Fly-fished during lunch yesterday at a local public pond.
Bull bluegills are hitting their nests in ponds here in Central Iowa. The fat females are hanging in deeper water near the nesting areas.
Bass are cruising around the shallows, as are a few channel cats and grass carp.
I couldn’t interest the grass carp, but the bass and bluegills were willing to hit a foam spider-type topwater.
Biggest bluegill for me today was just over 9". What a beauty of a BULL gill!:
Today (5/22/08) I caught 7 nice bluegills, and 6 largemouth bass on the fly rod during lunch.
2 females were particularly huge. I took pictures of one to show how fat they are, and then immediately caught another fat female that measured 9" (didn’t bother with a picture). Thats a BIG FEMALE BLUEGILL!!
I also watched a crappie follow and hit my fly, but I didn’t hook it. As you can see in the pictures, it was sort of a light rain here today. I was prepared. 
That second gill looks like she’s about ready to bust at the seems!
Lunch hour fishing sure does make the days go by faster doesn’t it? I’ve had a great time wading a stream about 5 minutes away from my office lately. The smallies are definitely out and about here in central OH. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pics of the fish, except on my phone and I don’t know how to upload those without a usb cable which I don’t have for my phone. :tieone:
Smallies sure would be fun during lunch! I had a few lunch trips like that on the Fox River in Illinois when I lived there. VERY FUN!
I know not all phones/plans are the same…but I can get my pictures from my phone to my computer by programming in my e-mail address in the cell phone’s “Contacts” (phone book). Then I view the picture, pick “Options”, and then send it to my e-mail address. When I get back to work, the pictures are waiting for me! Unfortunately, my camera phone takes HORRIBLE pictures like these:
I fly-fished a public pond for about an hour Tuesday evening. I used a wooly-bugger and caught at least 20 bluegills, 3 largemouth bass, 1 green sunfish, and 4 hybrid sunfish.
Here’s a nice hybrid sunfish…9 1/8":
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Dave,
You’ve been a busy guy & some great pictures to attest to the fact that it’s been a fun kind of busy! Thanks for sharing.
Mike
Great looking gills! They have yet to start bedding around here, but I suspect it will be any day now.
The males have been on nests for a bit over a week now here. A week ago, I thought the females were “fit to burst” with eggs, and would be spawning soon. I caught some today that were even fatter…looked like they were getting ready to lay a golf ball! Maybe they are waiting for the next full moon, which is June 18?
Absolutely beautiful bluegills! All released so they can finish “doing their thing”.
Here’s a nice bull 'gill from today, just under 9":
Good looking fish.
I have been getting some gills and some crappie over the past two weekends.
Not sure what the rain we got last night and this am are going to do to the fishing.
Rick
We got a lot of rain in this area as well, Rick, and it doesn’t seem to have really affected the fish or the fishing in the ponds.
One public pond I fish is starting to get an algae bloom, which is making the fishing difficult. I spent almost 1/2 my lunch hour cleaning the junk off the hook of whatever fly I happened to be using.
This particular pond is constructed so that the water level stays pretty consistent, but I heard that a nearby lake has risen about 2 feet in the past 24 hours (Big Creek Lake). Saylorville Reservoir is another story altogether.
Dave,
Made it out to a lake near Stuart last Monday, I too caught 10 inchers.
Seems they haven’t spawned yet, both males and females were full. i’m sure they are now, but haven’t seen the elephant tracks around the spawing beds. Caught a few on nymphs and a few on dry’s, real tight to the bank. I’ll try and have someone show me how to post some pics naext time I go out.
Tim
Tim, I’m pretty sure I know where you are talking about. That place has some NICE bluegills in it. Would love to get out there soon, but haven’t found the time.
I’d love to see your pictures!
Our local lakes have turned to chocolate milk. Our local reservoir is shut down due to rising waters that are expected to exceed the emergency spillway at any moment. And the local river was 8.5’ above flood level and rising as of last night.
Hey, where else are you going to fish right now? Options are sort of limited, but there still are some.
For convenience, I fly-fished a local city public pond today during lunch. It was slow, but I managed at least 7 really nice bluegills, 4 bass, 1 crappie, and a channel cat. Lost something bigger, all I got to see was its tail. Nice bass, I think?
Caught the bluegills mostly on topwater foam flies, and the bass, crappie & catfish on minnow-imitator subsurface flies.
4 species lunch!! I love it! :lol:
Dave -
With all the bad news we are getting about weather in the midwest, it is nice to see that you can still get out with a fly rod and have some fun.
Those gills in the first couple posts are really remarkable. Since I don’t get to fish for those guys, I’m always surprised at how colorful they can be.
John
P.S. We had snow here this morning. What a spring ?? Scorching in the east, flooded in the midwest, and snowing in the northwest just days before summer officially starts.
John
Really sorry to hear about all the snow and cold temps you guys and gals have out there, i been watching the news also.
Yesterday I was in the brook up to my waist with no waders, if it’s any consolation i got skunked. one sunfish
Thanks John!
All the rain and flooding seems ironic, since both coasts seem to be experiencing something of a drought. I helped a buddy fill sandbags Monday night.
His back yard backs up to the Des Moines River. To give you an idea of how serious the situation is, when the outlet on the reservoir (Saylorville Lake) just upstream of his house is wide open, the water outflow runs roughly 16,000 cfs (depending on how much head pressure there is from water depth in the lake). This puts the river at “bank full” or better. Right now the outflow, combined with the water coming over the emergency spillway, is over 32,000 cfs. I won’t bother with the other interesting stats like water depth and current speed…but both are impressive in a frightening sort of way.
Despite all the drama, I managed to fish again today during lunch following this morning’s rainfall. It was windy, but the city ponds are still fishable! I caught a couple of bass and a couple of bluegills. I also saw a pretty nice channel cat working over an area about 25’ from where I was standing. It looked to be in the feeding mode, but apparently wasn’t interested in the woolly buggers I was tossing to it.
MSD63X -
Not to worry about the weather here. With a couple layers of fleece and a rain jacket and waders, I fished the South Fork this afternoon for several hours. Didn’t get skunked - eight brown trout, two cutthroat and half a dozen or so whitefish.
But it WILL be nice to go wet wading one of these days !! In a tee shirt and shorts.
John
Dave, Thanks for the heads up on the Bluegills. I finally get a weekend off so I’m going to hit the Lake with some Foam Spyders. I have always had great luch with them…
Best Regards, Boser:)
Good luck, Boser!
Yesterday was an odd sort of day…At noon, the temps were still below 70, so we must be in some sort of “cold front”. Plenty of fish were in the usual places in the local public pond I often fish during lunch. But the bluegills weren’t as willing to hit the foam topwater I was using. I think I only caught one bluegill on that.
They were only slightly more willing to hit a woolly bugger, I caught a couple of bluegills and a couple of bass on that. Also saw a catfish working the area in front of me, but apparently my fly wasn’t getting down in its strike zone quickly enough.
Most exciting fish-of-the-day for me was this 12" crappie that hit the woolly bugger:
Convinced a couple of guys to do a lunch-fishing trip today. We hit the local public pond. Those bluegills have wised up to me.
Each of us caught 2 bass apiece, and I did catch one nice bluegill. I saw quite a few channel cats working about 10-15’ off the shoreline where I was, so I started trying to get them to hit. I couldn’t always see what was going on, but I did have to solid hits that I pulled the hook out of, and also had 2 hooksets that resulted in broken line!! I know those were the catfish. One of them was in pretty shallow water, and I could see it when it turned on the fly, and then my line started going out. So…didn’t land any of those cats today, but it was pretty cool having them go after the flies!