I need to set up an anonymous tip hotline.

I've been getting anonymous tips over the past few weeks with different fishing locations around central IL.  The last one paid off with a couple bass the day I got my new fly rod so I figured to try out the other couple locations I was made aware of.  The one I visited yesterday is a public lake in Brimfield, IL.  The commenter had said that he and a friend hit up this pond and caught 100+ bluegills, a nice crappie and several small bass.  Sounded like a hell of a time to me so I packed up and headed out.

My first intention was to get some use with the Pflueger reel and Sufix braid that OBN provided me with to review.  I tied on a flourocarbon leader, bullet weight, and 7.5" black and purple Culprit worm.  On my second cast, I had a hit in some reeds along the shore.  Felt like a decent fish.  He thrashed once, got tangled in a reed and then my leader snapped. 

I took the time to tie on another leader, weight, and hook and got to casting again.  Not a dozen casts later I had broken off again.   I'm gonna spool up some mono and give the Pflueger reel another chance before passing judgement on it, though I'm much more impressed with it than the line.

I had only two worm hooks going in and I foolishly didn't pick any up before heading out so it was time to switch to the fly rod.  I tied on a smallish popper and (anticipating the bluegills) a dropper rig with some kind of nymph thing with shiny copper wire that I was given.  For anyone who isn't familiar, a dropper rig is when you tie about 1 1/2ft of tippet onto the hook of the popper and tie on a smaller fly that doesn't float.  The idea being that if you attract fish that are too small to eat the popper, they'll eat the dropper fly.

It worked like a charm.  I had a quite a few swirls at the popper and a few even drug it down but didn't get the whole thing in their mouths.  However, every once in awhile I'd see the popper shoot under, would set the hook and it was fish on.  It's like combining the simplicity of bobber fishing with the fun of fly casting.

There were fisherpeople every 30 yards or so along the bank, bobbers bobbing along or poles propped up on Y-sticks.  I gave the usual nod and "Any luck?" as I passed each one.  No luck to be had, with only one guy with a little bluegill in his fishtrap.

The fishing definitely wasn't as good as had been indicated by my commentor (I blame the varying temperature here lately) but I was getting hits just about every 3rd cast or so.  I missed alot of the hooksets, leading me to believe the fish were too small to eat even my tiny dropper fly.  The seven bluegill I brought to hand were nearly identical to this:

Better than what all the bait fisherman were catching

Eventually, something drilled the popper under and was putting up a good fight when I set the hook.  I was convinced I had a bass on the line.  Imagine my surprise when I pulled this guy out of the water:

My first crappie that didn't involve a bobber or tube jig.

That makes four species on the fly rod this year: Largemouth, Bluegill, Trout (At the Hooked on Fishing event), and Crappie.  At least I accomplished one goal that I set for myself.  (Don't think I'll be setting goals next year, it makes doing outdoorsy stuff feel like work.)

After the crappie, I worked along the side of the lake with no shoreline trees to get hung up on.  I caught a couple of the 7 bluegill, missed a few more hooksets and had a few fish fight their way off the line.  A good way to spend a couple hours on a day off. 

I realized my fly box is getting pretty bare just in time for fall.  I have a bunch of dry flies, a couple poppers, that nymph, and two woolly buggers.  I think I might have to invest in a vise and tying equipment in the next couple months to replenish and keep myself sane over the winter months.  Any suggestions as to a relatively inexpensive setup?

Wanna see a grown man's heart break?

Clif finished editing the video from last saturday.  It starts with a cameo from someone you might know:



Hooked on Fly Fishing from Clif on Vimeo.

What an awesome time.  I'm pretty sure every fish in the video was caught by Brian, the guy who was killing them the second half of the day with a crawfish pattern.

Thanks to Clif for putting all of that together, makes for a good way to relive the good fishing.

I have come here to chew bubblegum and catch trout...

... and I'm all outta bubblegum.

Had trouble sleeping last night, like a kid before Christmas.  I'd been waiting for this day for weeks now. Visions of the giant trout from last year were swimming in my head.

Got to the Hooked on fishing pond right at 10am.  There were already 4-5 guys out there whipping a fly around.  I walked over to Jonn and said hello and then got down to business.

I had a brown woolly bugger with a bead on the head tied on for most of the day.  A few casts in I got my first bite:

Not exactly what I was expecting.  Caught two of these hand sized hybrids.

I let him go and moved down to a little inlet where we were tearing them up last fall.  After a few casts, Clif got there and we watched as a guy caught a few on nymphs.

Shortly thereafter, I hooked up:

That's more like it.

A few more casts and I hooked something huge.  It took off, making my reel SCREAM.  I don't want to say too much about the fight because Clif taped it and if he uploads it and I ask nice, maybe he'll let me put the vid in here later to tell the story.

After that, something possessed me to give up my honey hole by the inlet and move down the bank.  (I shouldn't have.  The guy who moved into that spot really tore into them later in the day, hooking a couple big ones that Clif has footage of.  Oh well, I gave it up fair and square.)

After moving down the bank, I managed to hook another one.  It seemed like at least half of my fish were on when I paused my stripping for a few seconds.  (usually when distra- squirrel!)  I would strip again, feel a weight on the line and set the hook.  Maybe I need to be using an indicator next time and do less stripping?  Anyway, here's the one I hooked down the bank:

Sorry bout the finger.  I'm not the most coordinated guy when I'm just standing still, let alone fighting a fish and taking a picture at the same time.

Didn't have anybody nearby with a net so I just pulled it up to the bank, snapped a pic and set her loose.

I moved back down towards my honey hole and the guy who had moved into it (name was Brian, seemed like a nice guy) and I took turns catching fish and netting them for each other.  Not intentionally, it just seemed to work out that way.  Here's my two out of the rotation:

I believe this net starts at zero in the middle and goes out on both sides (correct me if I'm wrong Clif) so this one is 17-18".

My biggest of the day.  Can't really tell because of the goofy pose but she was THICK.   This is the only way I could get ahold of her well enough for a pic.

These were all by about 1ish.  After that, my day tapered off.  It could have been that as it warmed up they wanted bigger offerings and the biggest thing I had was the woolly bugger I had been using all day.  Brian tied on a crawfish pattern, was just tossing it out and letting it sit on the bottom and was tearing them up for awhile.  He had a couple monster fish that got off and had a run where he had bites on like 5 out of 6 casts.  I'm for sure gonna pick up some crawfish flies.  I'm sure they'll come in handy on bass in between Hooked on Fishing park events.

So that was pretty much my day.  Fishing wasn't quite as hot as it was last fall (still probably the best fishing I'll experience all year) but I was happy to make a donation to a good cause in exchange for some good fishing and I'd be happy to do it again.

Doing anything on March 12th?

Well cancel your plans.

That is, if you live within driving distance of East Peoria, IL.  (I'm looking at you Wolfy and Zack.)

Why, you ask?

Well you remember that post I put up last September about my first trout on the fly?  You know, at the Hooked on Fishing park?  The one where they usually don't let anybody fish so the trout are huge, dumb, and fly hungry?

One of the smaller ones of the day.  I know there's no size reference but he was probably 14-15".  The biggest had trouble fitting into this same net lengthwise.

Well they're holding another fundraiser.

For a $25 suggest donation, you get fly fishing instruction from pros the like of Jonn from Streamstalker and five hours of fishing these fly-dumb trout.  If you've never flyfished or aren't very experienced, don't worry.  When I went last year I had probably used a fly rod less than a dozen times and Jonn had me casting and catching fish in no time.

Big goofy grin guaranteed.

The $25 goes towards the Hooked on Fishing park, which offers fishing opportunities to the elderly and people who normally wouldn't be able to have access to excellently managed fisheries.  Check out Nate's blog for more info.  It's a great cause and honestly, people go on vacations and spend thousands of dollars to get access to fish that are smaller and much harder to catch.

Even if you're not interested in showing, try to spread the word.  It's a great opportunity to get someone involved in the sport, especially those who haven't flyfished or kids.  (There was kid who was probably 6 or 7 years old who was fishing while we were eating lunch last year and he was having a blast, hooking fish all on his own, if only for a few seconds.)

For more information, check out Lunker Hunt.  Clif has a bunch of photos and some awesome footage up from last year.

Hope to see ya there!

First trout on the fly!

First off, I want to apologize for the lack of posting lately. Full time work + full time school = not much time for fishing.

Fortunately, after stumbling across an event on Clif's blog,  I decided the drought needed to be over.  So after my test (yes, an algebra class on a Saturday morning. blech.) I headed over to Nate's Hooked on Fishing trout pond to get some instruction in the way of fly fishing.

Right after I walked into the complex, Jonn headed me off and started me off with some fly-less casting lessons.  Turns out my self-taught casting method was too long of a cast and didn't come to enough of an abrupt stop to shoot the line out.  After a few casts, Jonn realized that something was wrong with my line.  After some examination, he figured out that my fly line doesn't have a taper, which is not very conducive to beginning fly fishing.  He went to get one of his rods for me to use, and while he was over there, I helped Clif land a nice trout and snapped a pic for him, which will probably be up on Lunker Hunt later on I imagine.

After lunch (absolutely amazing fresh grilled trout and a burger), Clif and I headed to the other side of the pond where there was a little inlet streaming in.  After a bunch of casting and a couple missed hooksets, I hooked into this guy:

(Thanks to Clif for the net and camera work)

We continued to fish that section next to the inlet with good success.  I caught 5 more, roughly the same size or bigger than the one above.  I tried to get some good pictures but it was becoming apparent that I was putting too much stress on the fish so the only other good picture of a trout I have is of this one, which I think is my third or fourth of the day:

I think he was about the same length as the first one, just a bit skinnier.

Clif had to leave for a bit so I was on my own for awhile for netting fish.  Caught two while he was gone, of course, my largest of the day was one of them.  It was awesome to fight him out on the flyrod, let him tire himself out and then lead him into the net.  He was so big that I had a hard time with it.  It was very difficult to get him unhooked and I had to let him recuperate in the net for a bit before he swam off but off he went eventually.

A little bit later, Jonn let me try out his Sage Largemouth rod.  It has a really heavy line on it and shoots out line like a rocket.  It made me, a total novice, feel like I was casting like a pro.  While casting the Sage, I didn't have many bites but I did hook up one time.  When I was stripping it in, it wasn't fighting like the rest of the trout I'd caught all day.   Turns out it wasn't:

A bass!  Woo!  Great way to end the outing.  It started raining and the event was coming to a close.  I chatted with Jonn a bit about line and rod options, said thanks for the lessons and headed home.

Overall an awesome reinvigorating day on the fly.  Thanks to Clif for helping me land fish and snap pics, to Jonn for the lessons and letting me use his awesome equipment, and to Nate for putting on such a great get-together.

I would suggest my readers (all four of you) to follow Nate's blog (linked above) and support his Hooked on Fishing ponds in any possible.  From what I've read and heard, they do some great things for kids and handicapped individuals in the Peoria area.  I'll definitely be looking out for ways to help out.

UPDATE:  Nate has updated his blog with pics of the event here.  Most of them were taken before I got there.  You can see the inlet that Clif and I were fishing four pics from the bottom.

UPDATE DOS: Clif has his version of events along with a really cool video showing how good the fishing was here.

Don't need a frog to keep the skunk away today!

So I decided I'm gonna stay away from big lakes unless I have someone with me who knows the water.  I get too overwhelmed with all the open water and different opportunities and I think I get a little lost.  I definitely get frustrated.


Today I went and checked out Spring Lake (which is actually two lakes) outside of Pekin, IL.  There were alot of weeds so I went with a texas-rigged Powerworm and a Purple/Silver Rat L Trap on my other rod for whenever I got some open water to throw it in.  I worked along the edge of one of the lakes, working the worm and trap all the way down.  Long story short, I got to the end of the lake about two hours later with no bites.  I lost my Rat L Trap on a submerged tree, got pissed off and decided to head back to Peoria.


Just like the other day, I decided to head to Charter Oak North to try to salvage the day.  I pulled out the fly rod with a little orange foam ant tied on and got some more casting practice in.  I got to experience fish "rising" to my fly for the first time today.  It really gets your heart pumping to see even a little fish slowly stalking up to your fly on the surface.  I had a couple little fish come up and nip at the fly and I missed a hookset on the one that actually took it.

I abandoned the fly temporarily, switching to the Powerworm from earlier.  I tossed a few casts to the weeds with no takers down the bank on both sides.  I eventually went back to the fly rod, this time with a little white and pink popper.

It took me a few casts to get used to the little bit of weight on my fly line and to get the right speed of strip to get a good pop but eventually I got it going.  On my third or fourth cast with the popper, I popped it a couple times, looked at my phone to check the time, heard a splash and felt a tug on my pole and it was my first decent bass on the fly!  I actually reeled up the slack and got the play him a bit on the reel, let him tire himself out.  I swung him up on the dock and snapped a pic for you all:

Just under 12".  Not huge but my biggest on the fly so far.  I tossed him back, went to cast back to the same spot and smacked the popper into the dock midcast, obliterating it.  D'oh!

Now in a pissy mood, I picked up my baitcaster and tied on a buzzbait, figuring if they hit a popper they might hit something else loud on the surface.  After a couple dozen casts with no bites, I went to a white Walmart spinnerbait.  No dice.

Back to the fly rod.  I still don't know the difference between a dry and wet fly but I picked out a little black one with feathers sticking out all over and a little red tail.  It floated!  And the bluegill loved it, they were sneaking up from underneath, taking shots at it.  I had one on but it got off about halfway back to the dock.  After that, the fly wouldn't float and the fish didn't like it nearly as much.

So I switched to a smallish brown fly with little white wings.  I got it out there and it floated too!  Once again, they love it while it's floating and I actually hooked a little guy:

The fly stopped floating after that and they stopped hitting it again.  Note to self:  buy fly floatant.

It was about 12:30 by this time and I was getting hungry and tired after being out fishing/driving since 7:00 so I decided to head home, happy to have at least gotten a decent bass and had a bunch of fish rising to my bait.

So a decent day, I wish I would've just gone to Charter Oak first and not wasted time driving to a place I'm not comfortable.  Oh well, lesson learned.  Also, since starting with the fly rod, I've got four fish on it and no fish on conventional tackle...  What the hell?  Is that why people convert?  It just gets impossible to catch anything on anything but a fly? :)  Probably not but it definitely keeps things fresh.

I appreciate everyone checking out my blog lately, hope you all are having better luck than I have been lately. Have a good one.

My First (and Second) Fish on the Fly!

Had my last final tonight, got finished early and decided I couldn't wait till Friday to try out the fly rod so I snuck out while the fiancée had her mom over.

I got down to Charter Oak North Lake and set up shop on one of the docks to get out away from all the stuff on the bank I would get caught up on.  Rhett suggested I try out a floating fly and twitch it back slowly so I pulled out my pack of flies and went to grab a floating fly when I realized, I have no idea what the hell a floating fly looks like...   So I just grabbed a brown one with some hair and a couple really small feathers from my pack and tied it on.

My first cast was very awkward and only managed to get the fly out about five feet from the dock.  The fly sunk.  My second cast was equally as awkward but I managed to get the fly out about fifteen feet.  I was super ecstatic about that, and then I remembered I was fishing and stripped in the slack and gave a few small twitches on my line.  One more little twitch and the line started moving!  I snapped the rod up and had my first fish on the fly hooked!

I fumbled with the line for a second because I had a few feet coiled up beneath the rod that didn't get cast. I remembered you can strip line in to bring in little fish so I tried and the line went right back out.  I stripped it again and held it with my rod hand while grabbing another handful of line to strip in.  I finally got him up to the dock and swung him up and over the rail:

A monster, I know.

So I got the fly loose from him, let him go and cleared the gunk off my line.  A third awkward cast produced a distance similar to the second.  I stripped in it in just twice this time before the line started moving!  I snapped up the rod again and had a little bit of a better fighter this time, but I was stripping in line like a pro now. :)  A few seconds later, fish number two was being lipped:

Another little guy but I was so excited to just be making casts into the water and actually catching fish that I could've cared less about the size.  I got him back in the water pretty quickly, ready to keep my streak up.

Thats when it all went downhill.  We had a storm roll in and the winds started picking up randomly.  About three casts later I got my tippet all knotted up to the point where I had to cut it and tie something else on.  So I tied on the only popper I have and gave it a few casts but it was increasingly difficult with the wind.  I decided to put up the fly rod and try to catch a couple more bass before I had to turn in.

I tried a rattling crankbait, buzzbait, and finally resorted to a 7" Powerworm over the next 45 minutes or so with no bites.  I booked it as soon as I saw lightning in the distance.  The storm is currently raging around our house.

So thats it, a very successful first outing with the fly rod, if I do say so myself.  I need to check out some youtube videos or read some books or something on how to cast, because I feel like a total d-bag flailing around so dramatically just to get a fly out 15 feet.  Any suggestions are very welcome.

I'm planning on going fishing again on Friday, weather permitting.  Hopefully I can post some pictures of a couple big bass and quite a few more fish on the fly.

My First Fly Rod

So I went up to Dixon to see my mom Sunday, and while I was in town, I took the opportunity to pick up my fly rod from my dad's basement.

I bought this setup while on a vacation about ten years ago in Wisconsin because there were two of them together for about $30 and I was 12 so I didn't realize not many people cast flies on the Rock River.  My dad messed with the one I gave him for awhile but quickly retreated back to his spinning tackle and my combo has been sitting in the original packaging in his basement for the past ten years.

It's a Shakespeare combo, 8 feet long.  It says #5/6 fly line on bottom, which I think means its a 5-6 weight?  Which is good because I've read thats a good weight for bass/panfish.  It is black but its not apparent whether it is graphite or fiberglass.  It has a foam handle, which is the only time I've seen a fly rod with a foam handle.  (Although, admittedly, most of them I've seen are either on blogs or on TV.)

The reel is a Shakespeare 1094.  I tried to lookup reviews but I can't seem to find any.  Guess I'll just have to get some experience with it and write my own.  I was trying to figure out how to set the drag online and found out it just has a click drag.  The Shakespeare site also said you can "palm" the reel as a form of drag but i'd be pretty afraid to do that, sounds pretty risky with a big fish on..  From what I've seen, you are supposed to strip smaller fish in by hand anyway, so hopefully I won't have any problems with the drag.

The line and leader came like this:

This led to a giant cluster-eff of a tangle when I tried to unwind the line.  It took me about 20 minutes to untangle.

I wasn't sure what to use for backing so I put about 25 yards of Big Game Trilene 20# test mono on.  I don't think I'll need backing since there was quite a bit of fly line but just in case I suppose.

Tying line to line sucks.  I tried a nail knot a few times to no avail.  I then looked up a blood knot and, after some silent cursing and several attempts, I pulled off a bastardized version that held when I yanked on both the line and "backing."  I tried to do the same for the leader but couldn't get it to hold and I really didn't wanna break the only leader I have, so I just threaded the line through the guides and headed out to try whipping a few casts....

....  Only to find that it started pouring rain since I was last outside.  So I'll have to wait until at least tomorrow to actually cast with some distance.  I'm really good at casting against the inside of the garage door though.  :)

Here's a picture of the rod/reel and the few flies that came with the package:

(Kinda weird to see a foam handle on a fly rod, huh?)

(Sorry thats a little blurry, I was having trouble getting a good focus on those little flies. Ignore the purdy flower wallpaper.)


I have my last final Wednesday so I may be able to get out fishing Friday or Sunday, so hopefully I can get that leader tied on and try it out.  I spent as much time as I could reading blogs and articles on beginning fly fishing but it seems like I just need to get out there and get some experience.

Stay tuned, I'll make sure to share as many of those experiences as I can.