What a perfect day to wet our lines and try to catch some of Kistler Ranch Bass. Temperature was around 80 degrees and there was no wind...perfect conditions for fly fishing for Bass. Patrick and I arrived at the ponds around 2:30 in the afternoon and found ourselves to be the first ones on the water. Kistler Ranch has your choice of three ponds and we decided to fish the upper pond. We hopped into Patrick's canoe with electric trolling motor which makes it nice to move from spot to spot. Patrick loaded his rod with a top-water popper & I tied on a fly I created the day before that resembled some what of a mouse pattern. Patrick & I are both trout fisherman so lugging these large flies out there took a few casts to get the hang of. We pretty much whipped the water into a froth but to no avail. Well, we did see a little action. I will say Patrick gets the award for the most takes on a single fly. Patrick noticed a bass rising near the grass line and he tossed his hand tied Maribou Muddler right near the spot of the boil. The bass took the fly but alluded the hook set... not once but at least 8-10 times. Well we can split those takes between two different fish. Either way I think that is the most non action/action fishing I have seen in a while. It was still cool to see a bass attempt to take a top-water fly. It doesn't take much to get these fisherman excited. The thrill of an almost hook set still gets the blood pumping.
Well, we pretty much fished for about 4 hours straight before we decided to break for a beer and a burrito. After our quick break we broke out the 3 & 4 weights and headed to the first pond for some always fun Bluegill action. Patrick tied on a foam spider with a birds nest nymph dropper and pretty much couldn't keep them off his fly. I hadn't tied any foam spiders so I went with a large dry fly and also a birds nest dropper. Well it took me about 15 mins of watching Patrick catch about 6 fish before I decided that something I was doing was not what the bluegill had in mind. I looked to the "Bluegill Master" for some guidance. Patrick said he had a black foam spider with about a 2' dropper using a black birds nest. So I went into the fly box and found a small black popper and dropped a black ant pattern I tied earlier in the week and BINGO!! I had the right hook up. It was pretty much every other cast until it got dark. We landed countless bluegill and a few redfin shad. Even thou we didn't catch any bass we still had a great time fishing for them. I can say we had an awesome time landing these wild bluegill on light action rods. The day was great spending the afternoon doing what I love to do and that is FLY FISH!!
Well depending on river flows we might be headed back to our home waters of Goodwin Dam or tying some new bass flies for our next Kistler Ranch outing. I will be showing you pictures of bass for sure next time. Till then I will see you Back On The Fly!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment