Bloop, Bloop.......Gulp!

I love top water bass fishing! Casting poppers and other top water flies to bass and sunnies is a blast. If you ever get the chance to do it, take the opportunity to do it.

Sometimes the strikes come right after the pop when you are letting it just sit there. This retrieve worked a little but I got more strikes when, after the cast and just letting all the rings disappear from the fly landing, to just slowly pulling the fly back to me. Then the big gulp would come. It is such a thrill to me to see their aggressive takes!  Water splashing every where as they come up to kill that popper that is bothering them. 

Today I had an all white popper drawing the strikes.  I caught several decent large mouths and I even had a few sunnies that joined in the action.  I didn't get anything monsterous, but anytime you can get the surface bite, it is really exciting. 

It was also thrilling to watch the bass feeding along the edges of the pond.  There would be a couple bass swimming about 4-5 feet from the bank.  This would push the minnows up to the edge with very little room to escape.  Then all of the sudden you would see big splashes as the bass would zoom into the shallow water to go for their next meal.  I wish my camera had a better zoom.  As I was watching this feeding action of the bass, a snake joined in.  As the minnows would be in the shallow, this snake would swim through and was attempting to snag his next meal.  It wasn't as successful but it was interesting to watch.

New Creations

I have been doing some creating lately. I have had a lot of new concepts running through my head. I finally got some time and put some of these patterns to life. I am anxious to test them out and get the fish approval.

First is the sculpin.  I got some of the sculpin helmets and just had to tie some up.  They are really awesome heads to work with and they fish really well. 

The next thing I was wanting to come up with was cicada imitations.  I had gotten some of the "ThingAMaBody" and I came up with these imitations.  I had gotten one of the cicadas that we see every year around our place.  Should be fun this summer when they show up again.  I  also heard that in the next year or two there are going to be some of the 13 or 17 year cicadas showing up in certain locations.  So I was playing around with ideas for them as well. 

Here is a modification to the clouser or even a deceiver.  I have beed chain and on the end of the chain I put artic fox or marabou.  It has some nice action.  I am hoping the fish like it as much as I do. 

I was playing around with some minnow imitations for my next bass trip.  There are some greenside darters and some other small minnows that I am trying to imitate.  These patterns are just a little over 2".  I am hoping the bass find them tasty. 

There are a lot of frogs around in the summer.  One of my son's friends was fishing with a little rubber frog last summer and did really well on the bass on our pond.  I thought I need to have my own imitation that we can fish.  I am excited to try this one out. 

I got some professional photos taken of my new crayfish pattern "Stoned Claw Crazy".  I have been having a lot of fun with this pattern.  The fish have given me some good feedback on it.  :)