MORE SUCCESS FINALLY
I missed a week of fishing to be at Sow Bug. I had a great time there and learned some new things, and I found a few patterns that I want to try.
When I got back home, I headed out to a pond with the canoe. I got all the junk (necessary equipment) in it and moved it to near the shoreline. I stopped and made a few casts to see if fish were near the shore. I did get a bluegill on a Rubber legged Dragon in white.
I put the canoe in the water and moved out from the shore about 30 feet. This way I could cast to the shore and move the fly out, cast along the shore at an angle, or cast toward deeper water from the same spot. I did pick up two more bluegill doing this; one near the shore line and another out in the deeper water. It did give me an indication that the fish were scattered and that it would probably be best to not spend a lot of time in the same place.
There was a light breeze blowing from the north so I pulled up the anchors and let the breeze move me. I let one fly drift behind the canoe on its own and cast another to see if that would interest any fish. It’s legal in Iowa to use two rods with a fly on each. (Check your State laws) Every once in a while, a fish would hit one of the flies but there was no rhyme nor reason as to where they were.
After a while I was near the dam where I dropped the anchor and cast toward the dam and let the fly drop down along the break line. I hoped there might be some fish relating to the break line. There were not as many as I thought, but I picked up a few more.
I moved along the dam until I reached the place where I knew they are some stickups in the pond about 40 feet off shore. I moved so I could cast to this place. First three things I caught were stickups and the flies are still in them. I changed to flies tied on jig hooks. Some of those were lead head jigs, some on 60-degree jig heads, with and without beads. This worked better, and I found that there were some fish in that area. I needed to make a cast and let the fly drop for about 20 seconds. Then bring it back very slowly, about one inch every 15 seconds. Any time the fly line felt different I set the hook. I landed about 20 percent of the fish that bit this way. Did many LLR. But you can’t catch what you don’t hook. I lost a few more flies to large fish that wrapped the line around the stickups. This is the reason I tie flies. I save so much money I can lose some of them.
Had fillets to eat and share.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick