Started tying for warm water because it is about 170 miles to the closest trout water from central Oklahoma. Have boxes of Clousers, Sea Ducers, Crappie Candy and any other warm water fly that I find recommended along with the boxes of drys, wets, streamers and attractors that I use with moderate success in my quest for bows and browns. However warm water success has eluded me. I fish from shore mostly because I don’t have a boat or float tube and can’t keep my backcast up floating on my back. I have fished em on top, in the film, with shot to get em down a little and weighted to get em down further. I fish flats, rickrack, docks and brush in lakes and ponds. Now I know that I am doing something wrong but not sure what. Tried every retrieve that I can conceive. I have fished all of the short 62 years of my life (spinning, baitcasting, etc.) and caught probably more fish than the Lord alots to one man. And I was a happy fisherman. But then I caught one fish on a fly that I tied myself and I have been hooked since. (Little over a year now). I’m gonna be a successful warm water flyfisherman before I die (Lord willin). Unfortunately there aren’t any warm water flyfishin guides in Central Oklahoma that I can find so I’m just hoping to luck on to the right fishin buddy. All suggestions appreciated.
Okie, the panfish for me have been extremely difficult to come by recently until the sun has dropped to the horizon or below, and then they’ve turned on (noticed some mayfly hatches around this time, so I’m not sure it was the changing light or the emergence of food). And the bass have turned on around now as well, if that’s what you’re looking for.
okieflyfisher
Howdy and I feel your pain. Bank fishing can be a trial and a tribulation indeed. I Googled up Edmond and see that its a suburb of OKC.
Here are my tips, if you take them to Starbucks with $1.89 you can get a grande coffee. Here goes:
Those pesky bluegills and bass can be spooky. Approach with quiet and stealth. Scout from well back of the shoreline. If you see a spot that looks likely, get twenty or thirty feet down the shoreline if you can and cast to that spot. Walking right up on them will often as not spook them down.
Under trees - I have found that standing off to the side and casting up under overhanging trees can be very successful. its a natural place to hang out; (relative) cover from diving birds, shade from the sun and tasty bugs falling out of the tree.
Docks - if you can find any docks they can be hot hot hot. Loads of cover and forage. How to fish one sans boat would be a task to sort out based on each dock so I’ll leave that to your imagination.
Stock tanks in the wee hours - this is just my personal experience and your mileage may vary; but if there are any stock tanks that you can access, get out there before daylight and start chunking poppers. This can be hotter than a three dollar pistol up until sunrise or shortly thereafter. Actually most any body of water this would hold true for.
Small boat - I know you said that you fish from shore, but if there is any way possible to get afloat the opportunities open up like a vast vista of opening opportunities. My mother-in-law has a stock tank outside Caney OK. its surrounded by willows and cedars, fishing from shore is problematic and itchy. but there is an old aluminum semi-V hull boat that we get in and paddle around with which gives an entirely different angling experience. I know that boat ownership can be a hassle but something small and unpowered can be transported fairly easily and if Oklahoma is like Texas, unpowered vessels require no registration.
Good Luck and happy scouting for water.
I agree with rrhyne56 on the poppers. It is hard to beat them for bluegill in the quiet water of first and last light.
Thanks for the suggestions. I will try them all believe me. I did find a pond, probably a couple acres or so, that looks good. Think I will try it late in the evening. I don’t think those folks will mind me fishin in their back yard. :roll: I do have a couple poppers that I have tried without any luck but not at night. Keep those suggestions comin - you may be able to make a warm water flyfisherman out of this ol’ coot yet. Any suggestions on good poppers would be welcome too. Thanks again. FAOL and this BB are the best thing since sliced bread (The crust of which I suppose could be fished as a dropper below an elkhair caddis.
Larry
The popper possibilities are quite broad. One possibility is to simply go to Walmart and buy some [url=http://www.basspro.com/servlet/catalog.TextId?hvarTextId=3156&hvarTarget=search&cmCat=SearchResults:5a765]Miss Prissys[/url:5a765] or whatever generic poppers they might carry.
Also, if you tie at all, Pete’s Gurgle Pop is one of the easiest and successful poppers I have come across. Just search FAOL here for Pete’s Gurgle Pop, the pattern is here onsite.
Tight Lines!
Robin
Poppers are fun, but I think if you want to play the percentages, nymphs (or other sub-surface small flies) are the way to go if the fish are picky. Bead-head hares ears or pheasant tails, or even a bead head woolly bugger with a trailing unweighted nymph (attractor dropper combo) with a slow steady retrieve once the nymph gets down to cover water is the way I’d try to beat a slow bite.
The English do not see fishing from the bank as a liability. They have a long tradition of fly fishing from the bank. See the link below for bank fishing methods. Although trout are the target here, you can adapt the methods to ww fish.
Okie,
Try this.
Tie on a popper, something small, in the size 8 to 12 range.
Tie a piece of tippet about 24 inches long to the bend of the hook. Tie a small, size 12 to 16, nymph to that. Doesn’t usually matter which nymph, all of them seem to work okay.
This is the ‘never been here before, don’t know what the fish want, and want to find out quickly’ rig that I use every time I approach a fishing situation I’m not absolutley confident about (if it’s trout, I replace the popper with a high floating dry fly).
Keep it wet, work the poper agressively with the tip of your rod, and make lots of casts until you find some activity. Cast this rig at everything and over everywhere.
The popper will draw strikes from the agressive fish, and draw the less agressive fish near to check it out, which is why the nymph is there.
Once you get some success, you’ll learn which flies and retrieves work best under the diffeent conditions you’ll face.
Good Luck!
Buddy
KISS - Start with some basic flies
Wooly Bugger
Hornberg
Gold Ribbed Hares Ear Nymph
Maybe with a bead head on the bugger and nymph. Fish the Hornberg on top and under the water.
Vary retrieve. You know where the fish are, early AM is a good time to fish. I think that learning how to fish a specific fly makes a difference.
I find that a wooly bugger works with different retrieves.
Retrieve the Hornberg about 1 foot and let it breath the movement of the hackles is enticing. Repeat
Fish the Hares earwith slower shorter retrieves, giving it time to move with the water.
Add some crystal flash to the bugger. It makes them more enticing.
Good luck.
jed
Sometimes the hardest lesson I have with bluegills is that they are not everywhere. A lot of catching buckets of gills is finding the fish. I fish from a canoe so I have the ability to cover a lot of water. Most often I fish through a lot of promising spots that yield nothing and then find more fish than I can handle stacked in a small area. When I fish from a bank I have to keep remembering those lessons. If I do not see surface action on poppers after a couple of casts, I suspect that there are no fish there or at least no fish feeding. Then it is time to move. It is often hard to cover a lot of water from shore, but (again in my limited experience) you have to be ready to move to where the fish are biting.
David
I say…
Size 8-12 hook
peacock herl body
pearl Krystal-flash wing
peacock herl thorax
tail optional
Sometimes this nymph pattern will get the gills for me when they’re acting shy.
Applied some of the advise and went to a small pond and tried some poppers. Caught a gill. Got there just before dark. No record but still one more than I have been catching. When I use my rod to give the popper a little action my line gets a belly because the rod tip is high which continues to move the popper. What is the best way to work the popper - with the rod ? - short quick strip ?- work rod to the side rather than up? I’m sure with a little time I can figure this out but if one of you old salts who have already figured it out would give me a hint I can be catchin more fish instead of tryin to figure out how to retrieve the popper. By the way - thanks for the help - it is appreciated.
Okie,
Glad you caught a fish. The best weapon in ANY fisherman’s arsenal is confidence. As to ‘how’ to work a popper, there are many ways that work. Here is how I prefer to do it.
I like to work my poppers with the rod tip. I can get a sharp ‘spit’ or ‘pop’ this way without having to move the bait very far. Something that can’t be done by ‘stripping’.
I always hold my rod down and pointed to the side when working topwater baits for bass and bluegills. I jerk the rod in short twitches, pulling back towards my thigh. You want a bit of slack in the line when you do this, the idea is to accelerate the bait quickly, but stop it quickly as well. This causes the bait to catch water and ‘pop’, but not go very far. What you are after with this method is a sharp ‘pop’ or ‘spit’, rather than a long ‘bloop’.
With a bit of practice, you will learn to time the rod tip jerks with taking up the slack with your stripping hand. It’s not hard to do, it just takes a few casts worth of practice.
With the rod low and to the side, all it takes is quick strip and lift to remove any slack and hook your fish.
Good Luck!
Buddy
larry, the majority of my flyfishing is warmwater as well. i live in kcmo and the closest trout fishing (other than the winter stocked trout) for me is around 3 hrs. what absolutely changed my success rate as far as catching was the purchase of a float tube. a good quality float tube will sit you up higher on the water and you won’t be casting off your back as you say. here’s a link to a very good float tube on sale at sierra trading post. if i hadn’t recently purchased a new tube, i’d be all over this. also, if you wanted to go cheaper, cabelas has a uboat 2000 float tube package on sale for around $70 that includes the tube, fins and a pump. http://www.sierratradingpost.com/p/4360 … -Tube.html
8)Okie
In fishing from the bank be systematic. I like to make the firstcast at a shallow angle to the bank ahead of me, maybe 6 inches from land. Next cast still at an angle a little further from the bank. I contine this until I am casting at a 70 degree angle, maybe 15’ from shore. This sounds more elaborate than it is, and consists of 3 or 4 casts and then moving down the shore and repeat. Look for and concentrate on inlets, outlets dams and of course any cover. Most of the waters have green sunfish in addition to other panfish. The green sunfish are always tight tight to shore especially if there are any rocks. Crappies tend to be in the deeper water except in spring and theremaing panfish are in between.
If you have a golf memebership or a friend with a golf membership who also likes to fish, most of the golf courses are closed on Mondays and you can fish the water traps.
In any ponds with a lot of weeds we fish them with a strike indicator and a size 10 sparse marabou jig. The strike indicator holds the fly just above the weeds. A short strip and let it settle.
I am not even a fair fly tyer but all I fish are flies I tie. I go barbless on all flies. I have tried the droppers behind the poppers but after several casts, the dropper comes off the hook of the popper. I do not remember the name of the knot I am using to attach the dropper. Do I need to leave the barb on the popper. I hate to because sometimes I catch fish on the popper. I apologize for a bit of change in topic but I hated to start a new topic. Thanks in advance. mathcarver
Mathcarver,
If you are tying your popers on barbless hooks, try tying in a ‘dropper loop’. All you do is tie in a loop of mono above the bend under the tailing material. I wrap mine down the bend a bit so that the loop points down and to the rear of the popper.
Tie your dropper leader to this, and you don’t have to worry about the knot slipping off of a barbless hook.
I prefer barbs on bass poppers, but bend them down on the panfish ones. Still tie in dropper loops on some, though, because I like how they cast and fish better under some circumstances than tying direct to the hook bend.
Good Luck!
Buddy
MathCarver:
You might find this article on droppers an interesting read. It covers several different ways to tie in a dropper. http://www.flyanglersonline.com/alcampbell/ac022502.html
Buddy, thanks for the loop idea. It is a great idea. Do you have any suggestions for all the poppers I already have tied? Do you think maybe I could attach a loop under tail material for poppers? Thanks in advance. mathcarver