Went out to my local pond yesterday. Weather was partly sunny, in the 50’s. A slight breeze from the west to the east.
Saw all kinds of activity, the bluegills were hitting something in the surface. I didn’t see anything flying above the surface - midges or anything.
Started with some small surface flys with no luck. Went to some small PT and other assorted nymphs with no luck. The bluegills were hitting all around my offerings.
As a last resort, broke out the gurglers and the crappie candy, still with no luck.
What do you think they were hitting on. I could hear the “popping” noise from them hitting something.
You might try something that goes just under the surface.Emerger sorts of patterns.
I also use a simple midge with no weight to try for them.
A turkey body feather wrapped on a hook with a thread head. My simple midge.
Just something I like during those such feeding pattern’s…
It’s just a general pattern…You can tinker to your hearts desire…
Generic still water emerger:
Hook: Any Dry Fly, Sz. 16 to 26
Thread: To Match thorax.
Abdomen: Krystal Flash, I like Copper,Silver and pearl the most but Use whatever ya like.Peacock!?!?
Thorax: Dubbing, I tend to stick with natural fibers,But whatever floats your boat is fine by me! Tan’s,Browns,Olives,Burnt Orange,Black…Mixes of these…ect…
Tie it up as you would a Copper John, I like the KF because it add’s far less weight to the fly and still sits with the thorax in the surface film, And the Abdomen below the surface.Snow Shoe Hares foot is a fav for my dubbing and/or Optional wing tuft.
These work well for me when they just seem to be takeing thin air…Also the slow area’s and eddies of streams as well as lakes and ponds…Hope this might help ya out.
I don’t think there are any rock bass in this pond - it is a stocked storm water retention pond. Lots of bluegills, bass, catfish, crappie, carp, and even a bowfin - at least that is what I have caught so far.
I will try tying up some emergers and give that a shot this weekend. I’ll let you know how it works out.
The exact same thing almost happened to me last week while fishing a 4-acre farm pond. I fished for over an hour with zero hits on a variety of flies (mostly nymphs and wooly buggers). Right at sundown I was ready to give up and go home. But just as I was leaving I began seeing swirls on the surface. Like you, I didn’t observe insects in the air so I didn’t know what was going on. (Not that I would have known what’s going on even if I had seen insects in the air…)
I switched to a #14 Olive Soft Hackle. This is a wet fly pattern that sinks slowly. In my case it sank even slower yet because the fly I’d been using earlier was a panfish popper and I’d treated my leader with floatant gel? So the tiny soft hackle had a hard time pulling the tippet down through the surface tension, which resulting in the fly running even shallower than it normally might have.
Anyway, the 'gillies liked the Olive Soft Hackle a lot. It was fun for me because I could just stand there on the bank until a swirl happened within my casting range. Then I would cast to the rise…just like a real fly fisher would do for trout!
Just guessing, but the 'gills you were after were probably targeting midges. The 'gills I caught probably were, too. I was hoping that my rising fish might be crappies (because I know they’re in this pond). But it seems like Rick Z. is the only fly fisher in the midwest who can catch crappies in farm ponds anymore. Probably because he uses midges a lot and the rest of us don’t.
Joe, you beat me to the punch. As the water gets cooler I go almost exclusively to soft hackles of one sort or another. As the water cools, the fish get a little less aggressive, so slower presentations become more effective. An unweighted soft hackle falls ever so slowly, but the hackles give it a lot of lifelike movement even when you aren’t retrieving it. If nothing hits it on the fall I will then retrieve it as slowly as I can. This very rarely fails to work right up until the water gets too solid to get a fly through . In the Spring I do the same thing until the water gets warm enough for the little guys to start getting feisty again.
I’ll have to tie up a couple of these and try them - they don’t look to tough to put together, just need to get some green floss.
Maybe if I had waited longer I would have seen something hatching from the pond -but sure didn’t see anything at all when I was standing there. Just need to keep trying - and asking questions.
Again, this is the same thing that happened to me last week: I could see fish swirling at the surface but couldn’t see any insects.
Since you have a computer, I suggest you do a search for midges and see what their lifestyle is like. (Might be in the Entomology section of FAOL!) I don’t recall this information clearly although I’ve scanned it once or twice. But if memory serves, midges like to start hatching in late afternoon/early evening. Their larvae are very, very small, which could mean that midges have difficulty breaking through the surface tension? If that’s true, then the effort and time they spend just below the surface trying to get through the surface to hatch into winged adults…this escape delay makes them available to fish for quite a while.
I have the book, Midge Magic, even have tied up some of what I read about. They were all in the fly box I didn’t have with me - go figure. Seems like the fly you need is the one left at home.
I am going to take those, along with some of the soft hackle flies that I plan on tying up on Friday. If they are biting, I’ll have a few more things to throw a them - if they cooperate.
This is why fishing is better than golf. When you have a lousy round of golf it’s because you played badly. When you have a bad day fishing, it’s because the fish weren’t biting. It’s not because you fished badly. Besides a bad day fishing is still better than most other things.
