The ice finally disappeared off most of the local public ponds on March 23rd. Over the past month, the flyfishing started out pretty great, and has seemed to decline since then. But here’s some of the better fish from this first month of flyfishing here:
Crappies to 13":
And as of yesterday, the crappies in some ponds are starting to guard nests, and the males are sporting their darker spawning colors:
Some decent bluegills have been caught:
Only a couple Pumpkinseed Sunfish:
Some beefy Hybrid Sunfish (naturally occurring) have been attacking flies I’ve been using for bass:
The bass fishing started out great, but has slowed for the past week or so. Most of my bass have been caught on Blane Chocklett GameChangers tied from a variety of materials and in a variety of sizes…from 2.75" to 4".
20.75":
19.5":
20":
Had especially great days with a Feathered GameChanger:
And a small 2.75" synthetic version:
Definitely a great start to the season!
Nice! My bass take so far has been one feisty little 6-incher :-(!
I’m looking forward to the topwater bite heating up. Bluegills are hitting floating flies already. I’ve caught at least one bass on a Howitzer head popper and missed a few other strikes. The one I caught…it was the first cast of the morning…I cast out, and the popper was just sitting there as I was messing around with my line, not paying attention. I heard the splash, the popper was gone…It took me a few seconds to get my line sorted out and catch up to the fish, but it was still on! Talk about LUCK! :rolleyes:
I’ve been trying/hoping for carp during my lunch hours lately. I’ve presented the fly to many bubble streams and mud clouds with no strikes to show for it. I finally got one! Beautiful golden fish! 26.5" long. Pretty healthy. My formula suggested 8.75 lbs for a weight. Sure looked a lot bigger, but that’s all fine. Very strong fish that gave an excellent accounting itself!
I also got to use my new Fishpond Nomad net. This is exactly why I got it, and it worked perfectly. I gotta admit, when I saw the fish in the water, I wasn’t sure it was going to fit in the net! But it did.
Nice fish David!
I may have mentioned it before, but the microjig/indicator technique was introduced to me by Dale (iaflyfisher) a number of years ago. Showing it to me wouldn’t have done the trick. Outfishing me with it DID THE TRICK. I had to try it! I’ve found it to be the best flyfishing technique for crappie that I’ve ever tried.
I believe Dale may have had a hand in introducing me to blockhead poppers as well? And Dale gave me a “jig” he built to help me in cutting the foam heads correctly. Those have caught a LOT of nice bass for me!
I’m forever grateful, Dale! 
On to yesterday’s fishing outing:
Took yesterday afternoon off to fish.
Nice weather. Caught 7 species! Hit 5 ponds.
Pond #1:
Tried for carp. Saw some nice bass. Caught bass, bluegill, crappie, and hybrid sunfish.
Pond #2:
First time fishing this pond this year. The plan was to try for carp. Saw some nice bass, some are starting to nest. Caught a couple crappies, so I switched out flies to target those crappies. Caught Black Crappies and White Crappies. Some were males in spawning colors and guarding nests. Others were females caught a bit further out from shore.
While crappie fishing with a microjig under an indicator, I watched as a carp appeared and swam right over to the microjig and ate it. I set the hook and the fun started. Glad I brought my net!
About 10 minutes later, I saw another carp coming my way, swimming in the open water a couple feet down. I threw my rig out in front of it. It deflected its course and came right at it. Then it passed it…but it actually turned around and came back and hit it! Somehow I blew the hookset on it…but it was cool to see that happen. Usually the water isn’t this clear. I caught more crappies, and a few bluegills and left.
Pond #3:
This was my first-ever visit to this pond. It is pretty small. Looks like it will be weed-choked later, but for now I could fish a popper over the tops of the weeds. I spooked a few nice bass from along the shoreline. I hooked up with 3 bass in the 14-16" range, but only managed to land one.
Pond #4:
This pond get’s horribly algae covered in the summer, but right now there isn’t any. It doesn’t appear to be very deep, but the fish survived this past winter, so its deep enough. I tried topwater with no results. I used 2 different Gamechangers and caught fish on both. I caught a couple bluegills and this Green Sunfish:
I also caught some bass..one @15", several smaller ones (10"-12"), and a pair of 18-inchers. Those bigger ones sure are strong!!
Pond #5:
Its the local “worst kept secret”. There were 4 other anglers here. I had some good strikes and briefly had a fish on…but missed hooking up. Got skunked here…didn’t cover much water and didn’t stay long.
This one also hit a microjig under an indicator earlier in the season while I was targeting crappies. Big surprise! 28" long, 18" girth…calculated weight 11.34 lbs.
Way to go Dave!
Looks like you are flat having a ball.
The fish at Clearlake seemed to have liked our first series of 80+* days too. 
…lee s.
Good to see some real fishing reports posted. Don’t find those carp any more appealing than in years past, but good for you and your success chasing them.
Yep - 28" is a BIG surprise.
John
May:
Took off a half day on May 1 to go fishing. Hit 4 local ponds.
Pond #1:
Tried for carp. Plenty of activity, should have been good. I had a nice carp on for a good minute or more, but it eventually threw the hook. After that, I couldn’t get a strike, even though they were still feeding actively.
Pond #2:
Thought the Worst Kept Secret pond would be good if I hit it mid-afternoon on a cloudy day after a couple days of rain (assuming others hadn’t been fishing it for those two days). But I struggled. Managed to catch 4 bass @ 14-15" range. Found out later another angler had fished it before noon and did really well. Good for him, not so good for me.
Pond #3:
Caught a couple bluegills and maybe a dozen or so nice crappies. Biggest 2 were 12.25" and 12.75".
This one is a female Black Crappie:
And I think these two are both female White Crappie:
Pond #4:
With the lighter wind, calmer water, and good water clarity…this pond sure seems shallow…or at least it has a LOT of shallow water all the way around it. Caught @ 7-8 bass, all around 10-11". While I was bringing one of them in, a much bigger bass grabbed the small one and started swimming off with it. It only had the other fish for 5-10 seconds…but that was pretty cool Its at least the third time I’ve seen big bass try to eat smaller bass. Cannibals! 
Lunch hour yesterday. Carp not cooperating to tried to salvage the “skunk” with a bass.
Lunch hour today. One carp willing to cooperate. 26.5" long, 17" girth.
My buddy Jay and I took our boat/kayak to Ada Hayden on Saturday morning. Hoped for trout and/or Wipers. We caught one fish between us… a bass.
Jay took pics of me wheeling my boat down the boat ramp.
After dropping my boat at home, I flyfished a couple local public ponds.
Pond #1:
Couldn’t catch anything on the usual bass flies. I switched to a #8 black Woolly Bugger to try for panfish. Caught 4 bass in a row, then 3 hybrid sunfish in a row, then a bunch of bluegills, more hybrids, another couple bass, some pumpkinseed sunfish. It was pretty good action for over an hour. Then it slowed way down. I switched to a #8 white Woolly Bugger and caught 5 more bass to 15" and another couple hybrid sunfish. For whatever reason, the bass were willing to hit the small flies, but didn’t want the bigger stuff.
Naturally-occurring Hybrid Sunfish (suspected Bluegill X Green Sunfish):
Pumpkinseed Sunfish, the neon sign of the sunfish family (…of course longear, orange-spotted, and redbreast sunfish are very colorful as well):
This one is a tough one…Might be a pure-strain Pumpkinseed Sunfish (male). It has very strong Pumpkinseed features, but something is just slightly off about it. Makes me wonder if it might have a (bluegill x Pumpkinseed) Hybrid parent or grandparent, but has since bred back with pure-strain Pumpkinseed for a generation or two. I dunno, but its a gorgeous fish!
During the time I was at the pond…at least 8 other anglers came and went, all bass fishing. One guy caught 3-4, didn’t really see anyone else catch anything. Oh, and I did have a big bass chasing one of the bluegills I had on my line.
Pond #2:
Drove to another pond to try for crappies, but there were quite a few people fishing there already, so I picked a different pond a couple blocks away. Caught some crappies:
… and a Buffalo. Now, full disclosure…I saw the buffalo coming towards me. I cast out in front of it, which was pretty close to shore. The buffalo actually turned and came right at the microjig/indicator I was using for crappies. It got right to the spot where my microjig was, my indicator moved, so I set the hook. I ended up foul-hooking it in the pectoral fin. But it was still pretty cool…its tough to catch these filter feeders in the mouth. I’ve done it, but its TOUGH.
Got out during lunch to chase the carp around again. Got 2!
The first one had really cool scales, and was 25" long with 17" girth (Calc’d 9.0 lbs).
The second one measured 26.5" with a 16" girth (calc’d 8.5 lbs).
That was a pretty good lunch outing!
Dave, thanks for taking the time to post. Like the variety of fish!
What is your boat/kayak?
Jack/Sleddog
South Dakota
Its a 360 Angler, made by Blue Sky Boatworks, which is a part of Jackson Kayak.
[https://store.blueskyboatworks.com/360-angler/
I](https://store.blueskyboatworks.com/360-angler/)ts a hard boat to classify. Pontoon? Catamaran? Its like they took a kayak, split it half lengthwise, moved each half over a bit, and then put framework and a platform over the top to connect them. The seat sits up higher; you can stand right up and walk around on the deck, front porch and back porch; its super stable; great for sight-fishing; lots of storage inside the hulls; steering controls on each side of the seat; the seat can swivel around, is comfortable, is adjustable up and down as well as forward and back, and has armrests; can be propelled by pedalling (forward and reverse), paddling, poling, and by electric motor or even a small gas motor; built-in wheels that you pivot up out of the water after you launch the boat. I’ve got a removable fishfinder mounted on it, as well as an Anchor Wizard. I’ve got a stakeout pole for holding position in shallow water. It has a rod stager that holds 3 rods, a stakeout pole and a paddle. It has gear tracks for water bottle holders and more rod holders or other gear. It has tie-down points on the front and back to strap down a cooler. When launching at a boat ramp, I wheel it into the water, step on a pontoon or right onto the deck and use the stakeout pole to shove off…don’t even need to get my feet wet! Same with coming back to shore…just come right in till the front hits the boat ramp, and then just step right off onto shore. The rudder and the propellor unit will rotate up out of the way manually or automatically if you hit something.
And its been approved for use in most of the larger kayak fishing circuits.
Before this, I had a Hobie Mirage Outback fishing kayak. I really liked it, it was fast and stable, very quiet (snuck up on so many fish!). The cons were the seat was very low, it was nearly impossible for me to stand up in it and no really good place to stand once in that position, no reverse…had to get the paddle out to back up, when anchored up there was a bunch of extra rope under my leg or in my lap, had to get wet to get in or out of the boat. Getting in or out of any kayak is sort of a clumsy affair. Or maybe I just did it wrong. Anyway, the Hobie is a great kayak and I caught a lot of fish out of it. As I get older, there were things I thought could be improved, and the Blue Sky solved them.
@FishnDave Nice fish! The carp look very healthy!
GRAND thread Dave!
We always enjoy your reports. Kewl BG’s (or whatever they are )
…lee s.
Thanks, Eric! We’ve got some TANK Grass Carp around here, but I haven’t managed to land one in years. Getting one to strike is extremely rare. You’ve been catching them with more and more frequency! Good job!