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Main Lake Fun


Rick Zieger
By Richard Zieger, Iowa

I went out to the lake again on Thursday. The weather was nice and the water was calling me. Besides that it is the normal thing for me to spend my lunch hour out there.

A few other folks had the same idea and were out at the lake. There were people on both jetties and someone at the settling pond where I normally fish. What were these folks doing? Don't they know that even though it is a free country, they are supposed to leave the areas where I normally fish alone? That is what you get when folks see that you are catching fish when the drive by.

I stopped along the road where the rip-rap is. I decided to fish off of that and see if any crappie were suspending out from the edge of the lake. The water about 15 feet out is around 12 to 15 feet deep. I thought that late in the fall the fish might be suspending and not on the bottom.

I changed one fly to a yellow fly that I have tied. It is made from SAAP Body Fur. This has an iridescence to it. I tie this fly by palmering the yarn up the hook so that it does not get too thick.

I also tied it with a fairly large bead head so that the fly would drop deeper and faster than most of my other flies.

I got down along the shore line and cast out about 35 feet. The wind was blowing about 15 mph and was coming out of the southwest. I let the fly drop for a count of 10 and started to very slowly retrieve it. I was moving the line just fast enough that the waves could not put slack into it. I noticed that the end of the fly line did not come up with the wave but slipped under the surface. I set the hook and was into a nice crappie. At first I thought I had a bass because of the way the fish was shaking it head and twisting around. But when I got it close it was a crappie.

I had not payed attention to the cars that were going along the road behind me. When I brought the fish out of the water, I heard the voice of one of the "old geezers" behind me. He asked "if he could, pretty please, have the fish." Also "that if that did not work then he would throw rocks at me." I told him to get his bucket out because he had asked so nicely.

I cast out again and let the fly drop for a count of about 10, or around 10 seconds. I then started the slow retrieve again. Again as the fly moved in a few feet and then the end of the fly line stayed under water. I was into another nice crappie. This fish again stayed deep and twisted around before I got it landed.

I thought that I might be onto something. I cast out again and let the fly drop again. Again bringing it in slowly resulted in another fish being hooked. This fish decided to come up and flipped around on the surface. The only way that I got it in was that the fish was hooked in the floor out the mouth, so it was a solid hook set.

I did this several times, until the "old geezer" told me that he did not want to clean any more fish. He said that he had twenty-five of them. I guess being 25 for 25 today helps make up for being 0 for 22 a few days before.

I went back out again on Friday noon to fish the same place. This time the wind was blowing about 30 mph and it was much harder to hook the fish. The waves were bigger and I think the fly was moving around a lot more than it had the day before. In any case I caught nine and missed many more than that. But at least I know where they were.

Hope you can get out on the water. ~ Rick

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