Summertime Fly Fishing

I enjoy warmwater flyfishing as much if not more than trout and saltwater fishing.  Though I have to travel about an hour from my front door to find a decent trout stream, I can walk out my front door and be casting over water in about 5 minutes.  The area I live in is peppered with lakes and ponds of all sizes.  Since New Jersey's trout fishing is a 3 season affair for me, I need something else to occupy my time during the summer months.  That means bass, panfish, carp, and the occasional trip to the beach for some salty action.

Panfish are probably my favorite.  Abundunt, scrappy and great fun on a three weight.  Early mornings and late evenings can often produce some great topwater action.  Probing the depths during the day will produce some of the biggest fish of the day.  They tend to school up by size class, so if you locate a good sized fish you bound to find some more in the same area.

You will find these little fish in all colors of the rainbow from drab to brilliant.  Not to mention that they are some of the finest eating on the planet.  No need to feel guilty about taken the occasional stringer of fish home either.  In most waters around here they are ignored and thereby abundant, sometimes too abundant and the population can certainly sustain a few meals a year.

'Gill Time...

nuff said...

The Bluegill Bug

This is one of my favorite bluegill flies.  This little floating triangle with legs has been doing a number on panfish and bass for over a decade.  The unique shape is perfect small mouthed panfish like bluegills.  The thin profile at the business end of the hook allows even the smallest fish to take it with ease but the broad head prevents the little buggers from taking it to deeply.  If you have ever tried to remove a deeply set hook from the mouth of a bluegill with out harming it you can appreciate this.

I tie this fly in small sizes (10) for panfish and larger sizes (6-2) for bass in a variety of colors.  My favorite colors are black, green and chartreuse, yellow and black,  and frog (white bottom green top).


Pattern Recipe:
Hook:  4x long streamer hook
Thread: 6/0 or 3/0 Uni color to match body
Body: 2mm foam trimmed to the shape of a diamond (for the bluegill fly pictured here I start with a rectangle of foam 1" long and 3/8" wide before trimming)
Tail: Bucktail
Legs: Round rubber color of choice


Tying up these flies could not be any easier.  Start by cutting a piece of foam into a diamond shape.   I use 2mm foam for the smaller flies and thicker stuff for the bass flies.

Tie in your buck tail and lash down the butts along the hook shank.

Tie in your rubber legs.

Take your bodkin and poke a hole in the center of the diamond shaped foam.

Slide this hole over the eye of the hook and coat the hook shank with super glue.

Squeeze the top and bottom together to form the triangle and lash down the back with your tying thread, tie off and your done

Bugs

Tenkara USA Ayu

I fished the Tenkara USA Ayu this week.  I took this 13' rod down to a local pond and had a blast tearing up the local panfish and bass population.

Since fish in small ponds are oriented to shoreline structure there was not too many areas I would normally fish that were out of reach.  Playing bluegills and crappie on this rod was a lot of fun. Even a 4" bluegill put a serious bend in the rod.  That same rod had no problem landing largemouth bass up to about 16", which is pretty amazing.  I did lose one bass about 3-4lbs but I think I would have lost that fish even if I was using traditional fly tackle.  I was not looking to target bass on this particular trip but they showed a fondness for a black foam spider that was meant for panfish.

These 12"-14" bass were a blast to catch.  I was surprised that I was able to leverage them away from cover with this rod, but it worked just fine.  As I said earlier,  I had a bass between 3 and 4 pounds blow up on one of those foam spiders and he parted that 4x tippet like it was sewing thread.
One disadvantage to fishing such a long rod from shore is the overhanging cover.  You definitely have to pick your spots if you are fishing a shoreline with a lot of trees.  I can't wait to try this rod from the kayak.  With the 13' of rod and 18' of line and leader, there is no place I can't reach.  I find on average I probably don't cast more than 15 to 20 feet in these situations anyway.  In addition, I may have found the perfect set up for crappie.  I did not lose a single fish today.  The ultra flexible rod keeps the flies from tearing out of those paper thin mouths. More on that later...

Field Testing

My seven year old son has been very anxious to test out a new wet fly pattern he developed a some weeks ago.  We had a few hours to spare after dinner yesterday so we loaded up a box with his flies and headed out to a local pond.
The fly...

A bright, buggy wet fly that the bluegills and crappie got stupid over.  I even connected with a largemouth about 3-4 lbs that threw the hook on the first jump.  It is gonna be a new addition to my panfish box.  I have to put him to work to tie me some more!