Lunch fishing can be fun. I never thought I could enjoy fly fishing in 45 minute segments, but I did.

I walked across the street to my little home pond today with my cheap, 3 wt fly rod. I hadn’t used it in probably 2 years (I wouldn’t dare of used it on the Provo for fear of a monster trout snapping it in two). Sticking with white flies was key once again.

My first fly was a white wb with a striped white and grey hackle that I tied as one of my first flies years ago. I had some trouble getting the thing to sink as it didn’t have any weight on it. The funny thing is after a noticebly poor attempt at a roll cast, I tried to pull the fly out of the water without disturbing it and all of a sudden, a bass jumped out of the water at it. That got me going.

There’s a small channel created by an island in the middle of the pond that I like to target. There seem to be a lot of bass in there and it reminds me of fishing in a river which I sorely want to do soon (and I will be next month). I cast a couple of times and then the fly stopped…. completely. The stop turned into a run that within 3 seconds, snapped the fly right off. I did see the fish before it ran off with my homemade fly – it was about an 18 inch bass. I was completely psyched after that.

I tried a homemade white and pink tinsel clouser I made for redfish. No luck with this one. I switched to a really poorly made wb with too little chennelle and too much head thread. Didn’t seem to matter for the small bass and perch. I caught another 5 or 6 and realized my lunch was over.

Now that was fun. Can’t wait for my next long walk across the street.

As part of a birthday gift to me (holy crap, I’m 40 today), my pond let me catch quite a few fish this evening. I took the advice of Kevin, Mr Bass, and tied up a small, white WB with black hackle wire and olive maribou. I tied it on a size 12 hook.

His advice was to bounce it on the bottom near drop offs with 10″ retrieves. It worked.

First fish was a feisty perch. Good sign. Second fish was a perch minnow, but I caught it almost instantly after catching the first. I started to walk closer to the island in the back corner of the pond and threw a cast out to the water between the island and the shore, carefully avoiding the many turtles. A small tug which turned into a nice run for a small bass.

Couple of casts after the first bass, I got another.

After I released the second, I saw the water stiring near the shore about 20 yards down the shore. I quickly cast to it, about a foot to the left and it hit my WB. Within about 10 seconds of a hefty fight, it pulled my fly off. Maybe next time….

I had to run to the store to pick up some important stuff like coffee for the next morning, so I had to leave. I was sooo happy that I found some success on the pond.

On to larger fish now!

Fly Fishing and Instruction

Has anyone been here?  My birthday is coming up and I may just treat myself to a selfguided trip to their private creek.

Hi all you migrating over from my blogger site. Apologize for the mess on this site – just getting it set up again.

Alistair over at The Urban Fly Fisher ran across a carcass while fishing and pondered the fate of the sheep over the rest of the fishing season. Don’t think I’ll see anything like this in my area.

I usually enjoy his photography of the European rivers, but I’ll pass on these photos.