Gar Fly Wannabe

If you've tried flyfishing for gar, you already know the obstacles which must be overcome.
In my area, there are primarily Shortnose Gar.  Within a couple hour's drive, I can get to a few Longnose Gar as well, but haven't made that trip yet.

Gar have tough bony, toothy jaws, with very little "meat" to sink a hook into.  There is some "meat" towards the inside of the back of the mouth between the lower jawbones.

This is why flies that entangle the teeth, such as rope flies, are a reasonably good option for catching gar.  It isn't fool-proof and you may typically only land 1 out of 3 good strikes.  I have landed gar on such flies.  One issue is that a 4"-6" rope fly casts like a wet sock on 5wt-6wt flyfishing gear.

This past summer, I tried a few smaller patterns (which had hooks) for gar, some floating, some sinking.  I hooked 5 or 6 gar.  Each one threw the hook when it jumped and violently shook its head.

A friend, Mark (his website:  http://www.backwatergallery.com/ ), has offered invaluable insight and tips.  He's a much more experienced and successful gar flyfisherman than I am!

Based on some of his patterns, I came up with the flies below.  I am very hopeful that THESE will be THE FLY for my future gar flyfishing needs.  Please note...I HAVE NOT YET TRIED THESE OUT.  Well, I have tested them in a sink of water to see how they behaved/sank/floated.  I think these will be really good!
Cross your fingers, please.

Here's the promising features:
1.  Dressed #10 treble hook.  Hopefully at least ONE of the points of the treble hook will find something to grab onto in the gar's mouth.  The dressing provides some lift and appearance of lifelike movement...maybe some fish-attracting flash.

2.  Articulating hook connection to the rest of the fly.  Hopefully the gar will not be able to use the body of the fly to leverage the hook out!

3.  3/16" foam cylinder covering the hook shank.   This seems to improve the action of the fly and help it float (the wire underbody IS kind of heavy after all...as is the treble hook itself). The treble hook acts as a guard to help protect this exposed foam....but if it does get shredded, it can be replaced back at the tying bench.

4.  Wire underbody.  This way, there's no worries that the gar will sever the connection between the fly and hook, and it provides a fairly stiff underbody to tie the rest of the fly on.

5.  Foam body.  Sightfishing for gar is a visual game, so many fish/strikes will be near the surface.  Therefore, the fly needs to be there too.  Foam is the most reliable flotation method, IMO.  The top two flies in the picture above used a narrow strip of foam wrapped up the wire underbody.  The bottom one used size Large Rainy's Float Foam (slit down the side and then slid over the wire shank and CA gel-glued back together).  The top two don't provide QUITE enough flotation.  The middle one will ride on the surface as long as the fly is kept moving, but will sink when stopped.  This can be key to fishing pockets in weedbeds or flooded grass.  The bottom one floats even when stopped.  The action is really good.

6.  Foam protection.  Gar teeth will tear up a fly.  I covered the foam with mylar tubing to give it shine/flash and a fish scale appearance.  Next, I added stick-on eyes.  Then I coated all (even on the treble hook) thread wraps and entire body with Clear Cure Goo (a UV-cured epoxy alternative).  This covering is hard, smooth and slick.  A gar's teeth should NOT get hung up in it to prevent the hook from finding purchase in the fish's mouth.

All in all...this fly appears to incorporate MOST of the desireable features of an effective gar fly.  The last item one could try is some sort of soft but stiff material that could be used ahead of the hook so that it doesn't snag on sticks and flooded vegetation.

I can't wait to try these out!

IceFishing Report, 2-15-2014

a public pond in Ankeny
Date: 2-15-2014
Time Fished: 10:00a-6:00p
Water Clarity: From 5" to 6', depending on where you were
Water temp: way over 14" of ice
Species Sought: Bluegill
Fish caught: 26 Bluegills, 2 Largemouth Bass, 1 Green Sunfish

Jay and I ice-fished a pond he had not fished before, and I hadn't icefished since last year.

I described the situation as I knew it.  Suggested an area for Jay, and I moved off to an area that had produced for me in the past.

Jay totally rocked it.  He was on good numbers of fish most of the day.  He said he caught at least 70 Bluegills, 1 small Crappie, and something like 8 Largemouth Bass (Jay can provide more accurate numbers if he wants).
On the other hand, I struggled.  Fish were not where I expected them to be, and the fish I marked would often just cruise on by.  I told Jay my flasher looked like a dripping tap...fish would show up right on my jig, then quickly drop down and disappear.  Of course the "dropping down" just means the fish were swimming out of the transducer cone.
To Jay's credit, he made the long walk across the pond TWICE, telling me to come over and join him...the second time he brought a 9" Bluegill with him as enticement.  I finally caved.  I drilled about 10' away from him, parallel to shore.  He was in 7' of water with a few weeds, and I was in 2.5' with thick weeds.  So then I drilled 10' on the opposite side of him, and was in 8' of featureless water.  And no fish.  I just 3' behind his hole, closer to shore.  4' of water with weeds.  A few fish, but not very willing to strike.

We started drilling more holes trying to delineate the drop-off , and it turned out Jay had completely Aced a perfect inside pocket with the dropoff turning 90-degrees from shore at that spot.  It was perfect!  And I couldn't reproduce it.  But, we found 5'-7' of water at the edge of the drop-off, there were weeds on top.  Find weeds, have fish.  Move out to 7.5 or 8' of water with no weeds...fishless.
So...it turned out that the fish were close to shore in the weeds...and shallow!  The water was really clear in this area, and I could just make out the bottom 7' beneath me.  I could even see the occasional fish come in to look at my jig.
Still, there were a lot of "lookers".  I caught one 8" Bluegill by sight-fishing.  A while later, I was looking down the hole and saw a pretty nice fish show up.  It ever-so-gently sipped in my jig-n-waxie.  I thought, Hey...that's a nice bass.  And then...Hey...he's got the jig in his mouth!  And then...Hey, I should set the hook!  I did, and it was pandemonium.  I didn't have high hopes of landing the fish or even keeping it hooked on a small jig and light gear.   It just sat and shook its head for awhile, but then did finally start charging around and peeling line.  FUN!!!  I had it up under the hole, sideways, and was giving Jay the play-by-play.  Sometimes the fish get off RIGHT under the hole, and thought it might happen again here...so I just eased off the pressure on the line...enough to keep the hook point in, but enough that the bass could swim away from the hole.  This time, it worked.  The next pass, the bass's head came up into the hole, and I frantically tried to figure out how the grab the fish onto the ice, because it didn't want to open its mouth!  Land him I did, and Jay was there to take the pictures.  18"!

I eventually moved back across the pond, back into really dirty water.  I moved in closer to shore...into 5' of water (but no weeds here), and had a great time in the last couple of hours catching more Bluegills.
Most of the Bluegills were 8" (Jay's 9-incher was the biggest), and the single Green Sunfish measured 7".

A Couple Fly Patterns I Tied Last Night

Isonychia Nymph - Slate Drake Nymph:

And a #2 Craft Fur "FireTiger" baitfish:

100,000 Views!

Feeling the love on Valentine's Day!  I know its just a marker point along the road, but what an appropriate day to reach the benchmark of 100,000 views on my Blog!  How cool!  And it happened on  2-14-2014!

I really appreciate the folks who regularly follow my FishnDave blog, as well as those that just stop by when something in particular piques your interest.  Thank you everyone!  :)

Its been a long road...I started this blog on July 10, 2009.  It took 1,229 days to get my first 50,000 views, and just 453 days for the next 50,000.  That traffic is generated from 377 blog entries so far.  By a large margin, my post entitled "Crappie Fly Patterns" has been my most popular, with 4,783 views so far.
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2010/10/crappie-fly-patterns.html

I plan to keep it going...so please continue to stop by and visit!

Another "Slow News Day"

Not much fishing to report, not many new (to me) flies to show...So...bear with me while I contemplate the extremely unimportant.
I've had an iPhone 4S for over a year now.  I just love the darn thing!  Its amazing what you can do with one of these things.  I take almost all my fishing pictures with it now, and find it really does a stellar job in most situations.  And with the mind-boggling selection of FREE photo-editing apps available, you can make good shots better, and poor shots good.  I probably should have said that in a different order...

Fotor is the app I use most to edit the pictures I take with my iPhone.  Its quick and easy to crop, rotate, sharpen and brighten shots.
This past week I found another free app called PopAGraph.  It allows you to trace the outline of objects you want to sort of "pop off the page", add text, backgrounds, shadows to give sort of a 3D effect.
I played with it...here's some pictures I created, I thought they were just kind of fun..I don't know what I would ever do with them.

It kind of over-enhanced the pink colors on the gill plate of the rainbow trout above.  But the rest turned out rather interesting, I thought.

Next was a really bad picture of my Grass Carp... my daughter took the original picture with her phone, and the I wanted it on my phone really bad at the time, so I took a picture of her phone's screen.  That's why it looks textured like a bad newspaper or comic book print.

And finally, I couldn't decide which background I liked best for this Pumpkinseed in spawning colors, so I did all 3 separately:

Ice Fishing....BULLHEADS?

I did some icefishing with my buddy Jay on Saturday afternoon, 1-25-2014.  The wind finally start to die down (less than 16mph) around 2pm, and by dusk it was actually pretty nice out, besides still being really cold.  It had been windy all week, and the forecast is calling for possible blizzard conditions and really strong winds for most of the next week.  So...we had to try it.

The ice was at least 11" thick.  The water was, unfortunately, stained.
We caught small fish....small bass, small crappies, and small bluegills.  It was still fun.  When icefishing, sometimes the fish you would thumb your nose at during open water season give the biggest thrill.  Why is that?  I caught 2 fish I had never caught while icefishing before....Bullheads!

I caught all my fish on a vertical ice jig tipped with a waxworm.

Ice Fishing at Big Creek Lake, 1-11-2014

Big Creek Lake, 1/11/14
Time Fished: 9:30a-5:15p
Ice Thickness: 10"+
Species Sought: White Bass & whatever
Fish caught: 10 Bluegills, 2 Walleyes, (1 White Bass, almost)

Everybody else is having a great ice season, and with the Yin and Yang of things...I'm struggling.
Jay and I hit the north end of Big Creek in the morning.  Marked few fish and caught even fewer.  I landed one small walleye, and had a nice (est. 12"-14") White Bass all the way up to the hole, but it tangled around my transducer, and while I untangled that it managed to hang the hook on the edge of the bottom of the ice hole and shake loose.  Used a spoon tipped with a WAXIE!  Yep, you read that right.  Jay bought the bait.  :)

Next we fished the south end of the lake.  Lots of people everywhere else on the lake, but nobody else in the southern part.  That soon changed, of course...it was an extremely BUSY DAY for icefishing on Big Creek!
We fished a few areas.  Its amazing how much difference there is in just a few feet.  Although water clarity was good, fish would be under one hole, but wouldn't move 4' away to chase a lure/bait!
We found mainly Bluegills..decent ones.  At first they would be very aggressive, I had a few that took nearly the entire spoon into their mouths!  They probably averaged 8.5", and my biggest of the day was 9.25"...I think Jay said he landed a 9.5-incher.  Again, the spoon with a Waxie caught the fish, although I did catch one on a spoon tipped with Gulp! instead of live bait.

I also landed another small Walleye.

Overall, I would rate the fishing as POOR once again.  For a full day of fishing, I caught just 8 Bluegills and the 2 Walleyes.
We didn't fish any brushpiles...I don't know how much difference that made.  One guy who was running and gunning (on foot) walked by and talked for a bit...and hadn't caught anything all day.

First Fishing Trip of 2014!

Jay and I ice-fished on Saturday,  Jan. 4, 2014, from 10am-5:30pm.

We fished a different pond than last week.  There was 8" of good solid ice
.
Once again, we didn't have any live bait.  Once again, it almost certainly affected our success.  Last week when we fished a pond that has decent bluegills, neither of us caught single one....we only caught crappies and bass.

This trip, I had fish under me at least 95% of the time.  They would follow my lures quite willingly.  Few would actually hit.  We moved around on the pond looking for more aggressive fish.
In the first 6.5 hours, I only caught 2 fish!!!  And they hit within just minutes of each other.
Here's my first fish of 2014, a 16.5" Largemouth Bass:

The next fish was an 11" Crappie:

Jay had a bit better success during that time than I did, but it still wasn't good, considering the time and effort spent.

Around 4:30p.m., Jay and I both moved once more, and it was like a light switch.  I caught 14 more crappies (all were small...like maybe 8"?) and (finally) 2 bluegills in the last hour, and Jay did about that well also.  The crappies all hit in the top 5' of water, and Jay had some strike just inches below his hole!

2013 Fishing Review

Now that 2013 is all "in the books", I've tallied up the numbers from my Fishing Log.  I use this to compare one year to the next.

2013 open water season started rather late, in my estimation.  The ice didn't start melting off the local waters until the last week of March!  I went 52 consecutive days WITHOUT fishing...between February 3rd and March 27!  It got cold early, and we actually had earlier fishable ice than in past years.  Guys I know were ice-fishing in the first week of December!  I didn't get out until the last week of December, so I went another 36 consecutive days without fishing between November 22 and December 28.

The Spring was a long and cool one.  I didn't fish a 70-degree day until April 28.  Early Summer was cool as well.  The first week of June, the daytime high's stayed in the mid-60's.  July also remained mild.  Summer temps never really got into the 80's (for more than a week) until the beginning of August!  It did get hot, and the Spring and Summer were both fairly dry.  September temps had its ups and downs, and then it cooled down quickly at the beginning of October.

With the cooler temps in the Spring, spawns were later than usual, and longer lasting.  Crappies were on nests in ponds even during and after the bluegill spawns!

Everyone noticed the Late Summer/Fall White Bass blitz on the local reservoir started a lot later than normal, and seemed to be shorter-lived.

Fishing (catching) overall seemed tougher this past year.  Also, I didn't feel I fished as much as in past years, for whatever reason.  I noticed I only fished 13 days each in June, July and August!  That is compared to 22 and 21 days, respectively, in April and May.

So... these were the general conditions I dealt with.

I caught 2,489 fish this year.  It was my 3rd best year since I started keeping track at the beginning of 2006.
Since I sometimes fish during lunch, and then again in the evening, or fish two distinctly separate bodies of water in the same day, I keep track of both fishing DAYS and fishing TRIPS.  This past year, I fished 123 days, and made 145 fishing trips.
I fished a total of 325 hours, making the average fishing trip 2.2 hours long.  That is the longest fishing trip average ever for me...in the past, trips averaged much shorter.  That's probably because I made a lot fewer lunchtime fishing trips, and spent more time fishing on weekends/evenings.

I flyfished 120 trips (83% of the time, including ice-fishing trips), and caught 2,033 fish while flyfishing.  While neither of those numbers were my best ever, I averaged 16.9 fish/trip while flyfishing and that WAS my best ever.
Also, I caught 25 species of fish overall, 24 species while flyfishing this year...and that also was my best.
New flyrod species for me this year were Pumpkinseed Sunfish, Bigmouth Buffalo, Gizzard Shad, Hardhead Catfish (saltwater), Redfish (saltwater), and Spotted Seatrout (saltwater).  The only species of fish I caught this year that I didn't catch on flyfishing gear was a Quillback.

My best 3 months were April, May, and October, when I caught 554, 410, and 319 fish, respectively.  It was my best April ever, but no other month set a new record for me this past year.

Fish breakdowns is as follows:
Bluegills - 969
Crappies - 498
Rainbow Trout - 237
White Bass - 180
Largemouth Bass - 173
Sunfish (Pumpkinseeds, Greens, & Hybrids) - 171
Walleye - 139
Wipers - 30
Northern Pike - 28
Smallmouth Bass - 16
Common Carp - 12
Yellow Perch - 12
...and 10 or less of everything else.

I caught my 2nd biggest Channel Catfish ever on a fly at 28.5" long...but only 5 catfish total for the year, which was the worst ever.

I also caught about 1/2 the number carp on flies compared to the previous year, but I enjoyed every one of them!
Speaking of carp...My "fish of the year" was the 30.5" Grass Carp I caught on a fly.  I've caught them on flies before, but I'd been chasing them for a couple years unsuccessfully before finally catching another.  I was SO excited, and it was a great 20+minute battle.

I was also excited to catch some Pumkinseed Sunfish this year.  They are beautiful fish!

It was fun to finally have the opportunity to catch a Redfish on a fly rod.

I caught more Wipers this year than ever, and there were some real solid fish mixed in there.  No big ones by any means, but some real solid 16"-20" range fish that were great fighters on flyfishing gear. And those are good fish for around here.  I'm pretty sure I caught my biggest fly rod Wiper this year, but one day they were hitting so good, I didn't stop to measure them.  They were AT LEAST 18" long.

At 9.5", I caught my biggest fly rod Green Sunfish this year, and I also caught my biggest fly rod Largemouth Bass, at 20.25".

I had a fair number of Shortnose Gar on the line this year, but never managed to land one.  Every one of them jumped, shook its head, and threw the hook!  I'll try to get after them again in 2014, and try out some newer fly designs on them to see if I can find something that will hook them without getting thrown so easily.

Overall, it was a tough year for fishing, but it was still good.

12-28-2013--Last (Ice) Fishing Outing of 2013

Locally, ice has been thick enough for safe ice-fishing for several weeks.  I just haven't bothered to do it.  My buddy Jay and I finally fixed that when we went ice-fishing on Saturday, Dec. 28, 2013.

The weather was actually really nice...the high temperature exceeded 50 degrees F on the day, which was a really nice change from the sub-zero weather we had been having.   That is Iowa for you!

Typically this pond has some nice bluegills, extremely few crappies, and a few smallish bass.  It is also notoriously difficult to find fish on it during ice season.  One day a year or two ago, Ron, Jim, Jay and I drilled at LEAST 50 holes in this pond and just couldn't find fish anywhere.  Well...Jim found a few fish in one hole.

Anyway...long story short, neither Jay nor I caught a single Bluegill, although I'm sure there were a few around.  I ended up catching 10 Crappies from 9"-11", which is absolutely uncharacteristic for this pond.  And I caught 5 bass up to 13".

Jay also caught crappies and bass, neither of us used any live bait.

More Shad-style Fly Patterns

I think I have posted about shad-imitating flies previously.  And some of these flies below I have posted pictures of before.  But, I keep tying and testing, looking for a fly that will imitate the size, color, and shape of a small Gizzard Shad that is easy to tie, the fish like, and has good action in the water.

I plan to fish these primarily for White Bass and Wipers (Hybrids) in a local river and reservoir.  Hopefully the local Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, and Channel Catfish will strike them as well.

This year (2013), I had REALLY good success on White Bass and Wipers using a gray-over-white Clouser Deep Minnow fly pattern.

It caught White Bass and Wipers in both lakes and rivers.  Full disclosure, the river fish were not in the current, but were caught in a large slackwater area immedately adjacent to the main channel.   Clousers are fairly fast and easy to tie, and I should have no reason not to just stick with them. My only issue is that gamefish that are accustomed to chasing and eating shad might prefer a baitfish imitation that exhibits the deeper profile of a shad.  Clousers have a relatively slim profile.  Obviously the fish DO like Clousers a lot, so I know I can always fall back on them at any time.

Criteria:
I want a shad imitation that casts easily.
It must exhibit excellent motion in the water.
It must have the deeper-bodied shape of a shad.
It would preferably have a slim lateral profile like a shad (meaning its narrow or sort of flat from side-to-side when viewed head-on or from the top or bottom).
It should have some fish-attracting flash in it.
It would be preferable of the head was such that it pushed water, giving off a hydrosonic signature that a fish's lateral line could easily detect in water that has low clarity, or in the dark.
Since I want these for mainly for White Bass & Wipers, overall fly length should be approximately 2"-3".

I've tied and tested the following in the home bathroom sink to see how the behaved in the water.

Simple Shad
The tying instructions for this can be found on Joe Cornwall's Flyfish Ohio website.  He uses them effectively for Wipers and Striped Bass in the Ohio River system.

 The shape is good.  They aren't difficult to tie.  In fact, they look GREAT.  I showed a handful of shad-imitating flies to my wife, and these were the ones she like the best.  I took this picture after I had sink-tested them, and then let them dry out again.  When freshly tied, the material is much less streamlined.  The top one is tied with Arctic Fox as a body material, and the bottom one was tied using wool.
My take is that these would be PERFECT on a sinking or sink-tip line.  They did not seem to want to sink very fast at all, even after being thoroughly wetted.  However, I usually use a floating fly line, so if I want the fly to reach 2-4' deep or more, I would need to weight them with wraps of non-lead wire.
Great-looking pattern, probably needs some tweaking to suit my situation.

Modified Surf Candy
The Surf Candy is where I got this idea.  I'm not sure if its been done like this before...probably has.  Consider the title of this section to be a description of the fly rather than the actual name of the fly.
I tied all but one with Craft Fur tails, since Craft fur has very good action in the water.  The other has a marabou tail.

Wire wraps on the hook shank can help this one sink faster, but even without it sinks fairly well.  It has a nice shape.  Not as deep-bodied as I'd like, but it should work really well for White Bass when a fast-moving pattern is needed.  And White Bass DO love a fast-moving pattern!

EP Minnow
These aren't super-fast to tie, but they are reasonably easy.  The body shape can be tied and trimmed to a very realistic shad shape.

The EP material holds its shape well, but doesn't have good movement in the water.  The flash materials used in the tail can provide the illusion of movement.  They sink fairly well when tied on an unweighted saltwater-style hook, and sink really well with a wire-wrapped hookshank.  Markers can be used to add color to the back, gills, or to add stripes, etc.  Others have told me they LOVE this fly for White Bass and Wipers when fishing in current below dams.  The laterally compressed design darts around well in current.

Variant:  Hoping for more movement in the water, I tied the following one up with a marabou tail (and flash, of course).

One website I'd seen (but can't recall where) talked about flyfishing somewhere well south of here...like maybe southern Missouri or Arkansas, for example.  Forgive me, but I can't recall the name of this fly pattern, but apparently it is a local favorite there for white bass:

Might be a great fly to for me to try locally, especially when the shad are small, or when the White Bass are chasing river shiners.  In general, it doesn't really have the shad shape I was looking for.

Casey Smartt's Meaty Minnow

These are easy to tie, and have pretty much all the characteristics I'm hoping for.  I have seen and tied these before...haven't really used them yet (other than to sink-test).  I really need to put these in front of some fish!

Casey's tying instructions can be found on his website.  The key is in the head.  Casey ties his heads with craft fur in a dubbing loop.  Somewhere (and again, I can't recall where) I had seen a similar-looking fly that did not use a dubbing loop.  After tying in the craft fur and flash for the tail, you just take the front ends of the craft fur tied in for the back and belly and fold it back over the body.  You then put some thread wraps over the front of the fold to keep the head fibers pointed back.  Makes for a compact head, and can be trimmed to shape as needed.  I'm not saying its a better design than Casey's dubbing loop heads.  It is quicker and easier to tie, however.  This folding-back method is how the flies above were tied.

So, they sink well, and wire wraps around the hookshank can be added before tying the rest of the fly if a faster sink rate is desired.  The fish's profile shape is excellent.  There's some flash in the tail, and the Craft Fur gives good action.  The dense head holds its shape in the water yet still feels soft and realistic to the fish. I really like this design so far, and because they are so easy to tie, they may become a favorite if they catch fish as well as I hope.  I WILL be tying more and putting them in front of fish in the coming open water season of 2014!

This is a comparison of the Simple Shad (top 2), and the Meaty Minnows (bottom 2)

----------------------------
Edit 2-4-2014
I could have started a new post with these, but decided maybe they'd be better just added to this one...easier to find all these shad patterns in one place!
Woolhead Minnows:  They really feel great, I put some wire wraps around the hook shank for weight on one, and used dumbell eyes for the other.  They could probably be used without weight...DO make sure to squeeze out any air bubbles once you've gotten them wet to help them sink properly.

First attempt at using SF Flash Blend fibers for a minnow pattern.  I really DO like the translucence, flash, and lightweightedness of these:

And here's using the SF Flash Blend fibers in Johnny King's V-Style tying method in the Kinky Muddler (this one tied with Arctic Fox for the tail):

I'm still really liking this...I hope the fish will too:

I made these with a couple different types of eyelash yarns:

And...the well-stocked (overstocked?) Cliff's Bugger Barn box:

Edit 2-27-2014:
I was trying to duplicate a shad fly I had seen in a photo on another blog.  There was no name or description given of the fly, so I just had to try to duplicate the fly based on what I could see.  In the following image, you can see the top image does not look much like a shad/baitfish.  So I wetted it in a sinkful of water.  The middle image is the wetted fly.  That's more like it!  But in the water, the bucktail sort of spreads out like the dry version.   In the bottom image, I used Clear Cure Goo Hydro on the back and tail to "fix" the baitfish shape.  The result is exactly what I was hoping for!