Today’s lunch-time fishing report blogged here:
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2011/10/lunchtime-fishing-report-10-11-2011.html
Saturday, I fly-fished for trout at Lake Petocka.
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2011/10/fly-fishing-late-petocka-10-22-2011.html
I fly-fished Copper Creek Lake briefly on Sunday. Here’s the report:
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2011/10/copper-creek-lake-fishing-report-10-23.html
It now seems to me the trout in a local lake bite best in the morning! A friend from our local fishing club got me going with his awesome report of catching a bunch of trout on flies at Lake Petocka, which was stocked with Rainbow Trout and a few Brook Trout over a week ago. I figured it was my best shot at getting some more Brookies on fly gear, without having to travel to NE Iowa or beyond. Mission accomplished.
My past experience has been that fishing for trout at these seasonally-stocked lakes here is very difficult after stocking day. But yesterday was (in my opinion) PHENOMENAL!
Here’s the blog of my report, which includes a BEVY of pictures!
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2011/10/fly-fishing-for-trout-at-lake-petocka.html
I tried several of the patterns that were suggested to me here on FAOL. Every day is different, it seems, and early yesterday, the (modified) Blue Thunder streamer was “da bomb”!
After trout fishing (see previous post), I went to a different lake and fished for White Bass & Wipers. It was super-windy, so after I caught a few nice fish on the fly rod (used a white Leftys Deceiver), I switched to spinning gear. Sure was fun!
Biggest fish of the trip was a 16 3/4" White Bass (very chunky!):
I was fortunate enough to add 6 new fish species to my “Fly Rod Life-List” this year.
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-2011-fly-rod-firsts.html
What’s on YOUR list, and what species are still on your “Wish List”?
I went fly-fishing during lunch today. Had a run-in with the local Chupacabra!
:lol:
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2011/11/el-chupacabra.html
Whoa! I just had a revelation…put 2 and 2 together. Dale (iaflyfisher) recently gave me a bunch of fur pieces…dyed fox fur mostly. I think I know where it came from!!! ;o)
Took the day off work and fly-fished for pond trout yesterday. The report is here:
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2011/11/lake-petocka-fly-fishing-report-11-7.html
11-11-11! Sunny day, moderate breeze, temps in the upper 40’s.
I decided to try fly-fishing below a local reservoir during lunch. Outflow was a bit less than 300 cfs, where yearly averages are probably closer to 3,000 or more, and maximum I’ve seen is 26,000. Basically, this was barely a trickle.
Water clarity was about average for here, which is still only about 12".
There were a dozen other anglers there using spinning gear, likely fishing for walleyes. I saw no fish caught by anybody else…so it was with some mild satisfaction that THE guy using fly-gear (me) caught one walleye and one crappie.
Neither fish was particularly large, so no pictures were taken.
I also lost a number of Clousers, and had to retie tippet a handful of times as well. Such is the hazard of fishing this place.
Fly-fished Trout Stocking Day at Ada Hayden Lake north of Ames, Iowa. Winds were forecasted at 21mph, and they were ALL of that! Water clarity was diminished, and casting accurately was nearly impossible. A GOOD cast from shore meant the fly landed about 15’ from shore, and about 8’ to the left of where you were aiming. That being said… catching was slow but steady.
I landed 26 Rainbows in 4 hours.
With the possible exception of a couple guys dangling live minnows in front of visible stationary trout, pal Ben and I seemed to be outfishing everyone else with our fly gear by a considerable margin.
A variety of patterns caught some fish, but we had to experiment to try and improve our catch rates. We caught fish on scuds, woolly buggers, a simple beadhead pattern I tied that is basically a dubbed body with palmered hackle (no tail), gold microjigs, and…this ugly contraption I tie that for some reason trout just LOVE:
Most of those patterns were used under an indicator, except for the Woolly Bugger and the “thing” in the picture above, which were more actively retrieved.
Of the two retrieved patterns, the one in the picture elicited the most reaction from the trout…besides lots of strikes, there were so many follows…singles or groups of fish pursuing it! I don’t know what there is about it, other than the gold flash of the mylar tubing body?
As I probably mentioned before, I stumbled on this pattern a couple of years ago when I located a pod of trout near shore, and proceeded to try everying in my fly box to try to get them to hit…dry flies, streamers, wets, nymphs…and finally tried this ugly thing. It was like a light switch! Instant “interested” fish that previously had seemed comatose!
I don’t know where the pattern came from, I think I botched up some other pattern I was trying to tie. I feel I should call it SOMETHING rather than have to show a picture or have to give a description of the ugly beast…so, “SOMETHING” it shall henceforth be.
Here then is the recipe for FishnDave’s SOMETHING, such that it is:
-Nymph or Streamer Hook of your choice
-Tail of marabou or rabbit fur (your choice of color, so far a darker color such as brown, black or olive has worked well for me)
-body of mylar tubing (again, your choice of color…gold has been my top producer, silver has caught trout as well)
-a few turns of black ostrich herl at the head (or peacock herl, hackle, or even yarn).
Trout teeth wreak havoc on flies…much more so than bluegills or crappies do. So, you can give the mylar tubing a coating of epoxy, epoxy alternative (I like Clear Cure Goo products), or Sally Hansens’ Hard as Nails to increase the mylar body’s durability.
Fly-fished a local public park pond during lunch today. I caught 2 crappies, then 8 green sunfish, then a bluegill, and then a yellow perch. That’s the first perch I’ve EVER caught out of ANY of the local public ponds! Pretty cool. I got my camera out to take a picture of the perch, and it had its dorsal fin raised up…would have been a good picture. But for some reason my camera was all fogged up. While I was messing around with the camera trying to improve the image, the perch flopped off my hook and back into the water. Ah well.
Everything was caught on a gold microjig under an indicator, retrieving very slowly.
Fly-fishing lessons I learned in 2011…check my latest blog entry, which is sort of a wrap-up on the 2011 season:
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/02/fly-fishing-lessons-learned-in-2011.html
What new lessons in flyfishing did YOU learn this past year?
One thing I learned is that fishing regularly through a huge runoff on a large freestone river can be interesting, exciting, dangerous, and rewarding, and a lot of fun.
Started fishing this river a couple weeks before the runoff topped out on or about June 8, and continued to fish it through the runoff and into mid November - almost exclusively with dry flies.
Sixty days on one river ?? Boring ?? NOT.
With all the changes that took place over those six months in any given place and all the places to fish it, it was seldom like fishing the same river. Click on the pic to join the fun.
(http://s273.photobucket.com/albums/jj218/jfs_photo/Run off 2011/?action=view¤t=403bede5.pbw) [
](http://s273.photobucket.com/albums/jj218/jfs_photo/Run off 2011/?action=view¤t=c3ea70c7.pbw)
John
P.S. Maybe this will encourage some others to go figure out how to deal with runoff 2012 instead of sitting home talking about the tough conditions.
That’s VERY impressive John! During the high-water conditions when one might expect fish to be spread out and more difficult to locate (i.e., same number of fish, and a LOT more water for them to be in)…where did you typically find fish? Did they tend to be in the slower water closer to shore (for example)?
Typically, Dave, really high water tends to push the fishies to the edges where they can find relief in structure near the bank. That means the fish are more concentrated rather than more spread out. As the water level drops to post runoff conditions, the fish will spread out to their normal lies.
However, what might prove the best holding water for the fishies in runoff conditions may not be fishable for any number of reasons - one of which is the danger of falling into the river, which was fatal for a number of fishermen and kayakers on this river last summer.
You’re right about finding them in soft water close to the bank. At the height of runoff, it was necessary to scout miles of river to only find yards of fishable water. But those few yards usually provided a bonanza. And those places kept changing as the flows dropped, which made each outing a challenge and different and very rewarding.
John
When fish are close to shore in high-water situations like that, are they pretty much feeding on terrestrials? It would seem most of the aquatic invertebrates would stay on bottom in the main channel. They might start moving towards the shallows, but that would take time (maybe less than I’m imagining, though)?
Dave -
Dry flies in the form of FEB adult salmonflies and FEB adult golden stones for the most part early in the runoff, and later on the fishies may be taking the golden stone pattern as much as a hopper as a golden stone. ( In the fall, I went from the golden stone / hopper to an FEB adult October Caddis for the best part of six weeks. )
On my first trip over, on May 23, I was just planning to scout a section of the river. While I was walking down the road, I looked up and saw an adult salmonfly. Time to rig up. Found a piece of water that was accessible and looked fishable, got down to the bank and started to rig up, looked down and saw an adult golden stone next to my foot. Put on the only fly I had that looked right, caught some fishies, went home and started tying up FEB stoneflies. The rest is history.
John
P.S. This year I’m hoping to get started pre-runoff with an FEB adult skwala - like in four to six weeks.