The Fun Goes On

Yellowwood calls.

I start down the shoreline and find a big fat plastic bait wrapped in a bush. There is a fair amount of fisherman's trash here and it's very much visible before the leaves are fully out. Some I can pick up; some, like the lure I saw glittering from a branch thirty feet over the water, I can't.

I may use that big fat bait some day but today I'm using a big fat marabou tie. This is one of the ways that things have changed since catching that big bass. I'm constantly thinking about that fish and it makes me go with big subsurface flies. I also stay with them longer than I used to. And I'm trying to get them deeper and deeper.

I come to a little point in the shoreline and get a nice little hit on the fly. It's no lunker but it seems to confirm that I'm on the right track with this fly.

So I keep going with it past the beaver cuttings and on down the shoreline following my usual loop.

I spot a bobber bobbing in the weeds. There are quite a few bobbers. Some are faded holdovers from last year but this one was stocked this year. Sebastian will like it.

I cross over enjoying the peace and quiet.

A whippoorwill starts up. It's one of my favorite evening sounds. It seems to proclaim that summer is near and there's no going back.

I finally take off the big marabou pattern and tie on a muddler dry to see if the bluegill are awake. I get lots of splashy strikes and hook up with a few of those small fry. Then I catch a good one. Looking good in the bluegill department.

I kick along and see a fish rise and rise again. Expecting a bluegill I cast to it and get an instant take. What do you know, it's a bass.

That's the way I like to catch them.

I think of other bass I have known who relished a big bass bug twitched on the surface just at dark. I think I need to keep looking for a lake with lily pads and big bass who like to patrol them.

But then again, that lunker I caught just a few weeks ago is still in here. Do I stay with the subsurface flies, or is it time to go on top? And if I do, how do I get her and her ilk to come up and join me?

And the fun goes on.

Rambunctious Youths

Yellowwood. Dog days. The lake is beautiful, the heat is perfectly Augusty. Fishing is slow.

There are the usual suspects. An occasional rock bass who can't believe his eyes when he sees that worm. But that's it for the east side.

On the west side one small bass is looking up and nails a big muddler.

And there are still bluegill ranging out as the sun goes down.

The lack of catching means I have time to make the full loop. Some nights I have to cut things short.

I get to the dam. Something is going on here. Fish are splashing up by the weeds. I throw the muddler in there. A bass whacks it.

There's a hatch going on. As the light wanes big white mays are popping up and skipping across the water. The bass are mad to eat them. It's a lovely summer show.

I get in on the act. The bass like my light muddler. They slash and yank at it. They come straight up and go airborne to get at it. Some come undone but many stick. They're all rambunctious youths. But they'll be bigger next year.

After awhile I quit taking pictures. Then I finally give in to the dark and the lateness of the hour and head in. The bass are still punctuating the night with splashes. I'm making plans to get back here again soon. Someone needs to monitor this hatch.

Underway

I dug through some boxes this afternoon and located all of my fly fishing equipment. That comes under the heading of "unpacking" so it was all good. It's just a coincidence that it means I can now actually go fishing with it.

It was a little poignant to clean off the fly patch on my vest. There before me was the record in flies of my 2016 Washington fishing season. When I finished removing all the flies I was left with the proverbial clean slate. Time to begin fly fishing in Indiana again.

Why not sooner than later? I slipped away after supper and headed to the nearby lake to stretch my casting muscles.

I began on the dock. It felt good to cast again. I had a 5X tippet on, and fished a few different small flies, from mayflies to griffith's gnats. I knew there were fish under the dock, but I was still convinced there could be bigger bluegill and maybe crappie, and maybe even bass, out in open water.

Dead drift, twitching, a slow strip, and even drowning the flies and stripping them in, brought no evidence of fish life. I tried a small muddler greased to float and again moved nothing. I wasn't so convinced anymore.

I crossed the causeway and cast the muddler out past the weed beds in the main lake. (My backcast was tailing out over the road behind me, so I had to watch for passing cars and bicycles. One cyclist hit his brakes hard enough to squeal the tires, but I would have missed him by a mile.)

The muddler got immediate attention, but it seemed that the fish hitting it were too small to get a grip on it. I tied on a little light caddis and caught the first fish in Indiana. Why not a bluegill for the first fish? You can bet it won't be the last bluegill.

With the coming of dusk the lake lit up. Fish were active all along the shoreline and in the weed beds. Some, I surmised, must be bass. I switched to a muddler and worked it. No bass this time, but one very feisty pumpkinseed managed to get its mouth around that big fly.

So the fly gear is out and organized, and the rod and my casting arm are limbered up. My 2016 Indiana fishing season is underway.