Fishing Pressured Water Verses UnPressured Waters

The other day I had the pleasure of going to a small lake about 10 areas with one of my fishing buddies. He had access to the impoundment and wanted me to try some of my flies that I use on Smith in it. I gladly accepted the invitation and we hit the water late afternoon. He told me that the lake was fished very little and the owner seldom ever let anyone fish. I knew when he told me this that it would probably be a busy afternoon, and I was not surprised. We started catching fish on the first cast and it continued throughout the afternoon. The species range from catfish, bluegill, crappie, bass and  rock bass. It finally got to the point where I was experimenting with flies just to see if they would hit a particular pattern or color, and I found out it really didn't matter. Some of the largest bass was around a couple of pounds with the crappie and bluegill being oversize. The owner takes great care in fertilizing the lake and making sure that the fish are not overpopulated. My buddy told me not to keep any of the bass, but to keep the bluegill and crappie. We gave all of them away to some individuals who was glad to get them.
This experience showed me the vast difference in waters that have a lot of fishing pressure, such as Smith Lake verses waters like we fished. Anyone could have go to this lake and caught fish, even if you wasn't trying, it was that easy. I told my buddy before we left that if fishing was like this on every trip then I might get bored, because the challenge would be gone. The challenge of trying to figure out what the fish are hitting and how to use the lure is what makes fishing so interesting to me, but a trip like this one is not bad for the ego. Sorry guys no images on this one, because I consider all these fish tame.

Fishing With One of my Fellow Bloggers

Today’s trip was not quite what I expected as far as number of fish was concerned, but the companionship and the friendship I developed today with Jay from The Naturalist Angle Blog was worth the trip. Jay arrived at my house around 5: 15 and we left and proceeded to Smith Lake to try our hand at some of the big Kentucky Spots. There was only one problem the Spots forgot to turn on that violet hit mode. So we both spent the morning landing some nice bull bluegill and Jay did manage to land a 12 ¼” spot and another smaller one both on top. The top wasn’t working not because of the weather, but because of the feeding pattern. I told Jay that late yesterday evening there was a lot of cloud cover in the area and that was probably when the feeding occurred. Some of the best top water action is on cloudy days on Smith. This morning there was little wind to speak of and the water temp was around 85, which is excellent for top water action but nothing was happening.

I found out what I already knew about Jay, that he is an accomplished fly fisherman. He was making some exceptional fly presentations and some extremely long cast this morning, because most of the morning we were some distance from the bank. I told him at the start of the trip that if the spots could see you they would not hit, so some long cast was in order. As the morning wound down and the sun started to take away the shade banks we switched to nymph style flies, which produced one spot for me on a size 8 crayfish: nothing else happened from down under the rest of the morning. It was not from like of trying because we both put forth a valiant effort, with exceptional placement and presentations, but none of that matters if the fish aren’t there and not hitting. I looked forward to another trip with Jay and hope the Kentucky Spots are in a better mood whenever he makes his way back to Jasper again. 

   Jay with one of the big bull bluegills

Jay with the best spot of the day