A lot of people ask ‘what do I use this time of year?’ questions and don’t give locations. I am in Southern Illinois it has been warmer than normal this fall. We have reached down into the 20’s once or twice. Thanksgiving day I will be at my sister’s to cook the turkey. I want to tie up errr…(sorry swapmeister!) dress some hooks to fish after lunch. They have a nice lake that I can fill up a bucket of bluegill and bass just about any spring or summer day. I started dressing hooks recently and am itching to fish. Let me know what your choices would be…
I would think wooly bugger, leech patterns maybe some streamer, black ghost, mickey finn, some of those epoxy minnows Dave tyed up in Iowa.
i don’t know about southern Illinois, but down here in north middle TN, no matter what time of year, I have never went wrong with a simple scud pattern. That is for the creeks around here, I don’t do much pond or lake fishing, though that might change this winter some. I tie up alot of different patterns and flies, but I always take a few scud patterns and always catch fish. Sometimes I catch them with a dead drift and sometimes i give the line a little tug. I hope that helps.
hNt
You might try some micro jigs. Last year they produced bluegills for me until just before ice up.
I’ll second the microjigs… 1/80th or 1/100 oz jigheads tied with marabou tail and a body of chenille. Best chenille colors for me have been metallic gold, chartreuse, or metallic silver, or black…in that order. Each body of water seems to show a distinct color preference ,but the gold works almost everywhere.
You can fish them just about any depth you wish under an indicator. Its a perfect technique for cold water.
I would say microjigs would be a great place to start, along with some small beadheads. Small and heavy under an indicator. Get to where the fish are, then fish it slow.
Thanks guys.
Don’t have the jigs, but should be able to ‘imitate’ them with bead heads, lead wire, maribou, and chenille. I guess the indicator gives me the ability to vertical jig?
Just can’t watch football anymore. There’s a flag on every play. Too boring. Will report on fishing next week.
You can watch football when you’re too old to fish, at least that’s my plan. If the weather is decent get out there and fling a line.
Micro jigs did the trick. No crappie, but I think it was due to lack of access to the deeper water. All were caught in about 2 feet of water. 6 bass all in the 8-10 inch range and 3 bluegill around 7 inches. Did a ‘faux’ jig with lead wire. Chartreuse maribou tail and chartreuse chenille body. Simple fly to dress and it fishes itself. Caught most on the fall by stripping and pausing.
You can have the game on while you’re tying. I’ve come to prefer leaving the sound very low, or muted altogether. Give it a try sometime and see if you don’t enjoy the game more. That way you and your family/guests can discuss the game without interruption. Set up so that you can toggle back and forth between two games and you might be able to skip most of the commercials, too. 
(But doing that interferes with tying.)
Ed
I started tyiing right after Labor day weekend. My wife had a family reunion in OK. We made our ‘out of the way’ jaunt to Bass Pro and I bought a beginners kit with a Lefty Kreigh DVD. Thought the DVD was good, but the vise in the kit is junk (Made in India). Lefty was not too technical and relieved a lot of fears right off the bat. Am writing a letter to BP about the vise though.
Being a Cardinal fan (lifelong), it was very difficult to dress hooks and keep one eye on the games. From Mid-August to the end of the World Series every day was “their last chance”. It was fun to be a part of, but after the series was over I was honestly tired of baseball. But, when February rolls around I will be chompin’ at the bit for more. I normally don’t watch much, but listen as much as I can while gardening, mowing, driving etc.
Oh, I do that, I know if anything important happens there will be 6 replays with several close ups thrown in so us old guys can see what happened. Of course, the way things have gone lately I might turn over my chair and get my head caught under the desk.
At least you should be able to breathe whilst under the desk. Don’t go around scaring us. Darn. Keep that up and we never will show you that one, secret stream in Tennessee where there just might be some fish.
Ed
Small buggers. Blue gill can’t leave them alone. I find a slow “finger-walk” retrieve gets them. An occasional twich and a pause can be deadly too.