Warmwater / Coldwater Flyfishing in NE Iowa

After reading a blogged trip report ( http://iowaflyfisher.webs.com/apps/blog/show/43417544-a-driftless-birthday ) from my friend Chad, I decided I had ignored the flyfishing potential of NE Iowa for FAR too long.

My buddy Jay and I loosely planned a 2-day fishing trip to the area.  I picked the town and hotel we would overnight in.  Yeah....hotel.  :)  We could have camped, but that would have just added a lot more stuff we would need to pack and organize.  It was just easier to spend the night in a hotel, and be able to sleep in air conditioning, shower and eat a free breakfast.  We used to have camping fishing trips, but we are older and more susceptible to weather than we used to be.  And other lame excuses.

We knew for sure we wanted to hit one river to target Smallmouth Bass at least one day.  The rest we would "play by ear".

DAY ONE
So, it was roughly a 3-hour drive from Ankeny, Iowa, to our destination.
We drove straight to the river access we had chosen (not the same one Chad used, as it turns out).  The first thing we noticed is that the river was rather low.  The flow when Chad visited it was 136 cfs.  The flow when we arrived was 28 cfs.  The water was still crystal clear as Chad had described.  Beautiful water, beautiful river valley with limestone bluffs reaching the waters edge on one side.  The river supports an abundance of life....food for Smallmouth Bass.  There were crayfish, chubs, various suckers and other smaller minnows, plus aquatic nymphs living amongst the rocks in the sections between the sandy runs.

LOTS of suckers!

I enjoy catching new species to add to my "fly rod species" list.  The first day, I added 4 new species!
In addition to Smallmouth Bass and Creek Chubs that I'd caught before, I also caught a Golden Redhorse Sucker, a White Sucker, some Rock Bass, and some Striped Shiners.
Here's pictures of all of those species, in order:

The best fly of the day for most species was a Tequeely:

A Pearl Shiner also did well:

(And...a random picture of a couple Tiger Swallowtail butterflies we saw hanging out on a rocky sandbar.):

Around 5pm, we checked into our hotel, changed clothes and found a place to eat dinner in town.  After dinner, we figured we had a little time to scout a nearby trout stream, so off we went.  It was an embarrassingly tiny creek.  Neither of us had ever fished a stream this small for trout.  There were a few slightly deeper pools like this sweet-looking spot:

It took a bit to figure the stream out, and then the catching started.  In the brief time we had before the sky darkened, I landed 7 Rainbow Trout, all on a gold microjig.  3 came from the pool above, and 4 others came from more marginal areas further upstream.

DAY TWO

We had lost most of our good Smallmouth Bass flies, so I suggested we try another nearby trout stream.

The stream was on private property, but posted for public fishing.  The parking area was strategically far from the creek.  This is probably why we didn't see any other anglers all day, although there was one other car in the parking area when we left.

After reaching the stream, we headed upstream and walked quite a long ways before we saw water deep enough to hold trout.  There were plenty of other fish in the shallow sections, though...Rock Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Creek Chubs, suckers, etc.

We finally found some trout.

From the spot above, we took turns catching fish.  I caught 2 Brook Trout:

They sure are pretty!

Jay caught 2 Rainbows from the same spot.

We moved upstream and found some pools with decent depth, and there were trout in most of them.  These are some that I caught:

With plenty of Creek Chubs in the shallower sections.

Jay found a good little pool, and I let him have it while I moved further upstream.  I soon came upon the mother of all pools.  It was big and deep.  Beautiful scenery around it.  Trout occasionally grabbing stuff off the surface, but were otherwise invisible.  I caught a bunch of Rainbows and Brookies there.  Jay eventually joined me and caught some as well.

It was a LONG uphill walk (actually only about a mile) back to the car.  We headed back home from there.  Such and an awesome trip!  I'm already looking forward to going back!

The "Quick Course" in Fly Casting

I had written this up for a group I plan to help learn to fly cast...either for the first time, or to help some infrequent flyfishers improve their casting.

Now, I am NOT a certified fly casting instructor, and I have never received any professional instruction.  This are just some tips that I've learned over the years of teaching myself, that I think are key to starting out and getting comfortable with flyfishing and fly casting quickly.  Hopefully this is quick and easy enough for a newbie to digest and to get started with confidence.

Here goes:

-Remember, you are casting the LINE, not the lure.
-In order to cast the line, you load the rod and allow it to transfer that energy to the line.
-The generally-accepted backcast is a "10-to-2" (clock) rod position movement. You want to feel your rod load (bend). The key is a smooth acceleration between the 10 and 2 position, then a VERY abrupt STOP. The abrupt stop is what causes the rod to transfer the energy to the line.
-A "false" forward cast (one where you are not delivering the fly to the target, but simply lengthening the amount of line you have in the air) is a reverse of the backcast, except the weight of the line unfurling behind you starts to load the rod first and then you accelerate forward and abruptly stop at the 10 position (like chopping wood with an ax). Let the weight of the line moving forward out in front of you take more line out thru the rod's line guides.
-On your final forward cast (delivering the fly to the target), stop the rod at the 10 position, let the line shoot forward, and then slowly drop your rod tip towards the target as the fly falls to the water. If you have trouble with your leader/tippet not straightening out at the end of the cast, you can use your line hand to stop the shooting line just before it runs out of energy. The line will stop and the remaining energy will be transferred to your leader& tippet, moving them beyond the end of the fly line.
-Keep your wrist locked in position while casting.
-When casting, move your rod in a straight line forward and back.



Once you get comfortable with the above, you are ready for an advanced but very important and useful upgrade to your casting. It incorporates a "haul", which can be a single haul (used in either the forward or back cast) or double haul (used in both the forward and back cast). The double haul is no more difficult to learn than the single....so go for it.

The premise of the haul is pulling down on the line in your line hand at the beginning of the forward and/or backcast to create additional tension and rod loading, thus increasing line speed and resulting in shooting the line further. You pull down on the line at the beginning of the cast, as I mentioned, pause briefly as the line passes you, then raise your line hand back up to starting position as the line extends out on the other side of the rod. At this point you can also release more line into the cast if you want to. This technique is particularly useful when casting into the wind, or you are casting heavier flies, or if you are just wanting to get that little extra distance to reach the fish.



Burn these things into your mind. It may sound complicated, but with just a bit of practice, it all begins to flow together and come more naturally. Pretty soon, you are just doing it without even thinking about it. Kind of like driving a car. Remember how overwhelmed we were when we first started driving? So much to know and details to pay attention to! Traffic and street signs, other drivers, watch your speed, whose turn is it at the stop sign... where's the gas, where's the brake!



Anyway...those interested in reading about the myriad techniques in flycasting, you can search instructional videos on YouTube, or read the articles here (additional article headings are on the left column on the page):http://www.sexyloops.com/flycasting/tbasic1.shtml

Flyfished for Smallmouth Bass on 7-11-2015

I wanted to fish on Saturday.  Rainstorms in the morning kept me home, agonizing on where I should go.  There was a big festival going on in town which is a lot of fun, but for fishing I prefer solitude if I can find it.  So, I didn't want to fish in town.  By 11:30, the radar showed the rain and clouds were clearing out.  After checking some river levels online, I made my choice to go flyfishing for Smallmouth Bass at a small river about a 45 minute drive from home.

42 Smallmouth Bass, 2 Largemouth Bass, 3 Creek Chubs and 1 Green Sunfish proved it was a great choice!

This was my first visit to this river this year, and I was pleased to find it perfectly wadable, and water clarity good.  And whats even better is I didn't see another person the whole day.  Not even any kayaks or canoers, which I do sometimes see there.

At this particular spot, I walk upstream along a dirt trail through the woods, get in the river, and back back downstream towards my car.  The understory was fairly lush, and that's my excuse for missing my usual point-of-entry into the water.  I walked down one trail to the water, and caught a couple small Smallmouth Bass right away on a beadhead gold Woolly Bugger.

I retraced the trail back to the main path and continued upstream.  I ended up at a feeder creek.  I got in the water there, and waded it back down to the stream.  Along the way, I picked up a couple Creek Chubs on the Woolly Bugger.  I'd been wanting to catch some Creek Chubs on my fly rod, but hadn't actually seen any in years.  I later caught another one in the main river, so I ended up with 3 for the day.

I made my way to the main river channel and soon had a decent Smallmouth Bass on next to a log in the water.  I watched another nice Smallmouth and a smaller one chase the hooked fish around the area...I suppose trying to steal whatever it had eaten?

I tried a blockhead popper, as that has worked well for me on this river in the past.  But I think the topwater bite gets better later on in the Summer.  The fish weren't interested.  I switched to an FC Pearl Shiner and caught a number of Smallmouth bass off that log, as well as a small Largemouth Bass.  Most were small, but this one might have been the other good one I had seen:

I waded on downstream, picking up a fish or two here an there, mostly smaller fish.  I did see a few carp, which doesn't always happen.  I didn't fish for them, but they would have been a lot of fun.

I saw a wild Turkey spook from its roost near the top of a tall Oak Tree next the the high-banked river.  Its flight was quite loud as it flew across the stream and disappeared somewhere downstream.

I also caught this damselfly that repeatedly landed on my fly rod as I was fishing.

Anyway, I fished for about 5.5 hours, and waded 0.75 miles of river.  I noticed in the afternoon, the Smallies preferred shaded areas.  Here's some more fish from the trip:

I'm pretty sure I've never caught that many smallmouth bass in one trip to this river before.  It was a VERY enjoyable day!

July 3rd, 2015

Flyfished a couple ponds this morning.  Caught a nice bluegill and some smallish bass at the first pond.

At the 2nd pond, I caught some nice sunfish (bluegills, hybrids, and pumpkinseeds), mostly small bass, and one 17.5" bass.   Had another nice bass break my 13 lb tippet.

Last Week of June, 2015

Algae blooms are forming broad mats along the shorelines of many of the public ponds I flyfishing.  It makes fishing and landing fish difficult.  But not impossible.
I've tried unsuccessfully for more Grass Carp.  Largemouth Bass are becoming increasingly aggressive towards topwaters.  Bluegills and Hybrid Sunfish, too.  Some sunfish are still hanging out near nesting areas, but I think the main spawn is mostly over.  A much smaller percentage of the population may continue to spawn sporadically for the remainder of the summer.

Hybrid Sunfish:

A 10" Bluegill!! :

And Largemouth Bass up to 18":

Lunchtime Flyfishing, 6-18-2015

I took a co-worker flyfishing during lunch today, hoping for another catfish.  We didn't catch any cats...but did catch Largemouth Bass, Bluegills, Crappies, and Redear Sunfish.

The fly that caught most of my fish was a brown simi-seal leech with an orange glass beadhead.

Verified...Redear Sunfish!

I mentioned in this post from a week or so ago:
http://www.fishndave.blogspot.com/2015/06/19-largemouth-bass-on-bluegill-topwater.html
...that I suspected there may be a few Redear Sunfish in a certain nearby pond.  I finally got back to try and catch one of these spooky fish, and DID!  I caught just one...a 9-incher...and they are indeed Redears.  I've only seen maybe 6 nesting only in a certain area. I suspect they may have been stocked from elsewhere...and at this point I'm not even sure if there are any females in the pond or not...so it may not be a reproducing population.  Because of that end, I will keep this pond under my hat.

I've been flyfishing the local public ponds in my city, starting in 2006 (so, 10 years now!).  It was only about 3 years ago that I discovered a series of connected ponds have Pumpkinseed Sunfish in them.  They are beautiful fish not commonly found in the area lakes and reservoirs, so that was a really nice surprise to find a population of them locally.  I always hoped I'd find some Redear Sunfish too....they get big and fight hard, but can be difficult to entice to strike a fly, except when they are nesting.  There are some of these in lakes within an hour or so drive of where I live, but I usually prefer to spend my time fishing rather than driving so I generally fish close to home.  I say all this just as background to help understand why I think finding them in a nearby pond is SO AWESOME!

Anyway...so that started off my day on a high note.  Since most of the fish that were on nests scattered when I approached, I put an indicator above a microjig to fish the far side of the weedline to see if I could get a female Redear or one of the males that had just vacated the shallows.  I didn't get anymore Redears, but the indicator dropped down, and set the hook, and a nice fish shot out for the middle of the pond.  I couldn't stop it on that first run!  Strong fish!  Turned out to be a 20" FAT Channel Catfish...my 2nd Channel Cat on a fly within 5 days.

I also caught a couple bass on poppers, and found some pretty nice bluegills.

After leaving this pond, I picked up my buddy Jay, and we fished Saylorville Lake.  Using spinning gear, I caught a White Bass, Jay caught at least 3 more plus a Freshwater Drum.  But most of the time we were flyfishing for carp.  We saw plenty of them, but they pretty much ignored everything we showed them.  I dropped a fly down in front of one that was feeding in some heavy flooded vegetation.  The carp dropped down to the fly, I set the hook, and it took off for open water.  My excitement was short-lived...it became unhooked in about 3 seconds.  Bummer!

And then in the evening, my buddy Chad sends me a message asking where I'm going to fish that evening.  It had been a long day out in the sun already... but its tough to resist a fishing invitation!  So, back out I went.  Chad flyfished poppers for bass, so I flyfished for bluegills with a yellow Boa Yarn Leech.  I did well, and so did Chad.  In addition to bass, he managed a Bluegill on that large popper!  I ended up catching 4 bass along with the bluegills.

It had been a very enjoyable day of fishing!

First Flyrod Catfish of 2015!

Caught during lunch today, after we got a BUNCH of rain over the past couple days.  The ponds are high, and waters are running!  This one hit a microjig under an indicator.
What a fattie!

19" Largemouth Bass on a Bluegill Topwater Fly?!

I was pretty surprised to catch this 19" Largemouth Bass on a little foam fly I was using to tempt bluegills during lunch today.
Also surprised the hook held well enough to allow me to tug, pull, and drag this bass through the thick weeds he kept diving into and getting hung up in!
Ahhhhhh, luck.  :)

I was excited to spot some decent-sized sunfish in the shallows near nests that had red on the edge of their operculums.  In my area, that can only mean Pumpkinseed Sunfish or Redear Sunfish.  I put micorjigs in front of several of them, but could not coax a strike.

I looked repeatedly, trying to discern the iridescent blue cheek markings of a Pumpkinseed Sunfish, but could not.  I know there are a series of interconnected ponds in my town that have Pumpkinseed Sunfish, but have otherwise never seen them in any other area ponds/lakes.  The pond I fished today was quite a distance from those ponds.  I've never caught/seen a Redear Sunfish in any of the local ponds, so I'm excited by the prospect that perhaps THIS is such a pond.  I NEED to know what they are...so...now I gotta go back and keep trying to get one of these things to strike a fly!!

Grass Carp 2015

I feel very fortunate to have finally caught another Grass Carp on a fly rod.  I caught it last night out of a local public pond.

I went to the pond because it has Grass Carp, but considering all the fruitless (for Grass Carp) trips I've made to this pond, I'm forever optimistic, but know my chances of catching one are pretty slim.

So, I went to the pond to target bluegills.  I grabbed the 5wt rod out of the car, instead of the 6wt I've normally been using (because I often want to cast wind resistant bass poppers at these ponds).  It had 3X tippet (~8 lb test).  Many bluegills were in shallow close to shore.  So, I went with at gray Boa Yarn Leech tied on a #8 dry fly hook (for less weight).  This allowed the fly to be worked with a nice action, slowly, without it sinking much.  I think this was key.  And, I'd previously caught 2 (maybe 3?) Grass Carp on a Boa Yarn Leech.  I knew they might go for it.

There were lots of people out fishing....I counted at least 13 other anglers on this pond during the 2 hours I was there.  I worked my way down a shoreline that others weren't fishing.  I saw a few signs that there might be Common Carp or Grass Carp around...but the swirls could also have been bass or catfish.

I caught some smallish bluegills, had a nice crappie on that  shook free near shore.  Further down the shore, I saw some more large swirls and activity.  Before I could fish my way along to that area, 2 other anglers came down and stood on shore there and fished.  They seemed oblivious to the occasional large swirls.  I didn't see them catch anything, and after about 1/2 hour, they left.

It was getting dark.  I moved to within casting range, but still kept a reasonable distance away.
I kept casting around the area.  Finally, I got a strike. Subtle, could have been a small bluegill.  I set the hook....

....and instantly, all HECK broke loose!  It was like somebody threw 3 bombs into the water....thrashing, super-loud exploding tail slaps...complete mayhem!  Threw giant waves across the pond!  Then it took off like a torpedo and porpoised out of the water twice as it headed for the middle of the pond.  After that, it was much more docile.  Despite my completely undersized gear, I was able to lead the fish around much of the time.  I walked it about 70 yards down the shoreline to a spot where I thought I might have a chance of landing the fish.  It made some runs to deeper water, but it would then let me bring it back to the shallows, before taking off again.  It was back-and-forth for quite a while, I was soaked from stepping in the water trying to get a grip on this fish several times.  I finally was able to land the fish.  I was SO EXCITED!!!  I was bummed nobody was around to take a better picture of me with this fish.

I'm not sure what the total duration of the fight was...It didn't seem quite as long as the 20 minute battle I had with one a couple years ago...so maybe 12-15 minutes?  As I mentioned, she became very docile after the first minute or two.  I feel like I won this round with patience rather than the strength of my equipment!  I'm STILL so excited about it!

This is my biggest Grass Carp so far...it measured 41.5" in length, with a calculated weight of 35.5 lbs!

I tried to get a picture of me with the fish, it didn't turn out very well, since it was with the low-resolution camera on my iPhone, which had no flash...and it was really dark out.  This was the best I could get.  I'm holding the fish tight to my chest.  It was THAT big!