The Baitfish Popper Works Too!

The alarm clock went off at 3:30 AM yesterday morning.  It was early but it wasn't that hard to get out of bed either.  I had an itch to fish at a friend's farm pond about an hour from my house and I had to scratch that itch.  On top of that, was I wanting to try something out.  I haven't fished for largemouth bass in the dark in a long, long time!  I wanted to get to the pond before sunrise to do a fishing in the dark.

When Waylon and I arrived, we were greeted by more stars than I have seen in quite a while.  We took in the scenery quickly because we didn't have much time until the sun started to peak over the horizon.  Aside from doing some early morning fishing, there was another objective.  I wanted to fish my baitfish popper to see if I could entice a bass into biting.  If you need to get caught up on the development of this fly, feel free to click here for part 1, here for part 2, and here for part 3.  

At first, things did not go well.  I got a bite on my second cast but missed it out of surprise.  After that, I didn't get a sniff for half an hour.  The sun was coming up and the wind was increasing.  I was starting to think that this fly was better at catching my interest than it was at catching fish.  Then, I had a moment of clarity.  I had been fishing the fish like a popper/chugger.  My cadence had been pop, pause, pop, pause.  It hit me that popping bugs and frogs can be fished this way but my fly doesn't imitate a bug or frog.  It imitates a baitfish that is feeding on the surface of the water.  The minute I started to give my fly a more constant retrieve, it started to leave a little bubble line a have a subtle wiggle to it.  It almost had a "walking the dog" motion but on a subtle and small degree.  That's when my first bite came.  

It was a small bass, but he drilled it.  The second bass came around the same vegetation.  The third bite came moments later and was oddly enough a crappie.  The fourth bass came about 10 minutes later around some more vegetation that was further up the bank than where the other three fish had been caught.  About that time the wind picked up and the sun started to get above the horizon.  I figured the topwater bite was probably over so I switched to wooly buggers and soft plastic worms.  More on that tomorrow, but to say I was pleased with my baitfish popper fly would be an understatement.  Now if I could just get my hands on some more popper heads, I would start turning these out with the quickness!