...so I loaded up the kayak early this morning and hit some public waters.
1.5" orvis chartreuse & white clouser with bead chain eyes was the ticket. Biggest bass was 19", followed with an 18.5". Picked up a few more decent ones and many dinks. Caught a bunch of small bluegill, some redear, with a few decent ones. Also picked up my annual channel cat on the fly. Probably around 15" or so but fought harder than the bigger bass. All caught on the 6wt around weed lines. Weeds were coming up but not nearly as bad as what I thought they would be.
Fished until around 2pm then made my way to a nearby spot in search of Orange Spotted Sunfish. I read an old survey report that they were in a small prairie stream. So I rigged up the 3wt to give it a try. I also took my Ruger Single Nine along with some 22 mag shot shells incase I came across one of Slayer's noisier nemesis. No luck on the rattlers though. I tied on some 6x tippet and the smallest weighted nymph I had in my flybox. Caught a few small creek chubs then decided to move up to a prince nymph. Drifted it under some over hanging weeds and much to my surprise, a huge fish nailed it. I wasn't prepared with the 6x tippet and did my best to fight it but it stayed in the overhanging weeds. Caught a glimpse of it but couldn't tell what it was. Fought it for a while and it finally broke off. Moved upstream and drifted a bead head damsel fly nymph in similar areas and picked up two small browns and missed a couple more, so I think the big fish was a much larger brown. Very surprised to catch browns there. I'll be back for the big guy.
1.5" orvis chartreuse & white clouser with bead chain eyes was the ticket. Biggest bass was 19", followed with an 18.5". Picked up a few more decent ones and many dinks. Caught a bunch of small bluegill, some redear, with a few decent ones. Also picked up my annual channel cat on the fly. Probably around 15" or so but fought harder than the bigger bass. All caught on the 6wt around weed lines. Weeds were coming up but not nearly as bad as what I thought they would be.
Fished until around 2pm then made my way to a nearby spot in search of Orange Spotted Sunfish. I read an old survey report that they were in a small prairie stream. So I rigged up the 3wt to give it a try. I also took my Ruger Single Nine along with some 22 mag shot shells incase I came across one of Slayer's noisier nemesis. No luck on the rattlers though. I tied on some 6x tippet and the smallest weighted nymph I had in my flybox. Caught a few small creek chubs then decided to move up to a prince nymph. Drifted it under some over hanging weeds and much to my surprise, a huge fish nailed it. I wasn't prepared with the 6x tippet and did my best to fight it but it stayed in the overhanging weeds. Caught a glimpse of it but couldn't tell what it was. Fought it for a while and it finally broke off. Moved upstream and drifted a bead head damsel fly nymph in similar areas and picked up two small browns and missed a couple more, so I think the big fish was a much larger brown. Very surprised to catch browns there. I'll be back for the big guy.
