Thanks Lee! 
I fly-fished last night for an hour. It was very WINDY!!
It started off reasonably well. I caught 3 decent bluegills right away, and one female especially had a very large belly, likely with ripening eggs. Then I caught a nice surprise largemouth bass of about 15". All of these were caught on an unweighted natural-colored marabou leech tied with a bright orange thread head.
The action slowed. I started moving around trying to find more fish and fight the wind. I lost the fly to a tree behind me (dang wind!), and tied on an unweighted Partridge and Chartreuse soft hackle. I caught 2 more bluegills and 1 nice green sunfish before I had to leave.
Fly-fished with buddy Ben and a couple of his friends last night. Good time!
I caught a nice catfish on a fly, as well as my first fly-rod BULLHEAD!
The report and pictures are here:
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/03/group-fly-fishing-outing-3272012.html
Teaser:
Spent todayās lunchtime fly-fishing a nearby public pond. Used a size 8 unweighted black woolly bugger that had some red highlights in the body. Caught 10 Bluegills and 5 Green Sunfish. This Greenie measured 8", and is definitely one of the larger ones Iāve caught. Picture was taken with a cell phoneā¦so quality is what it isā¦
I visited a local public pond for the first time ever last night. Its a fairly new pond, which got stocked with fish about 4.5 years (?)ago. Iāve been letting the fish grow for awhile.
I fly-fished the upper 1/3 of the pond. I wanted to find out how big the fish currently are, but instead of using something small, I just used a #8 Woolly Bugger, black with reddish-black body. The water was fairly clear, and I only saw frogs jumping into the shallowsā¦no fish. I thought that was odd. Then I noticed the backs of fish occasionally sticking up above the water out in the middle of the channel. Thatās where the fish were for some reason! In 45 minutes, I ended up catching 12 Bluegills, all about 7.5ā long. I also caught a hybrid sunfish that may have been closer to 8ā. That means it was stocked in the pond, not spawned. It was STRONG! I was leaning on my 5wt TFO BVK as much as I could to keep it from diving into an underwater tree branch. It made it anyway! I still landed the fish, but WOW what a strong fighter!!
I didnāt see any bass, and also didnāt catch any crappies or anything else. I eventually DID see some young-of-the-year bluegills along the shoreline, so the fish must have spawned last year. Also, some of the bluegills had small black specks on their skin, which I think is indicative of a parasite that passes through snails has one of hosts during its life cycle.
Below is a pic of the hybrid sunfishā¦it was very pretty, but I only had my crappy cell phone to take its picture with.
As I was getting ready to leave, I noticed 3 younger guys fishing the pond by the dam. I didnāt see them catch anything, but I think they saw me catch some fish. As I was leaving, they moved up the lake to near the area I had been fishing. They were carrying buckets.
Visited a public pond in a nearby suburb last night for about 45 minutes. It was windy and cool. I missed a number of strikes. Only landed 3 fishā¦a pair of bluegills and this 8" Hybrid Sunfish. Iām just floored at how STRONG these hybrids are!!
Really pretty too! Its a shame Iāve only had my cell phone camera for the last couple Iāve caught!
I got out for a late-evening of flyfishing on Friday. I fished from 7:45pm-9:45 pm.
Some recent friends (Mark, April, and a co-worker of Markās) were flyfishing this public pond when I arrived. It was good to see them. They reported they had caught a LOT of fish (crappies and bluegills), but no catfish this time.
I started out cathcing several bluegills and a couple of crappies. I decided early on that I wanted to try to catch MORE crappies than bluegills this evening. So the contest was on. Iād catch several more bluegills, then a couple crappies. Iād get close with the crappies, then catch a several more bluegills. I was starting to think it wouldnāt happen this night. Then, I was able to TIE at 28 fish each. Then I caught one more bluegill. Then 2 crappies. That made it 30-29 (crappies to bluegills). I figured Iād catch one more fish to make my evening total an even 60 fish. It was a crappieā¦HOORAY! 31-29.
I was tired from catching so many fish, and ready to head home. I cast all my line out so I could reel it all back onto the reel (this works better than just reeling up the loose line piled on the ground at my feet)ā¦and I couldnāt even believe that as I started reeling in FAST, a fish was on my line again! Bluegill.
Final tally 31 Crappies, 30 Bluegills for the evening. I didnāt take any pictures.
Does anyone else play these silly games while fishing? Just for the record, several years ago it was normal to catch about twice as many crappies as bluegills from this pond. Then the past year or so it switched heavily in favor of bluegills. This year has been more bluegills, but some days the crappies have been pretty aggressiveā¦so it IS a challenge to catch more crappies from this pond on any given day, but it is also a definite possibility. The fun thing is to try to locate where the crappies tend to congregate. And while I COULD switch to a larger hook size to put the odds in favor of hooking more crappiesā¦but I havenāt gotten that desperate! 
My friend Brandon was in town this weeking visiting his family. He brought his young boys with him, along with a couple fishing poles. He asked me if I wanted to help him take the boys on their first fishing trip. SURE! I knew JUST THE PLACE.
When we got to the local public pond, the first thing I did was cut off the bobber, sinker, and snap swivel off each rod. I tied a microjig (that I had tied up earlier in the day just for this trip) and added a large fly-fishing strike indicator about 2ā up the line. The boys were catching fish within just a minute or two.
Below are the pictures of each of them with their First Fish ever! They each caught plenty more, mostly Bluegills with a few decent Crappies in the mix. They had so much fun, they did NOT want to leave the pond when it was time to go! I can still totally relate to that feeling! ;o) Their Grandpa couldnāt believe they were able to catch fish without using live bait or scent!
Younger brother, Ethan, with his First Fish everā¦a Crappie!
Older brother, Preston, with his First Fish everā¦a nice Bluegill!
Great introduction to fishing for the boys! Good job and great selection of the ābaitā
Iāve never seen fishing this good this earlyā¦ and Iām old. 
Congrats Dave - stay on 'em.
I agreeā¦its way to early for fishing like this. We might have a hot, dry summerā¦so better enjoy the fishing while its GOOD. I canāt recall EVER catching catfish on flies this early in the year, and Iāve been fishing āthe same olā spots the same olā wayā for at least 5 years. Fishing is fantastic right now. I hope it lasts.
Been a LONG time since I posted a reportā¦ :laughing7:
Soā¦Did a little fly-fishing during lunch.
Caught at least 6 Bluegills and at least 5 Green Sunfish.
Nothing exciting to write about, except the weeds and algae in the pond are overgrowing the pond a lot sooner in the season than in past years. Par for this year so far, I suppose.
At least the fish were sorta pretty.
Fly-fished during lunch today. Didnāt take any pictures, but caught at least 10 Crappies, 1 Bluegill, and 8 Green Sunfish. Funā¦but the exciting part for ME came when I spotted a medium-sized Koi. At first I just watched it go by. Then I noticed it was just sort of hanging out, swimming around slowly in a corner of the pond near me. And then I saw that there were 3 other, smaller, Koi as well. I havenāt caught one of those yet, so it was worth a shot!
I switched to a Partidge and Pink softhackle, put it under an indicator at about the depth I thought the fish were swimming, and started tossing it around these Koi. They never did hold still for long, and usually swam around as a group almost in single file. Getting ready to mate? Dunno, but they sure didnāt seem very interested in my fly. My indicator did āshakeā once or twice, but I completely missed when I tried setting the hook. Some dayā¦SOME DAY maybe Iāll catch one of those buggers!
Totally bizarre morning of fishing! Weather was cool, windy, drizzly. Went to Lake Petocka hoping the cooler weather might have brought some trout back closer to shore. Ended up catching 5 Speciesā¦
White Bass, Yellow Perch, Rainbow Trout, Largemouth Bass, and Smallmouth Bass.
The blog and pics are here:
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/04/5-species-suprise-4-7-2012.html
Fly-fished a nearby public pond during lunch today. Caught 10 Bluegills and 2 Green Sunfish. One Bluegill especially had decent size and really nice colorsā¦I debated taking his pictureā¦but in the end I just let him go.
I did take a couple pictures of these nice, chunky Green Sunfish. I didnāt measure them, but I measured my hand later, and determined these fish are in the 7.5"-8" range.
We got slammed by winds and rain Saturday evening. Water in the ponds has turned MUDDY!
I fished in the muddy waters and continuing winds on Sunday evening. Hereās the report:
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/04/post-storm-fly-fishing-4-15-2012.html
I DID get out to do some flyfishing during lunch today.
I blogged the report here:
[http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/04/lunchtime-fly-fishing-report-4-17-2012.html](http://I DID get out to do some flyfishing during lunch today. :hello2:I blogged the report here: [url)
"]http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/04/lunchtime-fly-fishing-report-4-17-2012.html
Rainbows End:
Did you see any Rainbows on Saturday? There was a really nice one around 7pm.
And I saw another one around dusk:
Dave -
Like the rainbow, and the rainbow.
I did see a bunch on the Missouri several hours earlier than you saw yours, but I only landed a couple.
John
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