Summer Gill'n

Every Friday this summer I plan to go chase some bluegills and sunfish and post up about the fishing. I have a feeling some of the pictures and Friday trips will become a little bit redundant as there are only so many ways  to post about a quick trip to a local pond and there is not a lot of variation between bluegills in regards to size or quality of fish. But they are a fun fish on light fly gear and are almost always willing to put a bend in your rod. What they lack in size they make up for in heart and always put up a good fight. 

So today's trip started in the predawn hours with a near full moon still shining. The fishing was steady, nothing to fast and furious. Bringing a few fish to hand always makes being sleep deprived a little more manageable. Bluegill always move up onto beds during the full moon cycle of the summer months. I continued fishing for an hour or so after the sun was up and brought a few more fish to hand. This particular pond I was fishing has a really good population of gills but for some reason the bass are just really malnourished. 

      

Gulp

5-17-15

With the rains last night that continued into the early morning the top water bass bite was good this afternoon. Caught a lot of fish on a Cohens frog leg diver. The water was a little stained so the chartreuse belly seemed to produce a little better than the white belly frog. The fish where right where you'd expect to find them along the edges and among the newly flooded vegetation. The fish weren't to overly aggressive and seemed to prefer a slower presentation with a lot of longer pauses between strips. Non the less when they decided to come up they smashed the fly. No real big fish today but lots of nice fish to a few pounds. You know how some people are dry fly purist when it comes to trout fishing, its easy to become the same why with bass and poppers. Catching bass on subsurface flies just isn't as exciting as seeing them blowup on popper. It may be the only way to fish for them in some circles.

Working on his back flips.

Just missed the money shot.

Gill rattling jump.

Cohens frog leg diver. 

   

Monday Movie; Bass

Here is a video I did several years ago during the spawn. Basically just set the camera down on a small tripod next to a bed that was being aggressively guarded by a male largemouth. Bass love eating bluegill and absolutely hate them in the spring spring during the spawn. The EP bluegill is my number one fly for fish on beds.

 

Charleston, SC

The wife and I went to Charleston, South Carolina a couple weeks ago. That's one of the coolest towns we have been to and we are defiantly looking forward to returning, We ate a lot of great food like Flints, Indaco, 82 Queen and Loggerheads. Several of the restaurants that were recommended like Poogans Pourch, Halls, Husk and Magnolias where already booked up. Unfortunately we could not experience them but heard from multiple sources it is some of best food they'd ever had. Many really old churches that our founding fathers like George Washington have visited. The church's where beautiful with their stain glass windows. Boone's Hall plantation was a lot of fun. The wife and I aren't really history people but there is defiantly a lot history in Charleston which is why I think we liked it so much. It wasn't your standard vacation of a beach or cruise. There was a lot of information in regards to dates and people, many of which played a large part in early american history.

These oak trees where planted in 1743, as as the pictures don't really do them any justice it was sight to see. 

Not sure if I can go somewhere with out a day of fishing. I fished with Courtland Babcock III out of Hilton Head, SC and had a great time. Amberjack are one of my favorite fish and the wrecks off South Carolina are full of them. Fishing for amberjack is unlike fly fishing for any other fish. Amberjacks require you to use the heaviest gear on the market and your still under gunned. They are extremely strong fish and will take you right into the wrecks and break you off if you give them any line. You lock down your drags and hold on hoping they don't straighten hooks, break fly lines or shatter flyrods. I had one fish straighten a 4/0 Trey Combs Gammy SL12. I had another fish break a 70lb core Rio Leviathan fly line when it got wrapped around the reel. And had a third fish break 80 lb flouro when he got into the wreck. Through out the day I did land about 6 AJ's on the fly and also picked up a spinning rod rigged with a popper having a nice AJ blow up on it. The AJ's on the Atlantic coast act so much different than our Texas Gulf fish. The Atlantic fish would come up to the surface and check the boat out. I have never seen our Texas fish do that, they always stay deep. It was a great trip and look forward to doing it again. I'll be honest a few of these fish a day is all you need as they will whip you pretty quickly. These are some strong fish.   

 

Cats Saved the Day

4-19-15

I took a chance today going to the river. With the past few days of rain there was a good chance the river would be muddy. Its kinda early as is for the smallmouth to be active. Typically they don't start going good till the end of May. I was hoping to at least get into a few smallies and if nothing else it would be nice to make the first trip of the year to the my favorite water. After the hour run down the river I arrived right at my first hole as the sun was just creeping up over the horizon. The water was muddier than I would have liked but I was still fishable. It took a while to get anything going and only ended with 2 fish after thoroughly working this run over. A sandbass and a small spotted bass. I did break off a nice fish, I think it was a big striper but cant be for sure. He broke 12lb tippet at the strike. With the muddy water I should have had 15lb tippet on for as muddy as the water was there was no concern with the fish being leader shy. I moved on to another run and it was loaded up with channel cats. Catfish aren't the most common fish on a fly rod but in the spring when they start to spawn they become very aggressive and will readily hit a streamer. The smaller ones just kind of flop and roll on the end of your line but fish over 4-5 lbs put up a great fight. Wish I would have brought a string and kept a few to fry up. I ended up with a couple freshwater drum and one dink smallmouth. Overall it was a good day with about a dozen fish brought to hand by noon. A tip for fishing muddy water is to fish a fly that has a blade. George Glazeners Spinster or Henry Cowens Coyote, the vibration from the blade makes a huge difference in the fish being able to locate the fly in muddy water.

I've always liked the dorsal fin on white, hybrid,

and striped bass. 

One of several channel catfish from the day. 

The drum got in on the action also. 

Gills

Just a quick morning trip to a local pond to chase some gills. Was kind of slow this morning, likely do to the mild cold front. These fish are always fun on the 3wt. Water is still a tad cool and as the weather stabilizes and we enter late spring and early summer the action should really pick up.

Monday Movie; Mako

A good trip with Capt. David Trimble out of San Diego. Put some chum out and these mako's would show up in minutes. Pretty fun just watching the fish swim around the boat checking things out. Some solid fish landed and once hooked would make jumps that would put some tarpon to shame.