February 25, 2012
My friend Ben wanted to fly-fish some open water on Saturday morning. Lots of choices as far as the local public ponds were concerned.
We met at one of the ponds, fished for about an hour. We each caught one tiny crappie. First open water fish of the year!
Then we headed to another pond. We fished for a couple hours before Ben had to leave. It was slow…we’d each caught at least 2 crappies, and missed several other fish.
Since I was there, I decided to stay after Ben left to try a couple other spots. I ended up trying just one spot, and stood there for another hour, and caught a total of (at least) 16 crappies. THAT was fun!
Yes, it was cold…had to fly-fish with gloves on, and also had to clean the ice out of the line guides every 2nd or 3rd cast.
It was very fun, and the fish fought well.
I crammed in about 45 minutes of fly-fishing at the same lake on Sunday (3/4/2012). Less wind than on Saturday, which had about 30mph winds all day, but about the same air temp. It was supposed to be 37 degrees at the time I was there, but it was only 27. There was ice forming along the shoreline…and in my line guides. Since I couldn’t stay long, I didn’t move around much.
There was only one other angler fishing, using spinning gear. I didn’t see him catch anything. I caught one rainbow trout on the black-n-olive beadhead woolly bugger.
Didn’t get out during lunch yesterday, but did manage to fly-fish for an hour after work last night.
Result: 6 crappies, 2 bluegills.
A few more details are on my brief blog entry, but no additional pictures beyond the one below. http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/03/evening-report-3-6-2012.html
I fly-fished local ponds for 4 hours yesterday…from 9am-1pm.
I caught 60 fish (Bluegills, Green Sunfish, and Crappies). Biggest fish was a 13" Crappie.
Good to see you back in the mix Dave. I don’t catch a lot of white crappie but my personal best (all tackle) was a white - 17". The biggest black I caught yesterday was really getting dark. They’re moving “up”… They are sure pretty when they move up and get “black”. Nice pics.
Yep, just took a brief reprieve while “Spring Breaking” with my family in the Dominican Republic. Back now!
During lunch today, I fly-fished a local public pond.
This pond was the one that got destroyed by overfishing during the winter about 3 years ago. Its isn’t what it was, and has several problems ongoing such as filling in, algae, lack of bass, etc. So…no high hopes for today, just wanted to give it its yearly “test”.
I caught 15 bluegills and 2 green sunfish. All on a beadhead woolly bugger…black & olive.
This is an improvement over the past few years. The optimistic news was that the bluegills were very thick-bodied and healthy…although they still probably don’t measure more than 7.5". I was pleased, because this at least gives a ray of hope for the bluegill population over the next few years.
Same fish as the first picture…just a closer look.
3/23/2012
Had 30 minutes of free time after work. Took advantage of it and fly-fished a local public pond. Landed 8 bluegills and 2 crappies.
3/24/2012
Called my buddy Jay to see if he wanted to fish for a few hours on Saturday morning. We decided to meet at Saylorville Lake. Lots of people fishing there. I fished for 2.5 hours and used fly-fishing gear along rocky shorelines. I landed (at least) 25 largemouth bass (all under 12"), 1 bluegill, and 3 green sunfish. Almost all the fish I caught were within 5’ of shore in water 2’ deep or less.
3/25/2012
I drove a carpool downtown DM on Sunday, and had an hour to fly-fish at Copper Creek Lake. Lots of folks out there! Saw a guy catch a really nice bass…maybe a 4-pounder.
I caught 12 bluegills.
Later on, my family settled down to watch a movie we had recently seen, so I decided to go fishing while they watched it. It was almost dark by the time I started fishing at a local public pond. I fly-fished from 8pm-9:30pm. I caught 20 crappies and 13 bluegills. Not bad for fishing in the dark!
That was 84 fish for the weekend, and brings this month’s total to 215 fish. I checked my fishing logs back to 2006, and this is the most fish I’ve ever caught in March (even though I was gone for a week on Spring Break). March typically sucks because we get that time period where the ice on lakes is too poor to fish on, but the water isn’t fully open yet, or the water is too cold for the fish to be active. This year is a FREAK year!
Great thread Dave,
I fished a pond in Wa. state for several years way back when. When I started fishing it the 'gills were like those you mention, but at 6.5". I think the pond had severe depletion issues periodically due to farm useage. We lucked out and hit it on one of it’s up-swings, which lasted for the first 3 or 4 years we were there. The 'gills average grew 1" per year till
8.5"-9" was average. The bass seemed to hang at sub-1# with a few 3#-4.5# to sweeten the pot, but not improve as radically as the 'gills. The crappie population improved sorta parallel to the bass, but not nearly so well as the bluegills.
Our 5th and 6th years there were extremely depressing, as we witnessed the demise of this pond as it was dried up for irrigation purposes. End of un-official study, sorry to say.
Anyway, we enjoy your excursion reports, for sure…
…lee s.
You’ve got BIG fish down by you!
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