The day was just perfect for fishing on the pond.  A little too warm for some people but not for me and the fish.  A couple of days of sunshine can warm the water and whet (pun intended) the appetite of the fish.  And, sure as bass love frogs, they were foraging for them.  I  was five o’clock in the  afternoon when I set out and  the first thing I tried was my tried and true Zoom Trick Worm…no luck, not even a tick .  Then the chartreuse spinner, the same… not a tick.  O.K., try the Yum Craw…not a tick.  Well, what next… go to the fly rod. 

I inserted the top picture to show you what kind of day it was and  to give you and idea of where I thought the fish might be…in the shade… at least until the sun was nearing the horizon.

As I was taking all the beauty of the day in I was listening to the croaking of the frogs…then an idea came to me, of course, the newly hatched frogs will be what the bass are after!  And was I right!  The first bass I caught on the above popper was a good 4 pounder, but in my excitement I set my camera on scan instead of the on position and of course the picture didn’t come out.  Well next time…

I managed to catch 3 more bass from 12” to 14” in that spot along with several really nice bluegill.  I usually use a number six popper so that if there are any larger bluegill in the area that I’m fishing, I can hook up with the bluegill too.  These bluegill are in the 9 – 10” range and their mouths can accommodate a #6 hook. 

I moved on to the eastern end of the lake and decided to use the fly rod to work my way back.  Maybe, when I get back to this area, the fish will have settled down.  This was a good move.

On my way back I managed  to catch five more bass as shown above.  There’s nothing like fly rod fishing like this, I love it!

Today I worked on cleaning my lines and replacing tippets, I managed to lose  a  couple of fish and one channel cat chewed up one of my black wooly bugger flies really badly and twisted my leader very badly as well.  I also noticed that a couple of my fly lines were sinking so, I cleaned them up too .

I decided my next time out will be a repeat of this last trip so, I baited my fly rods accordingly with different poppers and of course my tried and true black wooly bugger.  And, by the way, I purchased my poppers through “Discount Flies.com”  They have a great selection of affordable poppers.  The one shown above is a” Betts “ popper.

some time ago, the” Arbogast “ Co. , the company that makes the “Hula Popper” , made a 1/32oz Hula Popper.  It was one of the best poppers that I had ever used for bass and bluegill.

Then, they stopped producing it!   Why?  It was a great lure!  I wrote them but I never got an answer. 

Tight Lines

Jim

Whoops, wrong picture!  I just found out that my camera cartridge is not working properly.  Well anyway, My subsequent trips to River Bend and to the pond have been more or less a repeat of my last outings.  The fish at River Bend are running between 12 and 15 inches and they are very active.  There I’ve been hooking up with nearly 50 bass on each outing and landing a fair number of those.

The pond, however, has slowed down considerably.  The bass have just about finished their spawn, although I have spotted a few still on their beds; I prefer not to catch them.  The bluegill are still spawning and in some places so are the crappie.  With the wooly bugger I have caught and released several 1/2 lb bluegill and I caught a nice 14” crappie on  a clouser minnow in green and white. 

The bass you see above was caught last week and was posted, this was a mistake on my part but the fish are all about this size and with a few a little smaller on the pond.  I did manage to catch another yesterday this size on my Zoom trick worm “Wacky Style”.

On River Bend I tied on half of a Trick Worm wit a circle hook on my fly rod just to see what would happen.  The bass hit the worm but when the bass jumped, they got off.  I could not get a good hook set.  Next time out I’ll try it with a Mustad  thin wire worm hook and see what happens.  In fact I’m going to set my rods up for a different approach before I go tomorrow.  I’m going to try for the bigger fish by using a shaky head worm set up and set another rod with a drop shot.  I believe, with the spawn over, and the weather getting much warmer, high 80’ and low 90’s the fish will be getting deeper.  I’ll keep working the various depths until I , hopefully find the bigger boys.

In the pond I’m going back to the Yum crawdad, that usually does the trick if I fish it very slowly.  I’ll let you know.

Tight lines

Jim

I went out for just a couple of hours before supper even though the wind was howling and the air was at 57 degrees.  At first I thought a spinner might do the trick, the same pin spinner that got me some crappie and bass on a previous outing.  The spinner will usually tell me where the fish are but not today.  I then switched to my Zoom trick worm and almost immediately caught a nice two lb bass.  I got several more ticks but no hookups.  I determined that the ticks were probably bluegill and confirmed it by catching one on the worn; a nice bluegill of about a 1/2 lb.  Moving on along the north shore to keep the wind in my favor I tried my fly rod with the olive wooly bugger to try for some of those bigger bluegill, but caught some small crappie instead.  I have caught crappie on the trick worm  on other occasions so maybe…

I continued on the sheltered side of the shore and got this bass on the trick worm, I’m guessing he’s about 3 pounds or so.  I immediately released him after taking the picture so, he’s still out there for another day.  I hooked him in the upper jaw…no damage.

Then it was supper time and you know how wives are about being on time for supper!

Tight lines

Jim

The weather was forecast to be cloudy with possible thunderstorms and high winds so I didn’t venture very far, I went to the pond.  I wanted to return to River Bend to try for those two big Largemouth bass that I saw on my last trip there.  I was going to try to get them with a couple of new rabbit strip flies that have the same colors in them that are in the stick worms that I used on my last trip.  Catching a five pound bass on the fly rod is really a blast.  I tried the stick worms on the pond but got nothing.  I switched to the rabbit strip fly and that got some bluegill nipping at them but no bass.  Then I switched to my crystal / black woolly bugger  fly and that got me this nice 5 lb channel cat.  The cat just did not want to get near the boat; it took a good 15 minutes to get him close enough to net, but i got him.  As I’ve said before,”you can’t horse them in with a fly rod and a light tippet without breaking your line.”  You might even break your fly rod if you’re not careful.  To prevent breaking my pole, a lesson I learned in past experiences, I use a long handled net that reaches four feet away from the boat.

Still no bass.  So I tried the 5” Storm Ribbon Tail minnow and finally scored.  I  also caught a couple of very nice crappie that were big enough to get it into their mouths, just.  I also managed to catch a very small bass with it but that was all for the bass anyway .

It was getting late and a storm was coming in fast so to prevent being in danger of lightning, I decided to head for home.  And I was just in time to escape the rain .

Tight lines

Jim

Went to River Bend for the first time this year and did pretty well.  I started out at about 12:30 P.M. and at first I couldn’t find a fish anywhere.  I was trying to locate the fish with a pin spinner with a chartreuse grub and then switched to a Gary Yamamoto stick worm that I had some success with on previous occasions here.  Still no luck.  Then I went to my fly rod using the black/white clouser minnow fly and the black crystal wooly bugger that I have been using on the pond with good success, but to no avail except for a small bluegill and a small warmouth.  I switched to a Zoom Trick Worm wacky style using a circle hook.  The circle hook was to avoid hooking the fish deep.  That was a mistake; I found the fish but missed several hookups using that type of hook wacky style.  Then I tried a small Octopus hook and got the same results missing several hookups.  I changed the hook again this time using a regular offset worm hook in size #2 still wacky style.  Then I started catching bass.  I found the bass very near shore, see the above picture.  The fish were laying in and under the submerged branches and under the  bushes.  The water drops off very fast here from shallow to twenty feet deep about ten feet from shore.  If you fished more that ten feet from shore there were no takers at all.  I managed to catch 15 bass ranging from 12” to 15” using the trick worm and then the action stopped.  I decided to stay where I was and switch baits using the Shaw Grigsby’s paddle worm.  That did the trick.  I picked up another fourteen bass and missed that many more.  I switched back to using the normal worm hook, #2 in the standard manner, from the head of the worm back through the body.  The fish were taking these worms fished very slowly using an occasional  twitch action then  letting the worm fall weightless.  I tried to fish the bottom with a Texas rig but that got me nothing.  I was hoping to find some larger bass in the deeper water.  I did see two very large bass swimming by the boat, I’d estimate them to be of about five lbs or so each.  I cast out in front of them hoping one of them would grab my trick worm and then I tried my paddle worm but they must have just moved on ignoring my offerings.  I wished I had one of my rods set up with  a diving crank bait but I didn’t  so …next time.  I ended up with a grand total of 29 bass, one bluegill and two warmouth.  The bass were not big but were strong fighters and fun to catch.  I didn’t deep hook any of them and they are all back and swimming for next time.

Tight Lines

Jim