!  They sure use a lot of material in each one!

I like nymphs, and having seen Rock Bass with big Dragonfly larvae sticking out of their throats, I know fish love them.

That's enough for now.  I'm sure there will be many more to share before open-water season arrives once again!

Plan "B"...and Last Day of Open Water, 2013?

This might have been my last open-water fishing trip of 2013.  Local lakes and ponds are starting to lock up with a covering of ice.

I took the day off work on Friday.  Trout had been stocked the previous day at Ada Hayden Lake in Ames.

I knew it wouldn't be a very enjoyable day.  It had snowed.  The air temperature was 18 degrees F, and I was driving farther NORTH.

Visions of frozen line guides and frostbitten fingers were circulating in my mind.
I dressed for the weather.  I tried putting vaseline in the rod guides to prevent water from freezing them closed.  This didn't seem to work appreciably well.

I walked around the entire north basin of Ada Hayden Lake, stopped to fish at a few spots, but didn't see a single sign of fish.  No jumps or swirls.  I talked to a fellow who was present the previous day during the stocking.  He had caught his limit (5 trout) the previous day, but also hadn't caught/seen a fish this day.

I DID see 2 wild swans fly over and land on a far corner of the lake.  So, THAT was pretty awesome.  Its the 3rd time I've ever seen wild swans flying.

Anyway, I had a "Plan B" in mind for such circumstances as this.  I drove back to Ankeny and visited a pond I had only visited once before this year, back in May.  The water was still open, although the shorelines were covered with snow.

I put on a red/chartreuse microjig under an indicator.  Didn't take long to start catching crappies!  Most were pretty small.  Biggest of the day measured 10".  It wasn't super-fast fishing, but I ended up landing 76 Crappies and 1 Bluegill in 3.5 hours of flyfishing!

I salvaged a very cold day and the possibility of getting skunked, and ended up finding a good way to end the open-water season!

Fantastic Evening, 11-16-2013

What started out as a morning with hail and rain, turned into a decent afternoon of light scattered rain mixed with sunshine.  By late afternoon, the air temps had reached into the lower 60's, and the wind wasn't too terrible.  I had to go fishing!

I visited a local pond where I hoped to flyfish for Bluegills.  With the recent cold weather, and this day's rain, sun, and warmer temps...its hard to predict how the fish are going to react.  I hoped they liked the warmth, and it seemed like they did.

I ended up landing at least 15 Bluegills in 2 hours of fishing.  The bigger surprise was that I also landed 8 Crappies, and lost a couple others!  Now...I know there are crappies in this pond, I catch a few every year. But they are fairly rare.  I would guess that most years I don't catch 8 crappies TOTAL from this pond, so catching 8 in a couple hours this day was as amazing as it was unexpected!  They weren't real big...all probably 10" or less, but they were really healthy-looking, and fought well.

Most of the bluegills hit earlier in the evening, and were caught on a Brown "Rubberlegs" nymph with yellow legs.  The Crappies hit later in the evening, and were all caught on a red microjig with a chartreuse tail suspended under an indicator.

Other than the willing Bluegills and bonus Crappies...one more thing made the evening pretty special.  The sky.  It was absolutely beautiful and ever-changing all evening...so I kept snapping pictures of the sky in between catching fish.
Enjoy!

And then later, my family and I went to see the movie "Thor" in the theatres.  When we got home, the moon was playing with the clouds, and it was pretty cool! Hopefully this GIF file works:

Flyfished During Lunch Hour, 11-14-2013

The wind dropped off a little, and the temperature warmed back up into the upper 40's (F) by lunchtime...a welcome warm-up after the last few day's cold and wind.

I went flyfishing, and discovered 2 things...
The turtles are still out.  I saw a Snapping Turtle and caught this Painted Turtle:

And the second thing was...the Crappies are still hitting.  I landed 4 and lost a 5th.

The crappies hit a red & chartreuse 1/80th oz microjig set about 24" below an indicator.

Lake Petocka, 11-9-2013

I'm writing this on Tuesday, and it was 11 degrees F on my way in to work today, and it was snowing yesterday.  BRRRR!
On Saturday when I fished, it was much warmer...a comparatively balmy mid-40's.  Sure, my fingers were cold, but the real killer was the WIND.  It was screaming steadily at 22 mph, and gusting to almost 30 mph!

I was standing knee deep in the water, and the wind and waves factored greatly in creating a mudline downwind along the shore for at good 30 yards or more.  Tough conditions.

Fishing was slow, or at least the catching was.  I felt I had plenty of strikes, but most were single strikes.  Previous trips to this lake had fish that would strike 2 and 3 times or more before getting hooked.

I tried a number of patterns.  I landed 5 trout, and caught at least one each on a Chili Pepper, a BH Black Woolly Bugger, a brown-over-white Clouser Deep Minnow, and a Big Hole Demon.

Extended forecast says its going to warm back up a bit over the next few days.  I'm looking forward to that!

Iowa Wipers

The Iowa DNR conducts fish sampling around mid-October each year on a nearby reservoir. The lake has a wide variety of species, and Wipers are stocked almost annually.

The following show Wipers (Hybrids) of 28"/13 lbs (photo taken in 2012), and 29"/14 lbs (photo taken in 2013), respectively. They don't net many fish this size, of course...but it does show what the reservoir is capable of producing when these fish have an abundant supply of shad!

Last Fishing Outing of October, 2013

With today's lunchtime flyfishing success (see previous blog post), I decided to visit a different local public pond after dinner.
The numbers were lower than I'd hoped for, but I did manage to catch at least 5 Crappies, 4 Bluegills, and 1 decent Largemouth Bass on flyfishing gear.

Like the pond I had fshed earlier in the day, this pond's water was as clear as I'd seen it all year, possibly from the influx of rainwater from the previous day...or possibly despite it?