The season opener is only a few weeks out and I'm practically salivating to get after the pike and largemouths. The only fish besides sunnies and crappies that I've caught all year is a little largemouth on a woolly bugger fly. I need some size.
The northern and bass are ending their postspawn period and the crappie are nearing their spawn period. I've been out to French Park a few times this week and just messed around with the fly rod a little. Sunfish and bass are a lot of fun on my five weight.
One area that I definetly need to improve on a ton is my hooksets with topwater flys. It's actually much harder for me that what I use with spinning gear for topwaters, like a hula popper or jitterbug with an ultralight. The strikes can be so small and so fast and usually they don't even grab the hook. For every fish that I've caught on a dry fly this week, I've missed about five. Very frustrating and when I get frustrated on the water I mess up my casts, which just makes me more frustrated.
More on dry flies for bass and sunfish later. I have to go watch Touch.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Understanding Sunfish
In light of my mic difficulties yesterday, I'm opting for a written post this time around instead of a video. No certainties for the future, though.
This time of year in Minnesota, the focus is all on the crappies for the professional fishing world. Crappies are fun to catch, delicious, and can even be challenging to find sometimes. However, I think that this is also the perfect season to get back to an old childhood friend of almost every fisherman - the sunfish.
When I say "sunfish", I am referring to the sunfish family. To most Minnesotans, these small fish are known simply as "sunnies". However, this term is actually very broad. There are many species of fish in the sunfish family, one of the largest being the largemouth bass. However, the most readily thought of sunfish include bluegills, redears, and pumpkinseeds. Personally I love green sunfish for their pretty blue stripes around their mouths. Other true sunfish (that is, sunfish excluding bass and crappies) include redbreast, banded, mud, bluespotted, and warmouth, not to mention hybrids. Not all of these fish live in Minnesota.
The most commonly seen and caught of these is the bluegill. It's perhaps the most popular of the "sunnies" and sports a characteristic blue tint around the gill region. They prefer water temps in the mid 70's and spawn when water temps reach the high 60s.
Redears are the largest of the true sunfish and is usually found a little deeper than bluegills and pumpkinseeds. These guys stay closer to the bottom and can be a little trickier to catch than others.
Pumpkinseeds are the shallowest of these three sunnies. They have smaller mouths as well but are fairly aggressive.
But, something to remember, all sunnies are relatively aggressive and fight well for their size. Also, they're easy to catch and pretty darn tasty. A simple worm and bobber is plenty to catch a meal off a dock.
For flies, anything small will work, but I like using a woolly bugger with a bit of sparkle in it.
Tight lines,
Bradley
This time of year in Minnesota, the focus is all on the crappies for the professional fishing world. Crappies are fun to catch, delicious, and can even be challenging to find sometimes. However, I think that this is also the perfect season to get back to an old childhood friend of almost every fisherman - the sunfish.
When I say "sunfish", I am referring to the sunfish family. To most Minnesotans, these small fish are known simply as "sunnies". However, this term is actually very broad. There are many species of fish in the sunfish family, one of the largest being the largemouth bass. However, the most readily thought of sunfish include bluegills, redears, and pumpkinseeds. Personally I love green sunfish for their pretty blue stripes around their mouths. Other true sunfish (that is, sunfish excluding bass and crappies) include redbreast, banded, mud, bluespotted, and warmouth, not to mention hybrids. Not all of these fish live in Minnesota.
The most commonly seen and caught of these is the bluegill. It's perhaps the most popular of the "sunnies" and sports a characteristic blue tint around the gill region. They prefer water temps in the mid 70's and spawn when water temps reach the high 60s.
Redears are the largest of the true sunfish and is usually found a little deeper than bluegills and pumpkinseeds. These guys stay closer to the bottom and can be a little trickier to catch than others.
Pumpkinseeds are the shallowest of these three sunnies. They have smaller mouths as well but are fairly aggressive.
But, something to remember, all sunnies are relatively aggressive and fight well for their size. Also, they're easy to catch and pretty darn tasty. A simple worm and bobber is plenty to catch a meal off a dock.
For flies, anything small will work, but I like using a woolly bugger with a bit of sparkle in it.
Tight lines,
Bradley
Saturday, April 21, 2012
More Spring Fishing
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