Central Iowa Bluegills

[JohnScott]

Dave -

Nice friends.

John

Oh yeah - the fish ain't bad, either.

[FishnDave]

I fished Sunday. Didn't know what to expect, so I took fly-fishing AND spinning gear.
Fly-fishing worked decent for the fish near shore, but the wind picked up and made casting into it difficult, so I switched to spinning gear later on.
I caught 3 white bass on my fly rod...a LOT OF FUN!! A white Clouser Deep Minnow worked well, as did an "Alabama Shad" style clouser variant.
The fish I caught on the spinning gear are irrelevant on this board. The only fish I had photographed was this one, though, which was caught on spinning gear. 16.5" White Bass:

[FishnDave]

Action was pretty slow, but I caught some more nice bluegills during lunch today. A couple of chunky females, and a couple of nice bulls. Also, a small bass, and this little channel catfish. Gotta LOVE variety!!

Would've liked to have hooked into the nice grass carp I saw, as well, but I'm pretty clueless on what it takes to get those fellows to bite...

[6wt8wt]

Nice job!!! These reports are keeping me sane while I wait to go to Wisconsin. What type of pattern would you recommend for bass and bluegill?

[FishnDave]

Woolly bugger patterns are pretty universal for both species. Find a color that they'll hit (try yellow, purple, browns, black, or others). I suggest streamer hook sizes 10 or 8. You can also figure out whether it is appropriate to use weighted or unweighted, depending on the depth the fish are holding. I prefer unweighted whenever possible, as bluegills often won't chase after something moving too fast.

Any number of other options will work...small foam topwaters with legs, especially in the evening, for bluegills. Or bigger topwaters (crease flies, gartside gurglers, hair poppers, etc) for bass.

Popper/dropper combinations work well for many (I confess I haven't tried it).

Rick Zieger's boa yarn leeches also work really well for both species.

Other than the bigger topwaters, I don't actually target bass most of the time, but usually get them as "by-catch" when targeting bluegills. Maybe some others could weigh in on some larger subsurface presentations for bass?

Good luck in Wisconsin!

[biot midge]

This fly has been a good bass fly for me http://www.warmwaterflytyer.com/corner.asp?page=9
I tie it in all chartreuse for LMB, olive for smallmouth.
Steve

[FishnDave]

Thanks Steve! Do you use the size 10/12 hook recommended in the recipe? Seems on the small side for bass?

[biot midge]

Dave,
I use bigger hooks than the recipe calls for. Sorry, i should have mentioned that! I tie them from #2 to #2/0 for LMB. Mostly #8 and #6 for our stream smallmouth here.
Steve

[6wt8wt]

thanks! That will help for sure. Do large mouth usually hit wet flies?

[FishnDave]

OK....this is the EVENING report!!

I got the "green light" to fish late yesterday evening...so I headed out around 8:30pm or so, and fished until MIDNIGHT at a local Ankeny pond.

Weather-wise, it was an interesting evening. It started out mostly clear, fairly calm. Later on, I saw some meteors fall. Then part of the sky clouded up (I could see the moon the entire time). Then it sprinkled for awhile. Then the wind picked up. Then it got calm again. Then the wind picked up a little again, and the air temperature plummeted. Then some lightning. GEESH! Weird stuff!!

There were others fishing, so I scrapped my initial plan of fishing topwaters for bass with spinning gear. (By the way, a couple of kids were catching some fairly decent catfish from one spot!) Instead, I got the fly rod out, and started fishing for bluegills and crappies. I caught a couple of small bluegills, but it wasn't fast action. So, I switched to a foam topwater fly I had made...called a Gartside Gurgler. It was a too big for the little bluegills and crappies...or so I thought.
I ended up catching 3 bluegills and 2 crappies on it! I also caught 4 bass in the 14"-15" range.


And also this 17.5" FAT channel catfish. YEAH, on a topwater fly! CRAZY!!! :hello2: