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I headed out to the lake on the Tuesday after my great fun fund of casting
on Saturday. There was some of this 'getting back up on the bicycle after
you have fallen off thing' going on. Besides that it is a habit that I don't
want to break to spend part of my lunch hour moving a fly back and forth in
the wind before putting it in the water to tempt a fish.
I decided to try the settling pond first and see what might be happening
there. There was barely a breeze and the water was very flat. This day
started better as the first cast went about 40 feet without much effort on
my part. I usually make shorter casts first, but I wanted to know if I still
had the ability or if Saturday was continuing. But the flies turned over
nicely and the lines landed gently on the water. Isn't it nice when things
like that happen after a bad day?
I had moved the fly a few feet when the line felt heavy. I set the hook and
had a fish on. It was a crappie, of all things. One of the old geezers
pulled up and said that he was there to get supplied with fish. I told him
he could have this one and it might be the only one that I caught.
I cast out in that general area again and had another fish hit the fly while
it was dropping. This was another crappie. It is toward the end of June, and
the middle of the day, and crappie are shallow and hitting the fly near the
surface. They must do this just to drive me crazy.
But if it is working then try it again. I caught nine more crappie by
fishing over the area I can reach on this pond. I lost several more fish
that were not hooked well. At this point everything stopped in this pond. I
changed flies, but there was not interest shown by the fish.
I was curious to check something out and headed over to the main lake. The
flat I like to fish is only about 100 feet from where I fish the settling
pond so it does not take long to change locations. I wondered if their might
be a few bluegills along this area.
I cast out and had fish hitting the fly, but I could not hook anything. I
went to a size 18 hares ear type fly with a very small bead head on it. I
was moving this fly in very slowly. I had hopes that this would look like
some sort of bug involved in a hatch. The fly had moved a little ways when I
saw the end of the line twitch. I set the hook and had a bluegill that
wanted nothing to do with the hook and line that was attached to it. He put
a nice bend in the rod as he stayed broadside to the pressure all the way
into the shore.
I cast out again about five feet from the previous cast and again retrieved
the fly slowly. Another bluegill decided that this fly looked like food and
took it. He took it in a rush as the line moved sideways to let me know that
he liked the fly. It was another nice little tussle getting him into the
shore.
I continued to cast about every five feet along the shore and got a nice
bluegill on almost every cast. I think that I missed a few, because I did
not realize that they had taken the fly. But they were great fun to catch. I
ended up getting 13 bluegills along this flat. That made a nice batch of
fish for the old geezer to take home and share with his friends.
I went back out on Thursday and Friday over the noon hour and did not have
as much success. The fish would hit the fly, but the takes were subtle. I
had to cast cross wind to get to where the fish were and by the time they
hit the fly there was too much bow in the line.
I am trying to learn to mend the line in the wind, but it is still a work in
progress to get that done. But it was still fun to be out at the lake. I did
get some work in casting with my left hand on all three days. There is still
some work to do on this, but I am gaining, very little by very little.
Hope you can get out on the water. ~
Rick
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