2011 Central Iowa Fly Fishing Reports

[FishnDave]

Fly-fished a local public park pond during lunch today. I caught 2 crappies, then 8 green sunfish, then a bluegill, and then a yellow perch. That's the first perch I've EVER caught out of ANY of the local public ponds! Pretty cool. I got my camera out to take a picture of the perch, and it had its dorsal fin raised up...would have been a good picture. But for some reason my camera was all fogged up. While I was messing around with the camera trying to improve the image, the perch flopped off my hook and back into the water. Ah well.

Everything was caught on a gold microjig under an indicator, retrieving very slowly.

[FishnDave]

Fly-fishing lessons I learned in 2011...check my latest blog entry, which is sort of a wrap-up on the 2011 season:
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/02/fly-fishing-lessons-learned-in-2011.html

What new lessons in flyfishing did YOU learn this past year?

[JohnScott]

...What new lessons in flyfishing did YOU learn this past year?,,,

One thing I learned is that fishing regularly through a huge runoff on a large freestone river can be interesting, exciting, dangerous, and rewarding, and a lot of fun.

Started fishing this river a couple weeks before the runoff topped out on or about June 8, and continued to fish it through the runoff and into mid November - almost exclusively with dry flies.



Sixty days on one river ?? Boring ?? NOT.

With all the changes that took place over those six months in any given place and all the places to fish it, it was seldom like fishing the same river. Click on the pic to join the fun.



John

P.S. Maybe this will encourage some others to go figure out how to deal with runoff 2012 instead of sitting home talking about the tough conditions.

[FishnDave]

That's VERY impressive John! During the high-water conditions when one might expect fish to be spread out and more difficult to locate (i.e., same number of fish, and a LOT more water for them to be in)...where did you typically find fish? Did they tend to be in the slower water closer to shore (for example)?

[JohnScott]

Typically, Dave, really high water tends to push the fishies to the edges where they can find relief in structure near the bank. That means the fish are more concentrated rather than more spread out. As the water level drops to post runoff conditions, the fish will spread out to their normal lies.

However, what might prove the best holding water for the fishies in runoff conditions may not be fishable for any number of reasons - one of which is the danger of falling into the river, which was fatal for a number of fishermen and kayakers on this river last summer.

You're right about finding them in soft water close to the bank. At the height of runoff, it was necessary to scout miles of river to only find yards of fishable water. But those few yards usually provided a bonanza. And those places kept changing as the flows dropped, which made each outing a challenge and different and very rewarding.

John

[FishnDave]

When fish are close to shore in high-water situations like that, are they pretty much feeding on terrestrials? It would seem most of the aquatic invertebrates would stay on bottom in the main channel. They might start moving towards the shallows, but that would take time (maybe less than I'm imagining, though)?

[JohnScott]

Dave -

Dry flies in the form of FEB adult salmonflies and FEB adult golden stones for the most part early in the runoff, and later on the fishies may be taking the golden stone pattern as much as a hopper as a golden stone. ( In the fall, I went from the golden stone / hopper to an FEB adult October Caddis for the best part of six weeks. )

On my first trip over, on May 23, I was just planning to scout a section of the river. While I was walking down the road, I looked up and saw an adult salmonfly. Time to rig up. Found a piece of water that was accessible and looked fishable, got down to the bank and started to rig up, looked down and saw an adult golden stone next to my foot. Put on the only fly I had that looked right, caught some fishies, went home and started tying up FEB stoneflies. The rest is history.

John

P.S. This year I'm hoping to get started pre-runoff with an FEB adult skwala - like in four to six weeks.