Need Some Input for a Big Popper Fly Rod

On my trip to Dismal Creek the other day I carried my 5 wt. fly rod along to see if I could entice some of those larger spots to take my big popper. As I told you in my previous post I had no luck. The top water action was nothing. I did discover while flinging the size 4 popper that it was a hassle to get any distance and to control my cast with any degree of accuracy using the 5wt. and popper set-up. I really discovered this little bit of news after the first cast, but continue on in hopes of hooking up with my trophy spot. As the morning wore on I saw that needed a longer rod 9 ft. with the weight being a 6 or 7. I don't want to go over kill here and I don't want to spend a great deal of money either, because by the time I select the reel and match the rod and supply the line I am talking a tidy sum. If any of you guys have a suggestion it would be appreciated. For those of you who have use a heavier weight rod with larger flies I would welcome your input. I have discovered when it comes to selecting fishing equipment it never hurts to get an opinion or two from your buddies.

The Cat and the Spot

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.

First Trout Outing For This Year---Finally!!!!

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

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