Back to Ryans Creek today at daylight for some spots and a surprise Catfish or two. All the spots were taken on a dark turquoise Boogle Bug size 4, the lake was falling and I was lucky to land the four I did. With the lake falling I had to be a little innovative because of falling water. I decided to carry my 11 ft. crappie pole and drop a cricket with a white crappie nibbet tipped on the hook against the rock walls. The walls prove to be quite productive. I landed two channel catfish in depths of 15 to 18 ft. Lots of fun to land catfish anytime on any type rod---did I mention it was hoooooot and humidity was dripping wet.
Nice Spot at daylight, if you are not on the water early, you lose out on the top water action
Nice Channel Cat using the 11ft. crappie rod, some kind of fun on the long rod. Notice I am holding the fish with both hands, if you know anything about a catfish you know that you need to hold the top and side fins down, if these fins stick you it can be painful.
Here it is the last of June and I am just now making my first trout fishing tirp of the year. No this is not a Caney Fork trip. I hope to make that trip in August. Today's outing was on the Sipsey River below Smith Lake Dam. The owner of the Riverside Fly Shop told me the other day that the Mayflies were hatching and the rainbow had been gulping them down. So I canceled my trip to the Warrior River and instead spent a couple of hours on the water this morning with my 4wt, and a size 14 Parachute Adams dry. I notice as I move into an opening at the lower end of a run on the river their was some rising and that was where I headed. Within 5 minutes I had my first rainbow. The morning was good in that all the takes were on top which is what I like to see. I ended the morning with 6 rainbows in the range of 9 to 12 inches. I was really surprised with the takes especially on top because there had been a lot of fishing pressure in that area lately. The trip I was originally going to make instead of this trip was as I stated earlier the Warrior River, so now the Warrior trip will come Thursday of this week. Keep an eye out for the Warrior trip, because I have high hopes of landing some quality spots and largemouth on the big poppers I will be using. Thanks for stopping by today.
The first of the morning
Nice catch on the 4 wt.
This one finally ended up in the shallows
Now who is this guy??
Perfect way to start the morning with the fog mist
I must admit that I have not been on my blog or any other blog for the past week, due to projects going on around the house. There are times when you just let things go around the house and you tell yourself that I will get to it next week and the next week becomes next month and so on. Well I have been on next week and next month projects. I did manage to squeeze in a fishing trip on Desmel Creek yesterday for three hours, and land a few gills and one largemouth. The spots were not cooperating at all so I call it a day around 10 AM. and headed for home. I did discover that dark flies are more productive early in the morning than lighter flies. I feel this may have to do with the silhouette that a darker fly projects, especially against clear water. This is my own theory, who knows when one is trying to figure out the reaction of fish towards a lure at different times of the day. Hope everyone out there has a great weekend, and lands more fish than I did yesterday.
This has got to be one of the most colorful warmwater fish around--here in the South we refer to this species as a Sunperch
Strange place to hook a fish, but the Crafish fly stays put and I landed this nice Shellcracker. The way this fish was hooked tells me that the fish was not hitting.
Fishing with my daughter yesterday brought back some fond memories of when she was in Jr. High and High School. Back then she would go with me and sometimes bring along some of her friends and we would spend the better part of the day on the lake. Yesterday's trip was an extension of those outings. We started the morning out with me baiting her hook and placing a tiny white crappie nibblets on the point of the hook just below a big juicy cricket. That part hasn't changed because she still will not bait her hook and she isn't fond of removing the fish from the hook after she lands it. That is o.k. because I am just glad to have her back on the water with me. Jenny has always favored fishing with live bait as opposed to artificial lures. She claims she can catch more fish with live bait, and I sometimes agree with her, especially when the surface water warms to near 90 in the dead of summer. We left the house at 5AM and fish until 9:30 and she landed most all the fish. I was kind of along as the fishing companion. The highlight of the morning was the 22" Channel Cat she landed about 30 minutes into the trip. It took her a while to get the fish to the boat because fishing with a 7 1/2 ft. microlight rod and 4 lb. test line takes time. I must say she hasn't forgotten how to play a fish that size and she knows exactly how much pressure to apply to the rod to keep the fish out of the brush and into the deep water. She also got into some of the big bluegills and a couple of the spots, to round the trip out. I was using the fly rod and landed some smaller bluegills and one spot. As I told you the morning belongs to Jenny and I was glad to be just along for the ride. I am looking forward to when she comes back and I can take my son-in-law B.T. out and he can hopefully land a nice Spotted Bass.
The big boy of the morning, Jenny told me that there was no way she was holding this thing even after landing it
I did manage to get her to hold this Spotted Bass she landed.
It want be long until this little guy will be in the boat with us
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.
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 SmithLake 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.
Little did I know this morning at 3:45 AM, which by the way is the time I crawled out of bed I would land a four species combo? Why so early to go fishing? Well in the Deep South especially during the summer months, you have to be on the water early to avoid the heat and humidity. After 10 AM it starts to get humid and hot and the longer you stay on the water the more it feels like a sauna bath. In other words don’t brother to go the gym and sit in a sauna, just get out in this weather and in a few minutes your clothes are all wet and you have accomplished the bath. Back to the combo where it all started with the typical Kentucky Spot which SmithLake is famous for and shortly later a good largemouth . Both these fish were taken on the size 4 Boggle Bug Popper using my 5 wt Redington 8 ½ ft. As the morning progressed I picked up a few more Spots and a another largemouth. Both of these fish were taken on a size 8 orange popper using my Temple Fork 4 wt. The 4 wt. also help me land some nice bluegill and one Rock Bass which gave me the combo. This was not one of those hot popper days. The fish were somewhat finicky so I started to scan through for fly box for a different color popper. As the morning progressed I fish through 4 different colors and two different patterns. Yellow was really early, followed by a white and then I lost a turquoise popper because I didn’t brother to check my line at the fly eye, and it broke off with a tiny gill, which may still be swimming with my $4.00 Boggle Bug Popper. Around 8:30 I tied on the Green Grasshopper, which I could see after some casting that it was too close to the color of the water and it was put back into the fly box. The trip ended around 10 AM with the Orange size 8 popper which actually produced most of the fish I landed. It is an amazing little fly because it is so unusual in color and has black legs not white legs to compliment the look. I have used this fly for the past couple of years and it always seems to rescue me on slow popper days. Today’s conditions were a slight wind out of the south, with water temps hovering around 85, which I think before by the end of the day would have reached 87. Some days fishing with the poppers produce violet hits, but today all the takes were very sudtle with the fish rolling onto the fly. Sudtle or violet I'll take the hits either way. Charles made the trip with me today, and I hope we can get together again real soon.
Sorry for the dark image, but it was still dark when I took this picture of my first spot of the day on the Boogle Yellow Popper
This largemouth kills this white popper deep down
A nice largemouth on the white popper, no this fish did not die, he had a small cut in the roof of his mouth from the popper hook, I watched him swim off.
This big gill gave the 4wt all it wanted, it made numerous deep runs before it finally gave up. Great fighter.
This 2lb. largemouth was taken on the little orange popper, he just roll on the popper, no violet hit
Nice Rock Bass on the orange popper, first one of this season
This big gill inhaled the orange popper deep in its throat. Forceps was the ticket to get to the popper
This is one Memorial Day Weekend I won't forget for some time. My brother, Bobby and I spent the holiday weekend landing some of the largest crappie we have ever landed on the local lake near his home. I know the title of this post can be a little confusing, so here is the explanation. We were using 4 different techniques to land all the fish we kept the past three days. Let’s start with the Micro Light technique. I have talked about this technique before on this blog but let me give you a little more information. It is the method we started with Friday evening on the lake, which produced 17 crappie and bluegill. The micro-light method is just what it implies LIGHT fishing, using a 7 to 7 ½ ft. rod with a light spinning reel loaded with 4 lb. test light. This method emulates a short fly rod, which makes for some fantastic action when you are playing the size crappie and bluegill we were landing. We were using both rods Friday evening with reels that produced the perfect balance for the big 12 to 13-inch crappie we were catching. The Jigger Pole was another set-up we used. My brother has used this set-up for a number of years. He is extremely good at playing and landing crappie with this technique. I am still in the learning stages here, but I must admit it is a lot of fun learning. Here the individual uses a long graphite rod usually 9 to 13 ft. in length with a small spinning reel or close face reel. This set-up is perfect to fish in tight places such as stomps or treetops. We used this technique Saturday evening in treetops and submerged stomps we found in some of the nooks on the lake. The best lure for the Jigger is a tube jig or a minnow. The advantage one has here is holding the lure in front of the crappie longer.
If we had not switched from one set-up to another during the days fished we would have never landed 50 fish, we did and dressed the 15 best fish we brought home. and brought home the 44 we cleaned for a big fish fry. As always it is good to visit and fish with Bobby!
Monday, Jason and I left the house at 5 AM for a daylight fishing trip on SmithLake. I seldom get to fish with Jason, because he is in school and that has taken up pretty much all his time for the past two years. We were going to fish for some of the Kentucky Spots using the fly rod and also to see if there were still any crappie left in the area I fish Saturday. Starting at 5:30 AM has not produced the fish I consider good this season, and Tuesday was in the same lane. The first fish came at 7:30, with one of the crappies in the same area where I had success Saturday. Jason and I spent about an hour in the honey hole and landed 6 more slabs using the smoke and glitter curly tail grub with the redhead jig. The fish this time was bigger and slower to hit. I suspect the reason for the low numbers was the fact that we had caught all of them or the on-off hit factor crappie process. Leaving the crappie area we decided to start looking for shade because the sun had taken over most of the banks where we had fished earlier. If you are going to fish Smith topwater, you need to look for shade after the sun comes up because the lake is so clear the fish can see you at a considerable distance. It also helps to wear dark clothing instead of white or bright clothing. The Kentucky Spots on this lake have seen it all and are very wary of anything that threatens them. So you need every advantage you can muster. With that said, we pulled up on a steep rock wall bank near the dam where Jason did a long shoot cast that propelled his size 8 little white popper right next to the rock wall. He let the popper sit motionless for a few seconds before he gently moved it, which produced a violet hit yielding a 16” Spot. He had quite a fight on his 8 ½ ft. 4 wt fly rod. He played the fish to perfection and eventually landed it. This is what makes fly fishing so exciting and challenging is the play and landing a fish that is most of the time superior to the tackle you are using. It is the fish and you and sometimes the fish wins and sometimes you win. I noticed something on this trip that may make the next trip even more productive, which is popper size. The larger poppers haven’t produced as well this season so today was a test using smaller poppers, which really worked well getting the larger spots to hit. Before we left Jason and I landed 6 more spots and one largemouth, all on the white popper with the white legs. It was a great trip with my son whom I very seldom get to fish with. I hope we can make many more trips after he graduates.
Not a fly fishing report sorry to say. The fishing trip started off today as being a bass fishing outing using topwater lures at daylight. Fishing the Rapala one of the oldest topwater lures was the choice at daybreak. Things started off slow and didn’t improve until the sun came up and 3 Kentucky Spots were boated, with the Rapala. If you haven’t used this lure it is deadly when worked with a slight jerk imitating a wounded minnow. This jerk motion is what produced the BEST crappie fishing trip I have ever had on SmithLake today. 10:30 is when I spotted some tiny minnows skipping across the surface in the back of a nook just off the main body of the lake. By 10:30 on any Saturday fishing Smith you have got plenty of big ski boats churning and steering up the water to the point where you have dingy water mixing with the super clear water. This situation will cause the small minnows and tiny shad to ease into this type of water and try to hide in the dingy water from the bass that is chasing them: and this you might say is what produced the best crappie trip I have had on Smith Lake. Before today I had never caught more than 3 or 4 crappies on this lake. The first cast I made into the dingy water I thought was going to produce bass, but instead, produce huge crappie on the Rapala. I knew when I landed that first fish they had to be more where that one came from and as I suspected there was, to the tune of 18 in this little nook with a few brush piles for them to trap the minnows in. The 18 was caught in 1 ½ hours, which seems like a long time to land 18 crappie, but consider the conditions, wind 10 mph, out of the east, heavy boat traffic producing huge wakes and last the lost of my trolling battery trying to contend with the wind and boat traffic; but with a trip like today, I will count my blessings.
I don't have to tell you how good these fish are when fried or baked. I was lucky and may never catch this many carppie again in one place on this lake. As a matter of fact, you might say that this catch today was truly by accident---but that is what makes fishing so interesting to me, you never know what you are going to encounter when you hit the water. That is why I love it so.
This week my wife and I spent the better part of the week staying with our daughter and grandson, while our son-in-law was on a business trip in Dallas, Texas. Jenny our daughter didn’t want to stay by herself, so Mama and I gladly accepted her invitation to spend some quality time with her and Bryson our grandson. Bryson and I spent the first day outside because this little guy is an outdoor kid. If it moves outside he wants to investigate. Of course, we spent some time down at the creek beside their house exploring the water and listening to all the birds and frogs chirping. He loves the sound of the outside and not a sound goes unnoticed by him. Our second day was spent exploring the surroundings of the local park and watching different insects crawl around in the grass. I had forgotten how little guys like Bryson like to explore, and it brought back memories of when our son was a little tot, wandering around in the back yard. I have always heard that grandchildren are different from your own children, and now that we have Bryson I know that to be true. There is nothing like Grandchildren and the best part is the spoil factor, and believe me, my wife and I are working on that aspect.
Beautiful creek near their house
Bryson exploring, sorry for the blur, but he was moving to fast
Tuesday’s regular fishing trip was on beautiful SmithLake. I say regular because Tuesday and Thursday are my fishing days, and the rest of the week is taken up with the gym and catching up on chores. Man, it is nice being retired!
The trip started around 6 AM and ended at 10:30.The setup for the day was again the 5 wt and 4 wt rods rigged with a size 4 popper on the 5 wt. and a size 4 Zonker on the 4 wt. I was targeting Kentucky Spots and landed 6 in the 12” range, but missed out on the larger fish. They were not hitting the popper as well as I had seen them hit in the past, so I had to really work the bug to get the takes I got. The one thing I have discovered on Smith when using the poppers is you must find a shade to get a take, and after 10 AM that is hard to do. The perfect time to land quality spots on the lake is daylight. After the sun comes up you are either looking for shade or going down under with buggers, crawfish, craws, zonkers, or any other fly that produces a slow fall. This lake is gin clear and shade or daylight is a must for success on top. I did manage to land a quality catfish using the zonker on a slow fall stripping the line as if I was using a streamer, and in a way, the zonker is a streamer pattern. The catfish was a first for me on the fly and I have to say it gave the 5 wt a good bend. I am off the rest of this week because my wife and I are spending some quality time with our grandson in Tennessee. Who knows I just might share a few Bryson stories with you guys this week. Take care everyone.
He really wanted the Boggle Bug
The Kentucky Spot fights like the Smallmouth, that is why I love to go after them
The Zonker in craw color, this was a nice male catfish
Monday was my first trip this year for me to fish for the Kentucky Spots using the fly rod on Smith Lake. I started out using a size 4 Boggle Bug in dark turquoise on my 4 wt. After a few minutes of casting I discovered that the size 4 popper was a little too much bug for the 4 wt because it required to much effort to get the distance I wanted. I had my 5 wt with me but it was rigged with a cream Wooly Bugger. I usually fish the size 4 Boggle Bugs with the 5 wt, but I needed the backbone of the 5 wt for the Buggers, to help with hook set. With all that said I lost the lone Spot of the morning on the turquoise popper, and never got to stretch the leader again with that fly. The top water action was not happening so I decide to go to the Wooly bugger and a Craw. I did manage to land two Spots using a cream bugger and the other three spots was landed using a unique craw pattern tied by Pat Cohen from the blog Warm Water Journal. This craw is amazingly life like, and will be one of my top producing flies this season. Pat ties some exceptional flies and this pattern is just one of many he ties. The spots in this lake feed heavily on crawfish and this fly is the perfect imitation to entice big hits. The down side of this whole trip was the fact I only got to fish an hour, because my crack battery went out. I have learned over the years if you own a boat, there is always something that is going wrong with it, and today was an example.
Good fight on the 5wt--the lake is super clear so this spot had no trouble seeing the Craw. I expect to land some larger Spot using this fly.
This Craw pattern is going to be a winner on this lake for me, because the bass have not seen anything like this pattern before
Needless to say I didn’t accomplish my goal of landing 100 bluegills during the month of April. The horrendous Tornados that hit Alabama this past week put an end to my quest. I must say I have never seen destruction like my family and I have seen this past week. It all started Wednesday morning with the start of over 100 tornados that pounded the state all day and into the night. Power is not restored as of yet to most of the state, and parts of the state will not have power restored for weeks. The subdivision that my family and I live in lost electricity Wednesday morning and was not restored until Friday night. Our area escaped with some minor damage such as trees down and power lines down. We feel very blessed that we survived all three tornados that came our way and pray and feel for all those that lost family and all their belongings. You don’t realize how precious life is until you go through and experience something like we witnessed and went through this past week. I am sure most of you have seen the destruction and damage through the news media, but for those of you who may have missed the footage the videos below show the actual events.
I hope everyone is not getting bored with all these reports of my bluegill fishing trips. I have really got into this quest of mine, landing 100 super bull bluegills by the end of this month. Keep in mind here, I am only counting the big males. Today;s trip got me closer to my goal. I started out around and left the lake 3 hours later. I didn’t have to contend with the bad windy conditions I have been battling lately, which help me hit some of the areas that I have not been able to fish. Those areas today produced some big bluegills along with a couple of nice Shell Crackers. The big boys today all came on the Black Gnat and the rest were taken on the size 8 popper. The limit on this lake is 20 bluegills for the day and it is strictly enforced. This lake is well managed and the fish are some of the healthiest I have ever landed. The fight is awesome, and most of the time the fight is going away from the boat. I had the limit by and left for home. I only kept the big bulls which totaled out at 15. I did find out today that the Gnat works best with my 5 wt as opposed to my 4 wt. I can set the hook much better with the 5 wt, and I can also get the fly up out of the water much better with the added backbone of the 5 wt not to mention handling the big Shell Crackers I landed today. The 4 wt works great for all the surface flies I fish on the lake. I don’t have to tell you guys how much I am enjoying this little venture. After today’s outing my total is 85. We have bad weather tomorrow and Wednesday, so I only have Thursday or Friday to make my mark. Wish me luck!
One of the first of the day in--this fish came up 7 ft. to grab this popper, I was fishing a flat ranging from 7 to 8 ft. deep
When they take the fly this deep in their mouth, you know they mean to kill it. The orange popper has been the color for the past couple of trips.
Notcie the Black Gnat, this Shell Cracker was in water 6 ft. down. I was fishing the Gnat with a slow fall, all I had to do was watch the line, when it goes so does the fish
