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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