In another three weeks or so the rivers and ponds around here will be thawing and I’ll be back out trying to get something to eat my fly. Last year my luck wasn’t particularly good though I did get a few bluegills to hit a small olive wooly bugger. This year I’d like to see if I can improve the odds so I’d like to know what works the best early in the season. My main targets will probably be bluegills, largemouth bass and crappies.
Well Cycler,
Over here on the other side of the missouri, I have found that dark hare’s ears just this side of the ice as it melts away from shore tend to do well.
Just remember that they (both the fish and the bugs) can still be lethargic. Usually the NW ‘corner’ of the impoundment where the sun starts warming it each day will get the first and fastest action that early.
Man, I hope you are right! I have been itching for some sfter water! All of the lakes here in Omaha have araound 12" of ice right now. I tied up a bunch of flies to try once there is open water though. You can see them here: http://limetrude.blogspot.com/2008/01/week-three-fly-diawl-bach.html
Hope you can get out and have some fun as soon as the water breaks up!!
Several flies will work. The main thing is to fish very slowly and use flies more in neutral colors, borwn, black, grey. You can use flies from size 8 on down to size 24. I stay with about size 10 as I want them to get more food for the effort to take it.
Rick
My home creek is closed to fishing from the end of February till the opening of the early trout season in mid-march. After opening day,based on the number of smallmouth I’ve seen the trout guys using fat head minnows for bait catch. I’d fish a small bait fish pattern either dead drifted or with a very slow retrieve. I usually wait till mid-May before I do any warm water fishing.
Now that I reread my earlier post I think I was a little over anxious for the thaw to begin. But it’s been months now since I wetted a fly and now that I’ve begun tying I’ve got some new creations to try out.
Rick Z & drolfson you have given me some good ideas about what to try. I began this thread to try and winnow down flies and methods to the two or three best ideas to try first so I won’t be trying to tie everything imaginable and then fish them in random, unproductive ways. If none of the established ways work I’ll try something really different.
One thing that has me puzzled is what food item fish, in this case members of the sunfish-bass family, key on first, or do they, and the reasons why.
Cycler;
First off, don’t get so “ORGANIZED”, dagbabit, ya’ give the REST of us a bad name!
"Tying everything imaginable and fishing in a random, no sense, order is what makes fly tying and fishing so much fun at times and especially in early season! Geesh, NEXT, you’re going to be wearing a plaid sport coat and TIE with your waders! Cut it out!
Now, obviously, with you being in IA and myself, in Oregon our spiny ray fishes probably don’t PM or email one another, very much, so they act, respond and spawn, in slightly different ways and times. I find the Crappies and Bass fairly aggressive in their “pre-spawn mode” about mid March, then, super aggressive, willing to hit almost anything, during their late March and early April spawn time.
Anyhoooooo… here’s 3 flies that I’ve tied for “early” Craps and Bass for the past several years…fishing in my own region.
The first two are not at all, “large” by most standards. They’re both tied on Mustad #94840s, #12. The white fly is tied on a #38941 Mustad, #12
Whether they’d work for you, in your area, I truly cannot say!?!
Just a few, ideas, since ya’ asked!
flybinder,
I don’t think you have to worry too much about me becoming too organized. Besides reading, eating, breathing fly fishing mags and the like I have been know to read Mad but I would appreciate it if you didn’t let this out.
The pics of your flies look great. I see you tie a couple of them with coneheads sooooo I see you fish deep and then there is the one without a conehead so you fish shallower too. Gol dang it I gotta fish shallow and deep and cover the whole water column. You sure don’t make it easy for a guy.
Rather than fishing in a tweed jacket and suspenders your more likely to find me with some sort of fine meshed net on a long handle trying to get bug samples from a lake or pond and then burying my nose in a book trying to identify what I’ve got.
Scuds work best for me early in the season. Last year, this one right here worked extremely well and caught a bunch of brem for our early camp out and fish fry.
http://www.blueflycafe.com/product/Scud_Orange/ScudsWormsShrimp
But I have noted that color preference can change from season to season. For example, two years ago, when brem began their surface feeding, a black and white popper could do no wrong. Last year the black and white was a dud and yellow poppers were the color they were going after. So the orange scud was the color for early last season … we’ll see for the upcoming early season.
Dale
Thanks, Cycler. Your last post, cleared up a lot of worries I was having about you!! “Occasionally reading MAD mag.” in fact, puts you just fine and on the right track, to become an accomplished fly fisher!
Thank you, also, for the kind words on my flies. Like so many of us, they “were born”, out of the age old recipe of “Wonder what THIS…would look like, tied on the hook, with THIS?”
A quite very scientific method of fly design when one wishes to “match the trash catcher hatch”.
I’m a big fan of soft hackles early in the year. For gills and crappie it’s usually an olive soft hackle in a 12 or 14. For bass I’ll bump up to an 8 and tie a somewhat bulkier than standard body to get their attention. I fish them unweighted this time of year so they sink verrry slooowwwwly. Soft hackle have a lot of movement even with a super slow retrieve and that slow retrieve is the key because cold fish are slow fish, they won’t chase food like they will later in the Spring, but if you bring it by them slow enough, they won’t pass up the opportunity.
Now you have me thinking! …ouch!
Last year early season my best fly was a black #10 GRHEN and almost nothing else would work, but after reading this I am looking forward to a warm day to try it out again…sorry, we don’t get much ice down here!
I think you might be a bit early too, but I sure hope your right. Early March would be great!!! In ponds and small lakes here in Stuart,( west central Iowa), I always seem to do good with beadhead haresears or pheasant tails, about size 14, tied kinda chunky. I fish them under an indicator set at a depth of the first good breakline from shore. This is usualy about 6-8 ft. and cast into the wind and let the wave action move my fly. If you ever make it down this way in the Spring, let me know, I got a place or 2 that have 9-10" gills.
Tim
A consensus seems to be forming here. Fish small, something buggy rather than fishy and fish s-l-o-w-l-y. For gills it seems the right size is about a 12 or 14 and for bass a size 8 is about right. All the good information should put me on the right track and save me from going up some blind alleys.
Last spring I was mainly fishing minnow imitators a little bigger than needed. I probably fished them a bit on the fast side too.
I just got a new rotary vise today and some more materials so I’ll be sitting down to tie up some more flies pretty quick, probably this weekend. I’m finding that by rolling my own I have more control over how my flies are made and so can make them fit my style of fishing better.
Again, thanks everybody for the good ideas and generously sharing your favorite patterns.
coonriverdog,
Getting together with you sounds like great fun. I’ll have to see if I can work something out. Besides going to fish with you I’d also like to head back to Linn Grove for a day of fishing spring pike and muskies. Last year I didn’t catch anything but I nearly had a panic attack when I saw two muskies in the shallows well withing casting range. Just to bad rather than freezing and then very, very slowly casting to them I yelled and pointed. Then, of course, they spooked.
Don’t rule out a popper/dropper combo. That will let you fish oh…so…slowly…
I like a slowly fished woolly bugger in olive or black for the early season. Either, beadhead or weighted dragged right along the bottom works fine. For brim or crappie, I like size #10-#16. For bass, size #10-#2. My second choice would be a Clouser fished the same way. I really like brown/orange for this deep dragging. 8T 
cycler,
I went to high school in Arnolds Park, Linn Grove is around some of my old stomping grounds. I’ve always wanted to catch some pike on a fly. where do you fish for them around Linn Grove???
Coonriverdog,
There is a dam just outside Linn Grove that is very popular for early season pike and walleye fishing. I went there last year on a nice day in April and boy, for such a small fishing hole, was it crowded. Trouble was except for some carp, very few people were catching anything and it was just the same for me. There were a few muskies present - I saw that pair - but fishing for anything was very tough.
I’ll admit my experience fly fishing is limited as I have only been at it about three years so I don’t know what the problem was except maybe the pike had already had spawned and were in their resting period before they really put on the feed bag.
This year I think I should try the post-spawn period because it looks like timing the pre-spawn period is just too hard.
As for early ice-out fishing I do plan on sticking to bass and bluegill simply because the fishing spots are much closer.
My best producing early season fly is the Carter’s Sculpin tied in black with a grizzley or olive grizzley collar. It’s called “SEM Sculpin” by Carter Nelson, it is here; www.warmwaterflytyer.com under Bottom Flies & Jigs. I fish it fairly slowly in very early spring with 3-4 inch strips of line and a 1-2 second pause to let it fall back down. Absolutely great fly for me that produces large bream, crappie, and bass. I submitted this fly in a swap a couple of years ago and had a guy from Pennsylvania contact me saying he had caught a bunch of nice rainbows on it one day when he was having an otherwise fishless day.
Great overall pattern for me.
Jim Smith