...........more of the same.

Puttered around for a bit again this evening. Tried a different section of the lake than previous. Found some promising and somewhat productive water. Did a bit of filming. Unfortunately, the manufacturers of the camera have a sense of humor. While the camera maybe able to record for over 2 1/2 hrs continuously, the battery cannot. The best fish of the night where not recorded because of this. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Again, fished only a GFC. Was very sad to have finally lost the original one I had been using. I got a lot of miles out of that one fly.

More GFC'ing.

I was out for an hour and a half this evening. Puttering around in the tube and throwing the Green Fish Critter. When I start playing with new patterns I generally throw them alot. Not just checking for efficacy, but also will work out any design flaws, or find some improvements.

So far, I've only used the same fly on all outings. Haven't lost it yet, and haven't had to change up for lack of production. Nor have I thought of any tweaks for the pattern.

On the evening, it produced very well. Eschewing the crappie for the most part, I did really well on Large Mouth. I did more leg ( flipper ) work than usual and found a nice shallow spot in the centre of the lake that had some nice drop offs. Working the edge of the structure kept me into fish for the night.

GFC

With the temperatures high on the trout rivers, my sporadic outings have been for bass and panfish. I'm lovin' the pontoon on the hot evenings. Previously I had a tube...............finding the pontoon much more enjoyable.

With the fluctuating temps, I've had some days better than others. Even on the slower days there's usually enough playful fish to keep me happy.

The fly pictured is something that just popped into my head on night. Very easy to tie, and effective. It pops nicely, or can be made to slowly swim. This one has a mono weed guard. Interesting to note this fly can literally be tied from scraps. Being familiar with food fare of Bass, you could probably guess what I was aiming for.

I hadn't even considered a name till now, so for lack of anything better, lets call this the

Green Fish Critter
Hook: 4 -6
Tail: Marabou
Body: Olive Mono
Thorax: Olive Saddle Hackle.......sort of. It was yellow till I took an indelible marker to it.
Head: Closed cell foam. Was yellow, olive marker.

With any pattern I pull out of my head, it goes through a number of variations. If I have used marabou, the tail is often shorter.

This pattern floats well, is easy to tie, and uses cheap, readily available materials. All good things. It catches fish, even better. If your looking for a new addition, give this a try.

So, did some more green fish'n this morning. Really wasn't my day.


Not long into the morning I snapped my rod just above the ferrule, leaving me with a 4' stick to fish with. Long casts were out. SMH.

After a painful while of crippled casting, I hunted down and hooked a big pig of a carp. Drag was not set at all and and in short order my reel was bird nested and the carp gone and laughing. Oh well. Par for the course at that point.

I did briefly get to play around chucking some plastics. Works as good as they always have, and accounted for the largest bass of the day.

This was only my second broken fly rod in several decades, and is a prime example of the dangers of buying a rod used. There is no way it should have broke under the conditions that it did. There was a flaw in the blank. I read awhile ago, that the number one cause of broken rods is due to damage from bead heads. 'Dingers' are not too much different than shooting your rod with a BB. I highly suspect this was behind the demise of this rod.

Low budget, High fun.

So I had picked up a pontoon boat used and real cheap a couple of years ago. At $75 it was a steal. Then never used it.  I can be real stupid like that. Also had a 5-6wt Daiwa Sensor rod I picked up for $35, and a reel for $10. Hadn't used them either. So, figured I should.

Now the cool part is, if you do the math, the gear for this outing is cheap. Really cheap. Less than is often spent on  a reel. The rod, probably originally came from Canadian Tire. In fact, I'm sure Canadian Tire carries higher end rods. Despite a couple of interesting 'design' decisions, it has proven to be more than functional. The reel holds line...........and can be palmed for drag.......the nicest things I can say about it.

I decided to continue with the 'low budget' theme. I found a beat up old line to use. I tied a slightly tapered leader out of several different test mono. The fly I tied on ( and only fly I used today ) was a black Wooly Bugger I found on the ground at a popular Grand River access point. No waders of course, flippers instead of oars, hell even the pants and shirt I was wearing had come to me as gifts. I'd say the entire output of cost for gear was roughly $150.00 inclusive.

I headed to the closest warm water fishery. A negligible piece of water that should normally be passed over for more productive venues. The shore was lined with anglers, the water chocked with watercraft. I slid my toon into the water and puttered out to troll the edge of some weed beds.

The panfish were plentiful and playful. The Large Mouth I had been hoping to encounter were scarce. Not really a problem though. My main goal for the outing was to ascertain whether any repairs were going to be needed for the toon. Fortunately, it survived storage nicely. The crappie were in good supply, including a good number of slabs. I also caught a real nifty big Sunny that took me back to my summers as a kid fishing up north.

One thing that was a pretty big deal for me, but probably no one else, was how well my back held up to the task. Apparently fishing from a toon is FAR less taxing than wading. I still can't believe how much I don't hurt. It verges on miraculous.

Bassn'it

Really? Seriously? Selective BASS? on Trico's? FML. SMH.

I managed to head to the lower Grand for morning fun. Arriving just after 7 found what appeared to be almost every fish in the river on sipping rises. Good I suppose, but it was long enough since my last outing I really didn't have much of a clue as to what they were taking.

 A quick look in the drink, and I'll I could see were some tiny snot flies. I really didn't bother to ascertain whether they were Caenis or Trico. I went with the larger Trike's and hoped it would suffice. It did.....and loads of fish were caught........though mostly of the smaller variety.

Once the hatch ended, I got into the larger fish of the day on Crayfish patterns, and weighted Wooly Worms/Buggers.

Guessing at numbers of fish would be stupid. It was pretty much non stop action. A lot of smaller fish, but the handful of decent fish made sure that the outing could not be labeled anything other than a success. Was happy to be catching instead of fishing.

Update.

Yeah, so my backs been that bad. No fishing to report. Other than a twenty minute rest stop on the Moira. Happily I did manage a feisty enough Smallmouth in the few casts I made. Really painful to be in that neck of the woods and not fish. Oh well.

I'm going to have to find something where I can barely move and still hope to at  least bend the rod.