Went fishing at local pond yesterday evenijng with couple of freinds and had mixed results. The weather has been cooler than normal for last few days so maybe bass pattern has changed. I caught one bass on puglisi type pattern and a few light taps. Both freinds were spin fishing with purple/chartreause tail slider worms which have been quite effective in past and got no hits at all.
One thing I did notice was that gills and I think crappie were feeding on some type of insect at the surface, couldn’t tell what it was but saw what looked like a crappie’s mouth numerous time slurping something off the surface.
Anyone ever seen this before? Any ideas on what to throw at them? I was thinking of a small popper/gurgler with a nymph dropper(which I didn’t bring with me yesterday!).
I think they were just under the surface since I couldn’t obseve any bugs in water or anything emerging from water. The bluegill were just dimpling the surface but as I said the crappie were skimming the surface with muost of their mouth out of the water. I’ve never observed anything like that before.
When I see that, or the water boils or the water looks like it is shimmering I tie on simple midges and cast them out.
Simple midge. Peaseant or Turkey tail feather barbs.
Tie on thread to match barb and then tie barb on. Wrap thread to eye and then barb up the hook tie off and form small head.
I have in tan, brown, red, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple and regular PT and turkey colors,
would midges be what are sometimes referred to as “noseeums”?
If so, I think your right on since I got bit all over monday and my arms are covered wit tiny red welts!
I took others fishing with me and in my haste forgot to put on bug repellant. I also left my kayak paddle at home and had to paddle with a piece of drift wood! Actually driftwood was fairly effective but noisy.
I’m gonna have to buy some smaller hooks, the smallest I’ve tied on in past is a 12. I think I’ll buy some flies too just in case it’s beyond my ability to tie. I’ve been mostly tying bass flies all year with smallest being on size 10 mustad stinger hook so may take a while to master smaller flies!
Hi Wayne !
I’m a metalsmith by trade, and my fingers and hands are big, hard, and rough. I spent a lot of time this spring tying midges and midge pupas for trout 18’s, & 20’s . Took me awhile to get it down, but patience and I got passable good at it. One thing that helped me was to use med. grit sandpaper and smooth up the hide on my fingertips some. It helped me to snag the smaller materials less, and also helped with a little better sensitivity in my fingertips…Happy tying…Modoc Dan
While super tiny flies (micro flies) do work at times for me, there seems to always be the problem of the tiny fly being taken too deep. It seems to be rare when the fish doesn’t take a micro fly deep and it seems to be much harder to detect the bite than larger flies. I don’t like digging a tiny fly out of a fish belly (typically kills the fish) unless I intend to keep the fish to eat. I try not to use flies smaller than say a mini fly size 12 (even this size and size 10 can be taken too deep sometimes when I’m using wetflies or nymphing) for just that reason unless there is no other alternative but to use the tiny micro flies. So I’m just saying that I do not make a habit out of using the tiny micro flies.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying not to use the micro flies. Because the fish may only be biting (selectively feeding) on tiny insects (midges, flying ants, etc.). I’m just saying I don’t do it unless I have to as a last resort. I still have flies that get taken too deep even with size 10s and 12s in wetflies and nymphs but I minimize this with those sizes unlike the smaller sizes. You may have to use the micro flies if that is all the fish are biting. They can be picky for sure. My suggestion is what I would do and that is that I go as large as I can (as large a fly as the fish will bite) to minimize gut hooking the fish.
Sorry, I can’t help with the eyeglasses but Rick can.
I was fishing a pond here where I work yesterday evening and the gills were going nuts. I was using a #10 black ant with a little white hackle palmered over the middle and cleaned up. I switched to a yellow and black popper and they loved that too.
Rick, when you recommend throwing out a #20 midge and letting it drop, what diameter leader are you using?
Also, is there anything – some kind of substance – that you prep your leader and/or the midge with in order to help them sink? (A tiny fly fisher’s split shot perhaps?) Seems like a #20 midge won’t be much affected by gravity, which would make it hard for the fly to initially break through the surface tension and, next, to pull the leader with it down through the surface tension.
Last, with a fly so tiny and light, how do you know if or when the midge has stopped dropping and reached the bottom? And if you think the midge is in fact lying on the bottom, do you like to creep it back toward your canoe using a “fishing retrieve”, or do you instead just pull it right up and cast it out again and wait for a fish to take it on the drop? (I know you catch a LOT of fish that take your flies on the fall.)
Sorry for all these questions, and feel free to answer them by means of your future stories – your trip reports. But using midges has been a difficult and confusing thing for me. You do real well using midges. Me, I’m just about clueless.
Went fishing yesterday evening with the intent of using a dropper rig to a tiny fly from a size 12 yellow gurglepop. But, I made a few casts with just gurgler and the gills were hitting it like crazy! I caught several fish in the same basic spot then moved around and repeated the procedure elsewhere! I can’t begin to count how many times fish hit fly, some were too small to take but that just meant I hooked better sized ones! The fish caught averaged 6"-7" in length. I tried putting a couple of different nymph patterns on a dropper but the fish kept hitting the gurgler and not the nymph.
It was really cool, I could see the minor surface disturbance prior to fish taking fly, sometimes could watch the fish progress from about a foot away.
I didn’t see any fish with mouths out of water as on previous trip but the same dimples of fish taking bugs as last.
I also made a carefull surface observation and think that the hatch is indeed some type of midge. At least I had bug repellant on this time and didn’t get eaten up ike last time.
Man, those biting midges really do a number on me. You can’t hear them flying, and you can’t feel them when they land on you. But then all of a sudden it feels like somebody has stuck a hot fork tine into your skin. I get a bad reaction to their bites; itches like crazy and takes a good couple of weeks for the welts to disappear.
Isn’t it great that fish eat them with such gusto?
I don’t use weight on most of my midges. I tie some on Mustad hooks and some on Daii riki. The mustads are a little heavier.
I use some 6X tippet that I got a while back to tie the fly on.
Most of the time if the fish are up that high in the water column then the fly just has to break the surface tension. I think the leader pulls it under. If a fish has not taken it afterabout 20 seconds then I start a lift and drop retrieve. Play around until you find out what works best.
I found that if I throw some raw meat or liver at the far end of the canoe, it keeps the flies & noseeums busy and away from me. Later you can use it for catfish bait. Chicken necks work good too.
