Still Early

Fishing Panfish & Warm Water
1

Flyfished Saturday. Very nice day…reached 76 degrees, but started out in the 30’s, and had low temps below freezing the previous 2 evenings…I think that had a big affect on the fishing.
And fishing was extremely slow. I fished for 2 hours before finally catching 2 small grass Carp on back-to-back casts.

Then around 20 minutes later, a really nice 21" Freshwater Drum. Impressive fighter!

Then nothing…just a Green Sunfish some time later.
I went to another place to try for a bullhead on a fly. I didn’t see any, but there were thousands of Goldfish. The myriad of smaller ones were uninterested in the fly. I managed to coax a big one into eating it. Beautiful 11" fish!

2

Nice Drum David. Good catch.

Dennis

3

Thanks! Hopefully there will be more of those showing up over the next couple months.

4

Nice report David! Are the grassies reproducing’s there?

5

I’m pretty sure they are, yes. I think the Missouri River and Mississippi River and their tributaries are all populated by naturally-reproducing Grass Carp. Neither river really has much vegetation for them to eat. They seem to be much more willing to eat a fly than the hatchery triploids that are stocked intentionally in ponds and lakes.
I like 'em all.

6

David,
LOVE your little chartreusey thingy. Looks like the one we use quite effectively at Clearlake (where the crappie are starting to spawn…finally) and around. Grand reports!
…lee s

7

Still a bit early here as well. I made it out for a couple hours yesterday. Caught a nice black crappie in a lake that’s never held crappie before to my knowledge which was interesting, and missed a couple others. Caught one greenie and a couple of medium sized 'gills. A second lake holds some big channel cats; I saw one prowling that looked like it would go 18-20" but I was fishing a little glass 4wt and wasn’t sure I wanted him so I let him move on. I did take several nice 'gills…

8

Thanks Lee! I found some crappies near shore this weekend as well, I assume they are beginning to prepare for spawning here as well.

Also caught a bass, some nice bluegills, and this presumed Redear x Bluegill Hybrid:

Snakes were chillin’:

9

Excellent! Sounds like you had an enjoyable day of fishing!
I tell you…I struggled yesterday. Went to 5 different waters, probably travelled a good 100+ miles…got skunked at 3 places, scraped together a half-dozen small crappies at one spot, then the very last spot finally produced a mix of decent fish. Saved the day, for sure.