Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Golden sunshine and clear blue skies

20110330

It is a beautiful 80 degree afternoon, bright clear day, with a light breeze at 10 mph.  I've only got a few minutes to get in my typical casting practice.  The weed bloom is on full force.  The entire dam section of the pond has about a 2~4 meter additional false shoreline due to the thick matting of these really fine filimentaceous weeds.  The individual filaments are finer than most hair.  Fortunately they are not very durable so snagging them with the hook is not that big of an issue. 

The wind and sun have created both heavy concentrations of these floating blobs.  There positioning is quite dynamic too.  The small sunfish are taking full advantage of them.  If you look carefully you can see many of them hovering directly in the shade of these floating canopies.  This also turned out to be a nice strategy too.  Just cast right beside and slightly beyond one of them to see if anyone is interested.  This was exactly what I did when I first approached the pond today. 

I made some initial casts using a small plastic swimbait of sorts.  Got plenty of following interest, just not much commitment.   So I switched over to the fish whip, flyrod with my hair fly.  Lots of interest and several short strikes.  Gotta get my technique of stripping the line down better and minimizing the slack.  Missed quite a few initially, started to get better at it as time went on.   The wind was still an issue in getting my accuracy in placing the fly tough.  I did manage to tie on and get several to the shore. 

Apparently my actions got the interest of several, unbeknownst to me.  A familiar photographer who was in the area strolled by to say 'hi'.  They were watching on of the blue herons that migrated over to my side of the pond and was watching intently.  Apparently it was interested in the fish that I was catching.  While I've enjoyed sharing the fishing experience with many I failed to realize that so many folks were watching me so closely.  Guess it might be prudent to improve that situational awareness factor and not get so focused on one element of the environment.  Lesson learned. 

I eventually snagged the fly on a submerged branch and ended up loosing it.  No worries switch back over to the swimbait lure.  Toss that a few time out to the edge of the weed clumps.  Waaahoo!  A very nice and health green sunfish.  Lots of fight power there!  On the 2 lb line it is all good!   The girth on these fish is impressive, much like the amount of energy in resisting.  To all of them, thanks for playing.

Maybe a chance to head over there towards the end of the day, maybe...

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

A good hair day

A beautiful day out there, winds under 6 mph at mid to upper 70s, bright clear blue skies!

One of the things that I've noticed is that when the fish inhale or sample the lure or bait, they have the opportunity to really get a feel for the material.  General observations are that if it is not something organic they are immediately going to spit it out.   If it is they may choose to really engulf it or just sort of hover with it in their mouth to continue the analysis.  So my prior experiences with various things as lures or baits confirm this observation.  I've been able to catch fish using a blade of grass on a hook if I presented it in the right way.  Typically a nice slpash near a poised fish.  The splash illicits a strike or investigation response. 

Knowing this I've been trying out various materials available to me at low or preferably no cost in producing my own flies.  So my initial experiences have been with using scrap sewing materials, yarn, bird feathers, and etc.  Each of those had limited success both as dry and wet fly configurations.  It is also my exploration into developing my fly tying skills with the various materials too. 

Recently, I considered creating some hair jigs and flies.  I figured I'd start with the flies first as those are smaller and easier.  I was going to initially harvest some hair obtained from the dog's brush but found the length to be too short for me at my current skill level.  Although I might revisit that sometime later.  That led me to think about my hair, what little is there.  I figured when I got a haircut, I'd retain some for making flies. 

My initial construction technique was basic, just lash them on so it looks sort of like a streamer, nothing fancy.  I quickly built up a half dozen on size 10 and 12 hooks.  So I've got these bug looking hooks in an old spice jar.  It would be some time till the conditions were appropriate for me to try them.  The environment and the season have now come to where we have the sunfish in both pre and spawn conditions. 

My fly fishing rig also needed to have some attention applied.  The traditional length poles are just too long for me and my current use.  Fortunately in the prior year I had purchased a short ultra-light pole for use with a spinning reel.  Unfortunately the reel seat with this pole is the rudimentary slip ring setup.  So I chose to retask it to a handy light weight fly rod.  So with my new 3 weight line and a 4 foot ultra-light pole, we can go fishing!

The sunfish love seeing the lure splash near them.   Most of them focus their attention immediately.  Others that are more aggressive will charge the bait.  Over the past few trips, I've found moving the bait slightly works to get them to commit to obtaining the bait.  I had quite a few instances where they would suck it in their mouth and then blow it right back out.  This compelled me to keep the line tighter with my rod tip down near the water's surface to minimize the response time for tensioning up on the strikes.  So far that is working to my advantage.  This afternoon's session is confirming that with more hookups in shorter timeframes.  During my few minutes out there I was able to get just less than a dozen to shore. 

One thing I've got to remember, those dorsal fins are sharp!
20110321  Give me no lip!

30 mph winds with additional gusts with temperatures in the high 60's make for a really interesting day out on the pond.  Your casting must be adjusted to accommodate for the drag.  No high angle tosses, otherwise the trailing line will be carried away taking your lure with it.

So heavier lures were the way to go.

Given the whitecaps and the gusts, I figured it was going to need to be something moving and making noise to get attention.  So I tied up both a rattle trap type lipless lure along with a skirted spinner bait on the other rig.  The 1/2 oz lures worked out better for casting in the wind.

My hunch worked out going big and loud.  I was rewarded by the interest of a 17 inch LMB.  I figured I had just snagged a submerged rock cause the retrieve just stopped.  Within a second of the stopping of the lure the pole surged away from me with a solid pull.  This fish didn't waste energy with head shaking, just protracted pulls.  I really enjoy using the spinning reel as there is audible feedback when the drag is peeling.  Although with the intensity of the wind blowing you really could not hear the drag.

When I got the fish to shore, I was impress both by the length and the girth.  It was really wide!  The entire abdomen cavity was quite swollen.  Given that I keep the fussing with the lure to a minimum and gently returned it to the water with my thanks for playing!  It is always good to be able to return it to the water where it gracefully swims off rather than a panic departure.  I'm guessing it was over 3 lbs for sure.  More interesting is the depth of the water was probably less than 3 feet where it hit the lure.  Amazing how they are able to hide in the bottom vegetation.

My next cast pulled in about 2 lbs of green growth.  Lately the pond has been developing this really fine filimentaous plants.  The wind ends up concentrating these fibers into large clusters.  I'm guessing that you could call this stuff algae in a generic sense.  Fortunately it is not difficult to remove from the lure but it requires a diligent effort.  Gotta watch out for those large sharp hooks!

Undaunted, I tossed out again.  This time paralleling the shore line with about a 10 foot offset.  As I got the lure moving back towards me, at 5 meters out I felt a welcome resistance on the line.  This tug was more head shake and less physical loading.  Given the speed and intensity of my retrieve, I just barely felt the fish.  It was an easy into the shore.  A very spunky 11 inch LMB.  This one gave me a bit of tussle in getting the hooks out.  With all the head shaking both trebble hooks were embedded.  I'm glad to carry a handy dandy multi-tool set of pliers.  Sure nice to have on these occasions.  The spring loaded feature is welcome too!

So it just goes to show that even with all the wind, you can still catch fish!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

No bills about it

March 16, 2011
Bright sunny skies at 74 degrees with light breeze at less than 8 mph.  Turned out to be a good time at the pond with the bill less crank baits.  Connected with the first LMB using a bill less rattle.  A very healthy 15 incher that gave quite the tussle.  It was caught on the rear hook.

The second LMB came right after one additional cast.  This one was a very distended 14 incher.  So it seems to confirm a pre-spawn season.  They seem to respond well to reaction stimuli.  The cast and rip worked on each of them. 

Right now low and slow doesn't seem to be working as well as there was no interest in the skirted jigs or the plastic grubs.  However, we keep trying.

I did make my offerings to the pond as there are now several additional lures trapped in the depths.  So it is time to make a Wally World run to re-supply.

So it goes... cheers!