Thanks, Lee! Yes, I only caught a few Rainbows on the last day that had fins clipped /worn down from a hatchery. All the rest had really nice fins.
Flyfished Sunday afternoon. Caught bluegills, crappies, and bass.
Biggest bass turned out to be my biggest of the year so far, 21":
Hi, Lee, Mike M here from Auburn. We didn’t get together for crappie on Clear Lake, but will try again this spring. I have been messing with a few articulated flies; let’s try some out this winter if we can get together. Feel free to PM or call.
Dave, You are truly blessed to be able to fish over brook trout that large. Where I fish in central, PA, the brookies are very small, maybe 4" to 8". Good for you guys.
Yes, it was kind of strange, I thought…although the brook trout streams we fished have natural reproduction and are not stocked…we didn’t catch any under maybe 9". We did catch some 5"-6" browns, though.
Get out your flyrod Float-n-Fly for bass. It works!
Got out on Saturday to try out a couple new rods. Caught a couple bluegills, some crappies, and some bass.
The two biggest bass were both chunky 20-inch fish:
[
F](https://gifyu.com/image/kJ1z)or those that have been following along…my post on this thread on October 14th… I mentioned noticing that a big bluegill and a big bass I caught on consecutive days from different ponds were both caught at exactly 4:33pm… Well, after I got home, I checked the time stamps of these pictures…I caught the first big bass on Saturday at exactly 4:33pm, and the 2nd one just 6 minutes later. What is it about 4:33pm??? Moon phases, daylight length, water temps, weather…have all changed.
Flyfished Saturday. Saw a narrow band of ice along the shoreline.
It was slow going…but somewhat steady…until the wind died in the afternoon.
Ended up with 15+ Bass, and ~ 10 Crappies.
Lost several bass and crappies, including 2 BIG bass, before switching to a different microjig. That helped. Not sure why, though…I sharpened the hook on the first one a couple times first. Seemed really sharp.
Anyway…I still managed to land some good bass. Biggest 3 measured 18", 18.5", and 20.5" (these 2 pictures are of the same 3 fish…couldn’t decide which I liked better ;o) )
I flyfished some public ponds yesterday. Pretty nice day to be outside.
I caught 5 bass, 6 crappies, and 11 bluegills.
Got out for a bit on the last day of November 2019. It was cloudy, drizzling, 38 degrees, and windy. Hit 2 local public ponds, caught one bass, one crappie, and missed several other good strikes.
Thought it might be my last outing of the season…but looks like we might have some days this coming week with highs in the 40’s…so I might get to fish one more time this coming weekend. Maybe. Some ponds I drove by this morning were frozen over.
Nice weekend, right?
Despite it being nice on Saturday, the local ponds remained iced over. By almost dark, there were a few small openings, probably made by waterfowl. Fortunately, the temperatures remained above freezing overnight, and so the ponds opened up at some point and were fishable on Sunday.
I picked a pond and fished it in the afternoon. Very fun! I caught 50+ crappies, 2 bluegills, and 2 bass.
Most of the fish were caught on a flyrod float-n-fly (microjig and indicator).
I also caught a bass and some crappies on a Micro GameChanger, which was pretty awesome.
Great outing to end the open-water season!
Very nice fish and great pictures! Good way to end the season.
Summary of 2019…
-I caught 22 fish species on flies in Iowa this year.
-I caught fewer carp and catfish on flies than last year, but did get a new Personal Best carp on the fly… 35", 22 lbs.
-I keep track of the 18"+ fish and 18"+ bass I catch. This year I caught 60 fish on flies that were 18" or better.
-Those 18"+ fish included Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Common Carp, Brown Trout, Bigmouth Buffalo, Smallmouth Buffalo, and Channel Catfish.
-I caught 43 bass on flies that were 18" or better. This is about 3 times as many as past years. Crazy! 10 of those bass measured 20" or more.
-Of the ten 20"+ bass, 6 were caught between October 3rd and November 9th.
Here’s what those bigger bass were caught on:
Gamechangers (and all variants): 17
Howitzer Head Popper: 11
Microjig: 7
Blockhead Popper: 6
Foamhead swimmer: 1
Woolly Bugger variant: 1
So…carry Gamechangers, Microjigs, and some good big Poppers…and you’ll be set. And the Microjigs only came into play starting in the month of October. So, the rest of the year is Gamechangers and Poppers. There it is…the secret of my success!
One caveat…I fish small waters that typically stratify in the summer. They may be 12’-16’ deep, and likely develop a thermocline as shallow as 5’ deep in the summer. That, plus the abundance of bottom algae, weeds, and floating algae…I generally choose to fish shallow all year. I’m missing out on deeper fish, but I’m OK with that. I’m just pointing this out because folks fishing deeper lakes and reservoirs would probably need to fish deeper at many times of the year, and would need sinking flies or sinking lines to continue to be successful.