Warm water prep

Here are some flies that I make sure that are always available in my fly box for warm water fishing.  As you can see I started with some popper production. 

Then I started the job of painting them and then finished them off with a little fox for the tail and then wrapped some hackle.  You should always have some yellow, olive, chartruese and black when you are going for smallies.  I am trying red this year too.  Will have to see how they all work.  

 

Then I moved on to replentishing my clouser patterns.  They are always fun to tie.  I am trying a couple of the clousers with rabbit strips.  I am really anxious to see how they work.  I like to have at least the gray/white, chartruese/white, and fire tiger (green/yellow/orange) in my box.  I added a few extra colors with the white/red/white, and brown/orange.

 

Never leave home without a few crayfish patterns.

 

 

This year, I added a few Hammer Head Croakers.  These subsurface frog flies have produced well for me when chasing large mouths and catfish.  I want to see how the smallies react to them this year.

Stuck my Hiney in the Piney

I recently spent some time with extended family up in Blackwell, PA.  Every year we have a family gathering of my wife's family at a cabin that sits within walking distance of the Big Pine Creek and the rails to trails path that follows along this creek.  A lot of the family likes to spend time on the bikes enjoying the scenery.  They ride up through portions of the PA Grand Canyon or they ride down to Cedar Run for ice cream.  Sometimes I tag along but other times I would rather be in the creek. 

Unfortunately I forgot my camera.  I had some awesome experiences on the water the one evening.  I had a black bear cross the creek just down stream of me.  Then I had a bald eagle fly overhead.  And then I had a mother pin tail duck swim by me with her brood of young.  She had 24, yes 24 babies that she guided up around me.  Oh and the fishing was good too.

Sometimes I can get into a few trout but it wouldn't be happening this time.  There hasn't been a lot of rain and the water was really low.  I knew right away as I stepped into the creek that this would be a bass day.  The water felt like a mildly warm bath.  The air temps were in the 90's and the water had to be close to 80.  It didn't even feel refreshing as I was wet wading in this water.  I was trying some new popper designs and they produced well for me.  I also was using the ice magic, which is a new design I have been working on.  It produced well on the smallies.  It was a black and chartreuse model.  Most of the smallies that I caught were on the smaller side.  I have never caught any that were too large.  I know they are there but they have never cooperated with me very well. 

This night was different though.  But I found out that this fish was better than I was tonight.  I was using this new popper.  I had been catching small fish on it and was used to their little splash takes.  All of the sudden my popper was engulfed by a large fish.  I had a good fight on my hands.  This fish got down and dirty in the fight, then would rocket out of the water!  He did this three times that he launched himself out of the creek.  This smallie was the largest fish I had ever hooked on this creek.  It's depth of body told me it was the king of this section of water for sure!  And he proved to be too tough to handle.  Just before he jumped the third time he started spooling line.  Something happened with my drag and when he stopped running, the reel didn't and there was some slack line.  It took this opportunity to jump, spit the hook and say C-YA!  I was bummed that I didn't get it to hand but was happy to know I can hook up with the big boys.

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.