Today’s lunchtime trophy:
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/10/lunchtime-beast-bluegill-10-16-2012.html
Flyfished for about 40 minutes during lunch. Put my rainsuit on. Todays effort resulted in 45+ Crappies, 5 Bluegills and 8 Green Sunfish. All relatively small fish, with one or two decent bluegills (for that pond). Could have caught more, but I started moving around to see if I could locate any of the legacy year class of larger fish. I didn’t find any of those fish. But 58 fish during lunch is…pretty good.
Thursday evening I visited Lake Petocka, hoping for some “Legacy Trout”…holdovers from last Winter’s stocking. Weather was cold, windy, and drizzly. I saw a fish dart away from shore that MIGHT have been a trout. Or not. Fly-fished two spots, nothing at spot 1. Spot two provided a couple chunky Largemouth Bass. Then it was just too dark and miserable to stay longer.
I took Friday off so I could fish the trout stocking at Banner Pits. Friday morning I was still overcast, occasional light drizzle, cool temps. I visited a local public pond. I landed 50 (I stayed extra long just to get #50!) Crappies, up to 11.75" long, 13 Bluegills, 12 Green Sunfish, one 2" Largemouth Bass, and a Yellow Perch!
Trying for that last Crappie put me behind getting down to Banner Pits…But I got there as the DNR was about 1/2 done with dumping the trout in. Crowded shoreline. I picked the only open spot I saw, which was far from ideal. Nevertheless, I managed to land 21 Rainbow Trout on flies over the next two hours, easily outfishing those around me who were using Powerbait, minnows, or nightcrawlers. I also foul-hooked another 1/2 dozen trout, which was weird since I was basically still-fishing the fly under an indicator (bobber). The indicator would go down, and I’d set the hook of course, and yet I that many trout were foul-hooked. I thought that was really odd. Dale G. flyfished with me for awhile, and he also caught plenty of trout. Steve Z stopped by to fish as Dale and I were in the parking lot ready to leave.
The trout looked really good!
I realized I was 2 fish short of a 100-fish day, so after I dropped my kids off at Piano Lessons, I flyfished another local public pond and caught 7 Bluegills, 5 Green Sunfish, and two 2" Largemouth Bass. Day’s total= 112 fish.
Saturday was an absolute beautful, gorgeous, perfect day for fishing…so of course I didn’t go.
Sunday afternoon was also nice, sunny, low 70’s, moderate wind…so I headed up to the Skunk River north of Ames to flyfish for about an hour. I was hoping for suckers, but I didn’t see any. In fact, because of the angle of the sun and the glare on the water, I was unable to sightfish. I just cast blindly. I fished a really short stretch of water, wet wading. Apparently the little rain we’ve had has helped a little bit, the river actually had a little bit of current/flow to it! The water was clear, and my feet got pretty cold! I caught a couple Smallmouth Bass on a wet fly.
The water was so shallow, I switched to a foam Chernobyl Ant/Hopper topwater, and caught 8 more Smallies and a decent Bluegill.
David, those were some beautiful fish. I’m glad that you got out.
Ed
Thanks Ed! 
Little tougher flyfishing during lunch today. Overcast conditions, but no rain showing on the radar, and humidity of 100% resulted in something like a light mist. Actually, I thought fishing would/should be pretty good today. WRONG!
Tried a variety of fly patterns. First one I tried got a strike on the first cast from a nice Crappie (it hit near shore, so I did see it) on a CCG Mirage minnow…but it shook loose. Then nothing but some taps, so I switched to a small chartreuse Craft Fur Clouser. Taps on that. Next, I used a charteuse microjig under an indicator. That worked better. Caught a nice 11" Crappie, and two smaller ones, plus some small Green Sunfish.
Still lots of missed fish…the indicator would go down, but fish were repeatedly missed. I switched to an unweighted chartreuse Woolly Bugger. Again, lots of light taps. I just caught a few more small Green Sunfish on that.
Even on the “easy” ponds…fishing can be tough!
Flyfished during lunch today. Visited a pond I hadn’t been to since May 1 of this year.
The report and more pics is here:
[http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/10/lunchtime-flyfishing-report-10-24-2012.html
](http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/10/lunchtime-flyfishing-report-10-24-2012.html)
I took the day off work today. I fly fished a local public pond for about two hours in the morning. I landed 81 Crappies, 15 Bluegills, and 4 Green Sunfish. Other than 1 nice Bluegill, the balance of the 100 fish were small. The fish were caught on a chartreuse micro jig.
After grabbing some lunch, I went to a nearby lake where the DNR would be stocking trout at Noon. Fishing was slow, with most folks leaving fishless. It took all of 2 hours, but I managed to land my limit of 5 Rainbow Trout, plus a chunky Largemouth Bass. All of my fish but one trout were caught on a BH Woolly Bugger, and the other trout was caught on a Black Ops. I released 3 trout and the bass. The other 2 trout I donated to the fellow standing next to me. That gave him 3 trout before he left, since his first trout beached itself in front of him. He just picked it up and tossed it in his bucket.
Didn’t take any pics, sorry.
Here’s a blogged report of fishing for stocker trout:
[http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/11/lake-petocka-nov-1-4-2012.html
I](http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/11/lake-petocka-nov-1-4-2012.html) caught 64 Rainbows flyfishing for 6 hours on Friday, and 78 Rainbows flyfishing for 4 hours on Sunday.
Nice catches, Dave.
Olive and brown buggers seem to do better than white for trout here.
Bob9
Thanks Bob!
Color seems to depend on the day/lake here. Typically Olive & Black Buggers…or all Black…or Brown…or even “Chili Pepper” (copper-colored) Buggers tend to be the most reliable colors for me…but white was definitely working best on Friday, while the darker colors worked best on Sunday. I tried white on Sunday. Each day I tried the other colors. You could tell the fish were in a “mood”, when they would bump or nip certain colors (or ignore them completely), and then aggressively inhale a different color.
Today’s lunch-hour fishing was slow, but still managed few decent bluegills.
Must have been a nice change of pace after that weekend you had with the trouts !! 
John
Forecast said 11mph winds today…I guarantee is was closer to 20mph!
Still, it was a decent day, so I went flyfishing during my lunch hour. Visited a nearby public pond that I hadn’t visited for about a month.
Started off really slow…not catching much, then found a current break and started catching a few bluegills, and missing a lot of strikes. Continued working my way around the pond until I ended up on the downwind side. Tough casting into that wind! I noticed a narrow mudline that extended out away from shore for 30’ or so, which I assumed was caused by geese, since there were some hanging around the pond. Now I’m thinking it may have been caused by wind…but whatever the reason, there were fish around it. I caught several more bluegills, including one really nice fat Bull, and I also landed 3 surprise Crappies! The first Crappie was 13", and the other two were 10"-12" range. Everything was caught on a 1/80 oz Springbrook Wunder-style microjig tied with an Olive Glimmer Chenille body, and grizzly marabou tail. I fished this about 2’ beneath an indicator and retrieved slowly. I took a couple pictures of the 13-inch Crappie:
Different day, similar results. Flyfished during lunch at a City pond.
Caught a few trees on backcasts…lost a microjig, tippet and indicator.
Wind was out of a slightly different direction, and not quite as strong. It was more breezy than windy today. Sunny!
Used the same color microjig as yesterday, about 2’ under the indicator. Landed 9 Bluegills, 4 Crappies. Lost one nice Crappie that I saw throw the hook underwater. The Crappies were all 10"+, with the biggest being a VERY strong-fighting 13-incher. I compared it to yesterday’s 13" Crappie, and determined today’s is a DIFFERENT fish! That is GOOD!
Here’s the first Crappie of the day:
and a pic with the microjig in its mouth:
And this is today’s 13-incher:
Nice looking crappie, Dave. Your microjig looks a lot like the jig fly a guide uses on the Lower Mountain Fork in Oklahoma for trout. He calls it a Neer Deer.
Bob9
Thanks Bob! Yes, I suspect the “microjig” goes by nearly as many names as it does colors and tail/body materials. Sure catches a lot of fish…Its definitely one of my best Crappie flies when used suspended under an indicator. It is balanced such that it rides in the water horizontally when motionless.
Rather than chase those nice crappies again today during lunch today, I flyfished another public pond instead.
It was slow going, but the Bluegills were decent. Several shook free partway in. I used the same setup as yesterday. I landed 8 Bluegills. This pond is looking good as a potential spot for ice-fishing this winter.
Flyfished for trout on Saturday morning. It was tough. The fish were definitely in a negative mood, the way they reacted to flies. Still managed to land 8 Rainbows, but it took 3.5 hours to do it. Took some pictures of my friend Dale G., who arrived ahead of me and caught more fish than I.
Flyfished a City pond late afternoon Sunday, from 3:45pm-5:30pm. Targeted Bluegills. Uses a glass beadhead woolly bugger pattern for awhile. Caught some nice Bluegills and a chunky bass. Switched to a chartreuse microjig under an indicator, and caught quite a few more dandy Bluegills. Ended up landing 28 really nice Bluegills (up to at least 8"), and the one fat bass (guesstimated 13").
The Bluegills and Bass all fought REALLY well. As usual, I was impressed with the size of bluegills in this particular pond. We’ve ice-fished it in the past, and for some reason the fish are always extremely hard to find in this pond. One thing I noted was that some of the bigger bluegills had some sort of lesions…that looked like globs of slime stuck to them. I’ve seen it before in other places, not sure what the cause is. Also caught one 'gill that had it so bad that it had a large open wound on one side of its body. Strange. Again…with all the fertilizers and herbicide/pesticides that run into these ponds, I sure wouldn’t ever EAT any of these fish. :icon_puke_l: Still great fun to catch, though! :toothy4:
Here’s some pics:
Took Tuesday and Wednesday off work before the Thanksgiving Holiday to do some trout fishing. The full report is on my blog here:
http://fishndave.blogspot.com/2012/11/flyfishing-report-1120-11212012.html[IMG]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c221/FishnDave/2012FishPics/DM_AH_RT_11-21-2012e.jpg[/IMG]
There is still about a week left of November…this has already been my 2nd best month of fishing EVER, with 506 fish landed, including 254 trout.