Lack of Blog Activity This Past Week

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 Jenny on Smith Lake

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



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

Rock, Bluegill, Spots, Largemouth Combo

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 Smith Lake 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

Last Spot of the day on the little orange popper

One good meal from these 3 bulls

I will be getting more of these little bugs

Landing Slab Crappie on Legion Lake Fishing With my Brother

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!