Breaking the curse on my flies.
Since I've begun tying my own flies (just a few months ago) I've read more than a few posts about two particular flies that people love to use for bluegill and crappie. The Jitterbee and Crappie Candy. They are neat looking flies and not too complicated to tie. Great! New flies for my favorite prey.
I tied up a handful of each and I've tried them both off and on this spring, but with no success on either. I hadn't even gotten a nibble on these things. I chalked it up to you FAOLers being loony. It couldn't possibly be my fishing or tying techniques at fault.
Well, Saturday afternoon brought sunshine, temps near 80, and a break in the spring winds. I grabbed my float tube and headed out to my favorite gill pond. There are some sections of the lake I've been wanting to check out. Particularly the west side that consists of mostly basalt cliffs dropping straight into the clear water.
First up was the crappie candy. I tied one on and made a few casts. It doesn't seem to sink very far and the water was 8 or 10 feet deep where I was at. No interest in it up near the surface either. I had the great idea of adding a jitterbee as a dropper hoping the beadhead would help things sink a bit faster. It was definitely the ticket for that day. The extra weight gave the flies a nice mellow sink rate. I tell you what, the fish were all over this combo. I couldn't keep the gills off that orange and black jitterbee. Almost as fast as I could cast out I was reeling em back in. The crappie were more interested in the chartreuse candy. I wasn't even expecting to catch any of them, I figured they had already spawned and headed back to deeper water. The crappie candy also proved too tempting for an 8 inch perch and a couple of bass, one of which was in the neighborhood of 14 inches or so. He took that fly and headed deep, giving my 4wt a healthy bend for a bit.
All in all I think I caught a few dozen in the two and a half hours I spent on the water. Now that's a great way to break a jinx on some new flies. Man, what a blast those panfish are. Maybe you folks aren't quite so loony as I thought. Or maybe it's that I'm just as loony as you...
I'm patiently biding my time until friday, when I can get back out for some more Warmwater goodness.
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. Kook should be my middle name instead of Bryan 
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