The Show Me Fly Guy: September 13, 2015

Date: September 13, 2015

Body of Water: Farm Ponds

Weather: part of a warming trend, mostly sunny, and a cold front came through two days ago

Air Temperature: 70's

Water Condition: dropping and clearing

Wind Speed & Direction: south at 10-12 mph

Moon Phase: New

Fishing Equipment: Nine foot, eight weight fly rod with 7-8 foot fluorocarbon leader

Flies/Lures/Bait: The brave, articulated brave variant

Hatches or Fish Behavior Observed: No bass or bluegill activity to speak of until the evening when bugs starting coming out. I did see some catfish tailing and feeding on something on the bottom in the shallows and one catfish acting more like a carp and slowly eating bugs on the surface around sunset.

Species Targeted: Largemouth

# of Fish Hooked: 34

# of Fish Landed: 17- I'm pretty sure I landed as many as I hooked which isn't very good, but now I'm starting to think bluegill were hitting my fly and that's why I missed so many. I landed one bluegill at the end of the evening and was surprised that it went after such a big bass fly. Don't get me wrong, I missed some obvious bass bites too.

# of Fish Released: 10

# of Fish Kept: 7- all were small and were culled for management purposes and at the request of the landowner.

Largest Fish Description: approximately 6 pound channel cat and 9-10 inch bluegill

What Happened:

In my younger days, I used to go fishing for a few days when I didn't have much else to do. Nowadays, I go fishing for hours when I have a "window of time" in which responsibilities are low in number and able to be put off. So when I was able to get out of the house and hit the water from 3:00 to sunset, I loaded the boat, threw my Fenwick 8 weight in the truck, and grabbed every fly I owned. I decided to hit some farm ponds because I usually catch fish and lots of them. That's not bragging, just an observation of the fact that there are only so many places to hide in a farm pond and food options are limited for these fish. I started off in my boat at a large pond but quickly realized that in my haste I forgot to grab a paddle to push off the bank with and to get me to shore in case my trolling battery died. I also realized that I forgot my anchor which made boat management very difficult since the wind was really moving the boat around. I actually got in a pretty bad situation at one point. I made a bad cast and was trying to rectify the situation while at the same time, the wind had put me right smack dab in the middle of a thick milfoil patch. I rushed to crank my weak trolling motor to full speed and get my fly line wrapped in the motor which came to a dead stop. So now I was in the thick weeds, getting closer to shore, an inoperable trolling motor and no paddle. I ended up getting the line unwrapped and removing the trolling motor from the transom. I had to use the motor like a push pole to get me to open water, reattach it to the transom, and crank it in full reverse to avoid getting blown back in to the weeds. While there was some mild cursing at the time, I can look back at it and laugh at what it looked like, let alone sounded like.

Anyway, the fishing was good. I caught a number of bass at this big lake on the brave and they fought really hard. As I made more casts, I started to notice that I was starting to miss more and more fish. I couldn't figure out if it was because of the wind, slow reactions, persnickety bites, or what. In an effort to try and increase my hook-up ratio, I put on an articulated fly with a large hook up front and a small hook that would hopefully stick a fish that was just nipping at my fly. While I have tied some good looking articulated flies, and fished them a little, I had yet to actually land a fish on an articulated fly. The fly I decided to use was a funny looking little guy. It was tied very much like a brave but instead of white rabbit wrapped around the shank, I used some tinsel that had been used to make a bow on a Christmas present i received from my mother-in-law last year. With the water being clear and the sun out, I thought the light would bounce off of the tinsel in a really cool way and grab attention of nearby fish. I actually landed two fish on this fly and will be using it again in the future. After I cleaned the seven fish I landed at this pond for the owners of the pond, I headed to another small farm pond where I thought I could find some bigger and more aggressive bass.

It only took about eight casts before I hooked a fish and it immediately displayed that it was a big one. After it hit, it went directly back into some thick vegetation and I thought that was going to be the end of the story. Fortunately, I was able to walk his way, get him unwrapped, and coax him into deeper water. When he headed for the bottom, I immediately knew it was a catfish and even had to use the fighting butt on my fly rod. I finally landed him and I estimated him to be about 25-27 inches and probably around 6-7 pounds. I got him unbuttoned and was sliding my left hand under his pectoral fins to avoid getting finned but ended up losing my grip after he shook violently and fell in the water. I wish I had a picture to go with this story, but I guess you will just have to take my word for it.

I then started to wade down the norther wind-swept bank while casting along the weed line that extended from the bank. I picked up three or four bass this way and missed a few as well. I worked quickly because there was a pretty "bassy" looking spot in the northwest corner of this pond that I wanted to work over really well. As great as this spot looked, I was going to have some trees to contend with in my backcast. When I arrived to my spot, I found a small window that I could cast through in order to cast to a spot where a creek fed the pond, there was some submerged tree limbs, and a shadowed weed line that looked like a bass haven. While I did trim a few branches on the tree, most of my casts were successful and I picked up a few more bass. However, the closer I got to the tree limbs, the more bites I missed. I was determined to catch whatever was toying with me and finally did. To my surprise, I hooked and landed a bluegill. The surprising part of this was that I caught him on a bass fly that was about 6-7 inches long. While the bluegill was no slouch at 9-10 inches, I just couldn't believe that he got the large size 2 stinger hook in his mouth or that he would go after something so large.

I later worked another spot that required some creative and careful casting. I had to split a couple of trees like a kicker splitting some uprights, but picked up a couple more bass in the process. The sun was pretty low in the sky and I called it a day and headed back to the truck. I was hoping to see some deer coming out the feed or some turkeys roost, but instead, as nature is want to do, I found something unlike I have ever seen before. I was about three hundred yards from the truck when I ran across a hole and almost stepped in it. It was about 1-2 feet across and looked like it was 2-3 feet deep. There was a trail leading to it, but it didn't appear that an animal had burrowed it out. I snapped a couple pictures before I took off so not to anger whatever horrifying beast that called this spot home. No idea what it was, but if anyone reads this and has a clue, please email me.