Pic.

Tie it, Try it: The Clouser.

A little bit of a spot light on the Clouser Minnow. If you fish for smallmouth, this fly should be in your arsenal.

What I did was tie one up, take it from the vise and tied it on the line, then took it out and fished it.

I've talked about the clouser on this blog before I am sure. It would have been hard not to have. Every year this pattern gets me a lot of fish, and a lot of really good fish. It's one of those patterns that just seems to be able to produce more exceptional fish than others.

The colours I use on my flies are Red ( or orange ) over yellow, with a few strands of red crystal flash. Most of my ties are sizes 2 - 4.

From Dunlop 7-10-17

Some video footage from the other night. Exemplifies the lakes issue with juvenile bass. I do not see this type of ratio on other lakes. Far. far less juveniles on those. A bigger fish closes out the clip. A Clouser minnow did all the damage on this night. The large fish took me way longer to land than usual. Not sure what was up with that. You can see in the video that I'm not being easy on him. You can also see he's not being easy on me, fighting hard right till the end.

On Dunlop tonight.

I've talked about why the bass season up here was extended all year. Non native fish with a disproportionate population of juvenile fish depriving native species of forage. This doesn't apply to all lakes in the region. Some I fish I rarely see juvenile fish. On others you see them mixed into the catch like one would expect. Then there's the lake I live on. Dunlop. The number of juvenile bass in this lake is extraordinary. Just silly. There are some nights were I am literally catching them one after the other on seemingly every cast. As a result of this overpopulation of juveniles, the lake gives up it's bigger fish far more rarely than most other lakes I fish. It should say something in the that if I want good bass, I will travel from this lake to other locales.

Tonight was a good night by Dunlop standards. Not only did I catch a lot of bass, but the there were some better fish in the mix, with one decent fish. The vast majority were caught on a floating line setup with a clouser. After a couple of hours though, it stopped producing, and I went to the full sink. This did get into fish, but notalotta.

The release.

Now, the one good thing about the juvenile population on Dunlop.................is that I have no more qualms about culling those fish than I do panfish. They should be culled. It's a good thing for the lake in general.

Everything happens for a reason.

Apparently I have become a fair weather fisherman.

This spring was lousy for weather. It's only over the last little while that things have improved. The biggest issue for me has been the instability. I just haven't been able to get up the energy to fight the weather, so I am just picking my spots. Besides, its just so easy to avoid working for fish when I can just walk out to my backyard to play with whatever happens to be around.

I did get out to fish some water other than my backyard this last week. The first outing had me come off the water fuming. So pissed off with myself. I hooked and lost a great bass. Losing fish happens. I'm generally okay with it. The exception being when I screw it up. As was the case with this fish. I looked like a rookie with his first big fish. I know, because I have the episode on video. As I watched, re-watched, and then watched some more, this epic little horror story, I got more and more i

rritated. I know better. I know that 2 or three times during the fight, a big bass will make a desperate dive. I know when they do this to give them line. I knew to do this on the first attempt. So why on earth during its second run didn't I let go of the handle???????? Fuuuuuuuuuck.

A couple of days later I was back to the site of the debacle with revenge on my mind. I was still smarting from losing that fish. A storm had just pushed over, but the temps stayed relatively stable, so I figured it was worth a shot. As it turns out, the revenge would not be mine.

Ostensibly, I was out for perch. However, Smallmouths are almost always caught during the pursuit of those. This day was no different. I did really well on perch, going home with the a nice stringer for my effort. The #4 Wooly Bugger I was throwing for them was big enough to keep the smaller specimens off, and I had some decent fish. Picked up some bass too. But that's not the real story of the night. That story was about "Everything happening for a reason."

Mom with Bass.

You see, on this outing I had my ( 73yr old ) mother with me. She had gotten to hear my rantings and ravings about the lost fish. She also was forced to sit and watch the video as I gave a complete breakdown on what I did right, what I did wrong, and all things to do with battling big bass. This paid off. You see, when she hooked into the biggest bass of her life on this night, she knew exactly what to do. She knew to fight it hard. She knew watch for the runs/dives, and bow to the fish when it happened. She knew those dives would likely happen when the fish first saw her/the boat, and when it saw the net. She was prepared, and handled it like a pro. I was so proud of her. The fish I had lost that had been haunting me was forgotten.

Mom's fish.