Dave, I too enjoy your fishing reports, especially what you used, and even how to tie the flies. Our fishing is pretty similar over here in eastern Nebraska.
Can’t wait for the annual Iowa vs. Nebraska football games starting this fall!
bluegill
I sometimes forget to mention what I was using, so thanks for that reminder! 
Last night, I tried several patterns, including foam topwaters. I had plenty of hits on everything, but wasn’t hooking up on anything except a #10 Gartside Sparrow. I find that pattern to be awesome when the fish want something more natural-colored.
Its what I tied up for the SEK Fish-In Swap. The pattern for that is here:
http://www.jackgartside.com/step_gartside_sparrow.htm
4-26-2011
Public Pond
Fly-Fishing
Time Fished: 8:15pm-9:15pm
Weather: cloudy, light rain
Wind: @8mph from W
Fish sought: Batsnapper
Fish caught: 2 LMB, 2 Bluegills, 1 Crappie
After we got home from my son’s 5th Grade Band/Chorus concert, I decided to go fishing. It was dreary conditions, but if you gotta wear a stifling raincoat, it might as well be on a cool night.
I caught a 13" bass just a few casts into my outing. Very good fighter. It hit a #10 white Clouser.
I figured this meant there was going to be some good action…but I was wrong. I fished a good stretch of shoreline without another hit.
I switched to a microjig with no results.
I switched to a #10 Gartside Sparrow. Lights on!
I caught a small but chunky bluegill. Then I caught a 10" crappie. There are VERY few crappies in this pond, so this was a welcome surprise.
Then I had another nice fish on I was sure was an even bigger crappie. It got off.
Then I had another really nice fish on that I was sure was a good bass. It was a dandy female bluegill! I was SO SURE it was going to be over 9", that I got my tape measure out. It was only 8.5"…but it looked HUGE!
Then I had an even bigger fish on, that I was sure was going to be a fair-sized catfish. It turned out to be a 15" largemouth bass. Its belly was very fat! Not sure if it was eggs (too early, I thought?), or maybe it had be munching on all the nightcrawlers that got washed into the pond the night before. I headed home after I landed that one.
4-27-2011 - Late lunch outing
Public Pond
Fly-Fishing
Time Fished: 2:20pm-2:50pm
Weather: cloudy, cool
Wind: @8mph from NW
Fish sought: Grass Tuna
Fish caught: 10 Crappie, 7 Green Sunfish
This outing started out slowly. Fancasted the area without a fish. Moved down the shore, and fancasted again. 1 Green Sunfish. Moved down the shoreline again. Fancasted. Got a couple more Green Sunfish. One had really bright, especially colorful edges to its fins.
Finally started to get some crappies, with an occasional Green Sunfish mixed in. A couple of the Green Sunfish were pretty decent (for Green Sunfish), but the crappies were small. Had one better crappie on, but it shook free near shore. It wasn’t HUGE by any means, it was just maybe an inch or so bigger than the others.
All these fish were taken on a chartreuse #10 Clouser.
5-1-2011
Swiss Valley
Fly-Fishing
Time Fished: 8am-11am
Weather: Sunny, @46 degrees F
Wind: I’m guessing it was a GOOD 20+mph wind and gusting!
Fish sought: Salmo trutta, and his buddies
Fish caught: 7 Rainbow Trout, 2 Brown Trout
I was excited to finally get to try fly-fishing for some stream trout in NE Iowa. I was pleased with the results!
I got there fairly early, there were only 3 other cars in the parking lot, and one of the guys was just taking pictures of the stream. I saw a couple other guys baitfishing, and a couple walking their dog.
There were no visible hatches at all, and no visible fish or surface activity of any kind. So, I tied on one of my largest nymph patterns. It is, very generally speaking, a “Rubberlegs”. Its mainly designed to imitate good-sized stonefly nymphs. It has an underbody of non-lead wire for weight, and the legs have all sorts of great movement in the water. John Scott has caught a lot of fish on this, so although the water he fishes are a far cry from the streams of the Iowa Driftless region, I was hopeful that the fish here would like it too. They did. THANKS JOHN!
As I walked my way (on shore…I left the waders at home since my whole family was along on this trip…although I fished alone) upstream, I hit a couple of ok-looking water. I could see the bottom in most places, and no fish were visible. This wasn’t encouraging.
I eventually emerged from the woods into an area that was much more open along the creek bank, and found a constructed “bank hide”, and drifted the nymph along that, with a small split shot above it for weight, and a strike indicator to help me deal with the combination of water depth, current speed, and strong winds I was dealing with.
Got a Rainbow Trout!! WOO HOO! I was ECSTATIC that I wasn’t going to be “skunked” on this trip!
I caught another one from there:
Then I found this interesting fishy-looking pool:
After at least a half-dozen drifts through there, I got a strike, and landed my first Iowa Brown Trout!
That was pretty cool! But, that was the only fish I could coax from that pool, so I moved on.
I found another interesting deep pool, and caught a colorful Rainbow Trout:
I found another bank hide, and caught a couple more rainbows before moving on.
I found another long deep pool above some rapids, and fished there. I missed a handful of hits before landing this colorful Brown Trout…he was very strong and very colorful (LOVE the red spots!), but was only around 14" long. He was one of the bigger fish, as all the trout seemed to be in the 10"-14.5" range.
I had just a few more minutes to fish at this pool before walking back to the car, I caught one more decent Rainbow:
When I got back to my car, the parking lot was full, with other people out walking with families and dogs, and people baitfishing or using spinning gear. There was one fellow in the parking lot getting ready to fly-fish. He came over to ask if I’d done any good. He fishes there often, and was surprised I’d caught 2 Browns. He said 4 years ago, the DNR and a local fly-fishing club had built some bank hides up on one of the smaller tributaries to this stream. They had stocked some fingerling Brown Trout then, but had not stocked any since. So, the Brown Trout in the creek were basically wild, and there seemed to be some natural reproduction occurring in the upper reaches.
I had been looking at the fins of each fish I had caught, and none had those rubbed-down “hatchery fins”. So, I’m assuming all the trout I caught were carry-overs from at least the previous year. They were nice and healthy fish!
Excellent! Good looking brown. I like that rubber-leg stonefly too. I have not fished too many stonefly nymph patterns but that one looks tasty. Fun looking little stream
This is a nice fish! I hope to meet you at one of the ponds, since we seems to fish some of the same waters. I normally get out with a fiberglass with metal ferrules in the middle and a olive hat. You will see me in Ankeny molesting the bluegills and waking up the bass
You would have loved it up there this weekend…I saw several bluebirds, nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, chipping sparrows…and some smaller birds I couldn’t easily identify, but I’m sure you’d know what they were right away.
Its amazing to me that we haven’t tangled lines yet…but then there are something like 20 public ponds in Ankeny.
I’m the guy that will make you feel really good about YOUR casting ability.
You may recognize me if you see me…do you remember last year when I gave a presentation to CIFF about “Fly-Fishing for Gar”?
I had a tip yesterday that the white bass are starting to run in the local river. I LOVE catching white bass!! So, yesterday evening I gave it a try.
I had to rush out of the house after a quick supper, to take my kids to some lessons (during which I went fishing), so I didn’t get to grab the stouter gear I would have preferred to use. I just had to go with what was already in my car.
So, I used a 5wt rod, WFF line. I had at least 5 boxes of flies in the car, but not the flies I wanted for the river. I dug through and found a 3" chartreuse bunny-strip pattern with lead dumbell eyes. I fished that for awhile.
I missed one really good hit near shore. I saw the fish, but not well enough to identify it. I have a suspicion it may have been a medium-sized smallmouth bass. The bunny strip had wrapped around and was covering the hook point, which likely is why I missed the fish.
I continued casting around, and finally got another awesome strike! I tried to hold it, but it took line out of my hands and off my reel anyway. It was straining my gear, for sure. Fortunately, I was able to land the fish. It was a really nice 18" Wiper. I didn’t get any more strikes after that.
Good looking fish Dave - now I HAVE to take a day off!
iaflyfisher
Good for you, Dale! I hope you catch more fish than I did, although I’m not complaining about that Wiper!
Sweet wiper, Dave! I’m gonna need to try some of those Sparrows. Do you tie 'em weightless or what?
There should be a Sparrow coming to you that I tied for the SE Kansas Fish-in Swap.
I tie them weightless. There are some fine wire wraps around the abdomen of the nymph, but I don’t think it really adds significant weight.
Having seen them on the end of my leader/tippet dry…after having caught a good number of fish…I will say they seem to look most impressive before you get them wet! They do look good in the water too and have a nice slender profile, and quite frankly the fish just love 'em. They must have a decent “sonic signature”, because I’ve also done pretty well fishing them at night.
I’ve caught largemouth bass, bluegills, crappies, and channel catfish on them.
I wasn’t able to divest myself of family obligations until 8:45pm last night (5-5-2011). But, there was still a bit of light in the sky, so I went fly-fishing (Until 10:30pm) at one of the local public ponds.
Ok…I started with the magic Sparrow. Not much action, which was probably because I hadn’t located the fish yet. But, I switched to a simple pattern comprised of chartreuse marabou tail, a small pearl mylar chenille, and small beadchain eyes. This caught fish. I eventually tried a bass popper, which got a few strikes, but no hookups. The strikes were small, so they may have been bluegills pecking at it. Then I switched to a #10 chartreuse craft fur Clouser with small beadchain eyes. Caught fish on this too.
I ended up with at least 9 Bluegills…most were small but chunky females, plus one really nice 8.5-incher. I caught 4 largemouth bass, all 12" or less. And the big surprise was catching 3 crappies from this pond. They were all in fairly shallow water, so may have been nesting/spawning? I released everything so they can hopefully repopulate this pond (it needs it!). The crappies were 10" to 12.25" long.
No pictures this time.
Oh…and for the biggest crappie…it got off the hook right at shore. It looked big, so I jumped in the water and grabbed it, so I could measure it. There was an older couple sitting on a park bench in the dark on the opposite shoreline…I’m sure they were entertained.
I blogged my report from last night…there was an epic “toad hatch” going on!
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2011/05/evening-report-5-9-2011.html
I fly-fished Copper Creek Lake in Des Moines last night from about 6:35pm-7:30pm.
Quit a few other folks out fishing, I was the only one fly-fishing. I started with a 1/100th oz microjig. I changed colors a few times, most colors seemed to work. I caught 7 bluegills and 1 crappie on these patterns. Check out the dark coloration on the head of this nesting male crappie:
I saw a bass chase the microjig once, and then it just sort of seemed to be staying in the area. There was a small stump in the water that I thought I would catch some panfish near, but I wasn’t catching any there…then it dawned on me…maybe the bass had staked a claim to that spot, and the panfish had cleared out? I put on a simple pattern consisting of a hook, a staple, and the rubber leg off a childs toy. The rubber leg looked sort of like a worm, the staple was tied to the hook shank to act as a “barb” to prevent the rubber from slipping down the hook shank. Anyway, I tossed it in, let it slowly sink, twitched it a few times. I watched my line, but didn’t see any movement. I started lifting up on my line to cast again, but there was weight there…so I set the hook. Fish on! After a nice little battle, I landed this 16" Largemouth.
After close to an hour, I had to leave. I hadn’t seen anyone else around me catch anything.
I managed to get out and start fly-fishing by 8pm, and stayed until 10:30pm. I fished a local public pond, about 4 blocks from my house. Although it is really close, I don’t fish this pond very often. It suffered a partial winterkill a few winters back.
I wanted to try out a new way (to me) of catching grass carp on a fly rod. Grass carp are so fun to catch on fly gear…but are also the spookiest, pickiest fish I’ve ever tried to catch. I’ve become desperate for more encounters with them. What I tried last night was glorified “bait fishing”. Read no further if this turns your stomach.
I had tied up a pattern using 2 shades of green craft fur on an unweighted hook. I took about a 1.5" x 0.5" strip of banana peel and ran the hook through it twice (because it wouldn’t stay on the hook if hooked just once). I set it about 3’ under an indicator, and chucked it out into the pond, trying to get it out into deeper water. I threw a few other pieces of peel and chunks of banana out to add scent to the area. Long story short…I didn’t catch any grass carp.
While I was watching the indicator, I started fancasting the area with a 2nd fly rod. While it was still light, I used a dark-colored “dubbing leech” with a black rabbit-fur tail. I caught a lot of fish on this. After it got dark, I switched to a yellow boa yarn leech, and caught a lot of fish on that as well. I caught at least 30 crappies (I’ve never caught so many crappies from that pond!), around 20 bluegills (wide range of sizes, biggest pushing 8"), and 3 tiny bass.
I started off catching 5 crappies before I caught any other species. I discovered after I caught most of the crappies from an area, THEN I could catch a few bluegills. The crappies were all around the same size…8"-9". Some appeared to be still full of eggs, so apparently they have not all yet spawned in that pond. They must be getting ready to spawn any day, as I caught a number of them within a few feet of shore.
Anyway, nice night to be out…I will keep trying to figure out these darned grass carp!
Love the reports! I had a lot of fun bowfishing for grass carp just after the grass was mowed as they were sipping up the stuff that had blown into the water. I would imagine you’d be able to get a hook-up with some sort of floating grass fly just after the ponds have been mowed. I don’t know if you have any cottonwoods in your area, but around here the carp LOVE to sip the seeds off the surface, so something white and fluffy might work too.
TT.
Rain is in the forecast, but it didn’t look like it would get here until after lunch. So…I went fly-fishing during lunch!
I visited a local public pond at Westside Park, one I rarely fish and even more rarely is it worth the time invested (for me). Meaning, I don’t catch much, or they are really tiny Green Sunfish. After ice-fishing there once this past Winter, I discovered there were some decent bluegills, green sunfish, and crappies. Nothing HUGE, mind you, but certainly worth catching. Some fish would be near shore, guarding nests, but I felt some of the better fish would be out in the middle and a bit deeper than I had fished the pond previously. In past years, I fished mainly topwater or unweighted subsurface patterns. Since then I’ve been using microjigs more often, and small beadchain-eye Clousers, which fish deeper. I’ve been doing well with these.
So, I get there and tie on a dark-colored microjig thinking it will look more natural since the water here is very clear. I put a Thingamabobber strike indicator about 4’ up the line. I’d cast out, let it sit…retrieve a foot or so, let it sit 5-10 seconds, retrieve some more…you get the idea. I actually had some pretty good strikes at the indicator!
I saw some big tadpoles, an adult bullfrog, some green sunfish, a handful of crappies, and a decent bass.
I caught 8 Green Sunfish up to 8", 4 Bluegills also up to 8", and an 8.5" naturally-occurring Hybrid Sunfish. I had 2 crappies hooked (one was pretty nice!) but both got off. I messed around with 2 other crappies I could see guarding nests. One just swam away. The other one I coaxed into tasting my microjig a couple times, but it didn’t take it in far enough for me to set the hook. I really wanted to catch at least one of the crappies, so I guess that gives me a good excuse to fish this pond again soon.
I’ve fished ponds where the bluegills get a nice purple color during the spawn. Others get a lot of orange. The ones today had a pretty green cast to them:
I also admire the pretty colors on spawning Green Sunfish:
And the Hybrid Sunfish below is apparently what happens when Bluegills and Green Sunfish accidentally bump into each other on a dark night at this time of year:
I just have to ask - why banana or banana peel? Is that a naturally occurring fish food locally there? Hmmm? Inquiring minds have to know…S
Haha, no. No banana plantations in Iowa that I know of, unless at a University greenhouse maybe?
I’m not very familiar with Asian flora in its native country.
In devouring information on grass carp fishing, there were a couple separate sources that suggested grass carp find banana peels irresistable! The local population must be rather strong-willed. They like vegetation, obviously…so why not a banana peel? I’ve seen them swim around with entire cattail stalks sticking out of their mouths that they are eating.