2012 Central Iowa Fly Fishing Reports

[FishnDave]

Fly-fished with buddy Ben and a couple of his friends last night. Good time!


I caught a nice catfish on a fly, as well as my first fly-rod BULLHEAD!
The report and pictures are here:
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/0...g-3272012.html


Teaser:

[FishnDave]

Spent today's lunchtime fly-fishing a nearby public pond. Used a size 8 unweighted black woolly bugger that had some red highlights in the body. Caught 10 Bluegills and 5 Green Sunfish. This Greenie measured 8", and is definitely one of the larger ones I've caught. Picture was taken with a cell phone...so quality is what it is...

[FishnDave]

I visited a local public pond for the first time ever last night. Its a fairly new pond, which got stocked with fish about 4.5 years (?)ago. I've been letting the fish grow for awhile.

I fly-fished the upper 1/3 of the pond. I wanted to find out how big the fish currently are, but instead of using something small, I just used a #8 Woolly Bugger, black with reddish-black body. The water was fairly clear, and I only saw frogs jumping into the shallows…no fish. I thought that was odd. Then I noticed the backs of fish occasionally sticking up above the water out in the middle of the channel. That’s where the fish were for some reason! In 45 minutes, I ended up catching 12 Bluegills, all about 7.5” long. I also caught a hybrid sunfish that may have been closer to 8”. That means it was stocked in the pond, not spawned. It was STRONG! I was leaning on my 5wt TFO BVK as much as I could to keep it from diving into an underwater tree branch. It made it anyway! I still landed the fish, but WOW what a strong fighter!!

I didn’t see any bass, and also didn’t catch any crappies or anything else. I eventually DID see some young-of-the-year bluegills along the shoreline, so the fish must have spawned last year. Also, some of the bluegills had small black specks on their skin, which I think is indicative of a parasite that passes through snails has one of hosts during its life cycle.

Below is a pic of the hybrid sunfish…it was very pretty, but I only had my crappy cell phone to take its picture with.



As I was getting ready to leave, I noticed 3 younger guys fishing the pond by the dam. I didn't see them catch anything, but I think they saw me catch some fish. As I was leaving, they moved up the lake to near the area I had been fishing. They were carrying buckets.

[FishnDave]

Visited a public pond in a nearby suburb last night for about 45 minutes. It was windy and cool. I missed a number of strikes. Only landed 3 fish...a pair of bluegills and this 8" Hybrid Sunfish. I'm just floored at how STRONG these hybrids are!!

Really pretty too! Its a shame I've only had my cell phone camera for the last couple I've caught!

[FishnDave]

Fished a "new to me" public pond during lunch today.
I blogged about it here:
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/03/lunchtime-fly-fishing-at-former-farm.html

[FishnDave]

I got out for a late-evening of flyfishing on Friday. I fished from 7:45pm-9:45 pm.

Some recent friends (Mark, April, and a co-worker of Mark's) were flyfishing this public pond when I arrived. It was good to see them. They reported they had caught a LOT of fish (crappies and bluegills), but no catfish this time.

I started out cathcing several bluegills and a couple of crappies. I decided early on that I wanted to try to catch MORE crappies than bluegills this evening. So the contest was on. I'd catch several more bluegills, then a couple crappies. I'd get close with the crappies, then catch a several more bluegills. I was starting to think it wouldn't happen this night. Then, I was able to TIE at 28 fish each. Then I caught one more bluegill. Then 2 crappies. That made it 30-29 (crappies to bluegills). I figured I'd catch one more fish to make my evening total an even 60 fish. It was a crappie...HOORAY! 31-29.

I was tired from catching so many fish, and ready to head home. I cast all my line out so I could reel it all back onto the reel (this works better than just reeling up the loose line piled on the ground at my feet)...and I couldn't even believe that as I started reeling in FAST, a fish was on my line again! Bluegill.

Final tally 31 Crappies, 30 Bluegills for the evening. I didn't take any pictures.

Does anyone else play these silly games while fishing? Just for the record, several years ago it was normal to catch about twice as many crappies as bluegills from this pond. Then the past year or so it switched heavily in favor of bluegills. This year has been more bluegills, but some days the crappies have been pretty aggressive...so it IS a challenge to catch more crappies from this pond on any given day, but it is also a definite possibility. The fun thing is to try to locate where the crappies tend to congregate. And while I COULD switch to a larger hook size to put the odds in favor of hooking more crappies...but I haven't gotten that desperate!

[FishnDave]

My friend Brandon was in town this weeking visiting his family. He brought his young boys with him, along with a couple fishing poles. He asked me if I wanted to help him take the boys on their first fishing trip. SURE! I knew JUST THE PLACE.


When we got to the local public pond, the first thing I did was cut off the bobber, sinker, and snap swivel off each rod. I tied a microjig (that I had tied up earlier in the day just for this trip) and added a large fly-fishing strike indicator about 2' up the line. The boys were catching fish within just a minute or two.


Below are the pictures of each of them with their First Fish ever! They each caught plenty more, mostly Bluegills with a few decent Crappies in the mix. They had so much fun, they did NOT want to leave the pond when it was time to go! I can still totally relate to that feeling! ;o) Their Grandpa couldn't believe they were able to catch fish without using live bait or scent!


Younger brother, Ethan, with his First Fish ever...a Crappie!





Older brother, Preston, with his First Fish ever...a nice Bluegill!

[iaflyfisher]

Great introduction to fishing for the boys! Good job and great selection of the 'bait'

[FishnDave]

For those interested in last night's outing, the report is here:
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/0...-4-2-2012.html

[HideHunter]

I've never seen fishing this good this early... and I'm *old*. Congrats Dave - stay on 'em.