Franklin was calling my name Sunday night so I went out in the rain and drizzle to see if I could catch some panfish and bass. I took my 8′ 5 wt as I haven’t played with it in a while. I brought some Clousers that I tied a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t follow any pattern, just improvised with the material I had. They were primarily white with some peach flashabou and chain eyes. The fish weren’t interested in it all. I switched to a storebought clouser with more yellow and less red with red eyes. On the second cast, I caught a 12″ smallmouth bass. It fought really hard and I had a tough time keeping it out of the moss on the surface close to shore.
I also caught probably 10 panfish on #10 olive wooly buggers that I tied. I could hardly retrieve the fly without it getting attacked. I did catch one fish with some odd markings a mouth opening about the size of quarter. Not sure what it was, or even if it was different, but it seemed a little different.