December and the Bluegills Are Still on Top

It's early December and we still have not had any daytime temperatures bellow 35, most days have been well over 40. If I time things right I'm still catching panfish on dry flies. Today I was on the water at the right time. The sun warmed the upper few inches of the pond and midges were hatching. The koi was out and about and I got a couple of shots at it but no takes.

Almost right away I caught this bluegill. It took a couple of hours to get anymore, and when the bite finally turned on it wasn't on for long.

There was about an hour of fairly good action. Black gnats, ants, and midge droppers did the trick. The dry was taken more often than the dropper today.

Remember, it's December. There is often ice by now, although never very much. I'm not sure I'll keep on this bite for much longer, it is slowing noticeably. The warm weather forecast for this week might help it along.

More Brookies on the Ugly

This is a stream I had not caught a brooky in yet:

This is the Ausable Ugly:

And here is the beautiful wild brooky that took the Ugly in that nice pool:

Although that was the only fish from that tributary, the stream I fished on Thursday produced a good number of sizable, though not big, brook trout. I feel bad for my Dad, he didn't have such good luck. 

I cast my Ugly into the pools, the riffles, and the runs, and it was often grabbed. Most of my fish were caught while working upstream and watching the end of my fly line, but the biggest took the fly in a shallow pocket on a downstream drift. I didn't get my hands on this fish but I didn't need to. I brought it into a sunlit riffle, watched it shake it's head furiously and flash it's brightly colored sides, then let it throw the hook. Short battle, no harm done. 

I also landed a number of fallfish and a small brooky on an Elk Hair caddis, which rounded out the afternoon quite well. I'm not sure what tomorrow will bring but I'm looking forward to it.

Brooky Quicky

I had a short family outing today, and I decided to show my mom and brother a special stream that is in some particularly beautiful surroundings. In the stream are some sizable wild brook trout, although I've felt the past two times that I visited this stream that it wasn't showing its full potential. Today I think it was generous. We were there for no longer than half an hour and I had my line on the water for maybe ten minutes. I caught four brookies on the only fly I used, and Ausable Ugly, and they were all good sized, healthy, and dark colored creatures. Awesome! What a great, albeit short trip with family.

Flies Now

Screw this weather. We need the rain, but why did it have to wait until after I got home to start? I'm already done re-stocking all of my fly boxes except for three (I have a lot of fly boxes for a lot of species and types of water). It's gonna be a long winter, that is unless the fishing is good.

Duck Observations

I went to the Bell Pond yesterday to see if some carp were on the flats. Unlike many fish carp feed pretty well in the winter. If you can find a place small enough they may spend part of the day in shallow water. I didn't see any in the flat although there were some bubblers in deep water. I did observe some interesting duck behavior. When I got to the pond there was a flock of hooded mergansers there. These are beautiful birds with striking black and white coloration. They are also exceedingly skittish and although I tried to get a photo of them they left before I was able to.

I also saw some interesting behavior by some mallards. I watched them come in from the North, dropping in altitude, spot me, then make an ark that put them on course to the lake just to the north of the pond. The saw me, said "Heck no!" and went to the next best place! No fish at all yesterday or today. Gotta go after brookies tomorrow.