Small Water Angler: Transitions
I hope everyone had an exciting and successful spring. For me, the early season Smallmouth bite was decent, but the late spring really came on strong. The crawdad bite was incredible in the local creeks! As June is now upon us and July right around the corner we find ourselves in another transitional time.
The last issue of WildIndiana (April/May) brought us from the blustery winds of late winter and ice break-up to the pre-spawn activity and warmer breezes of spring. I don’t get all scientific about water temps and daylight length with my fishing habits as I tend to take more of an Old Farmer’s approach. For instance, right about the time the yellow morels come on strong, the white bass move up the creeks to conduct their yearly spawning migration. Learning the coincidences can really help one plan their outings for the season.
If you can be fortunate enough to be on one of these creeks when these fish are migrating, upsize your rod to something with a little more backbone from the standard 5 weight. Use a 6wt. with a little more rigidity in the tip than you’d use for trout (or a 7wt. if there are stripers and/or wipers present) and have plenty of baitfish flies on hand. Clousers are my ammunition of choice, but any baitfish pattern resembling a shad can produce. I stick with silver/white, white/lime or chartreuse and a tan/olive for slightly stained water with a few black/purples for more heavily stained waters. Once you get on them, keep at it. One can catch a limit in mere minutes when they are in full swing. This occurs when we are transitioning into full spring in the later parts of May and can continue into early June.
Sticking with the ‘transitions’ theme, June is another time of great change because that is when I usually shift my attention from the creeks to another small-water impoundments, ponds and small lakes. With the benefit of a canoe, kayak, or as I often use, an inflatable pontoon, one can get on some incredible Largemouth action!
June finds largemouth bass prowling the shallows close to shore early in the mornings and late into the evenings. With a small box of top water terrestrials I can usually find something that they are feasting on. Frog poppers, cricket flies, and later in the month and into the heat of summer, grasshopper patterns are standard. If you are be fortunate enough to be on the water with a box full of cicada flies every 17 years or so, you will truly know what it’s like to fish the feathers off of a fly. I absolutely love to fish ponds and small lakes for largemouth- and there are too many great locations to count in this great state of ours!
As June gives way to July, we again find our fishing opportunities transitioning. As the heat of summer sets in, water levels tend to fall and creek flows slow drastically. The dog days of summer are not far away. Early mornings in July still produce the best bass bite, but another way I fulfill my fishing addiction is by moving to bluegill.
Small poppers on a 3 or 4 wt. are all that is usually needed. Bluegills, as we all know, will hit about anything that touches the water within a couple feet of them, if not to devour it then to simply investigate. As the heat of summer sets in they tend to ‘short-hit’ the flies, though. This usually starts sometime in late July when the fish just seem to want to show the fly whose boss and not eat it. This can be very frustrating.
To remedy this problem I steal a trick from the trout crowd. By adding a dropper nymph several inches to a foot below the terrestrial fly, my success rate increases incredibly. It doesn’t really matter what nymph, just a small copper john or something. Most of the time, this will really get the bite going. I still get a few takes at the surface, but generally the nymph is devoured quickly. When the popper is taken I rarely, if ever, foul hook with the dropper if I make sure the distance between them is, at minimum, slightly greater than the length of the fish I’m catching. But make sure to have hemostats handy for the removal of the nymph from the fish’s mouth, they can really inhale them!
As you can see, for fishing success in Indiana one has to be continually adapting and transitioning. We are blessed to live in a state that pretty much has three equal months of each of the four seasons. That means there is always a transition right around the corner bringing a fresh opportunity to fish a different way. Different species in different waters on a regular rotation, I truly love that about Indiana. Now go out and appreciate it. And take a kid fishing; they are the future of our sport!
May the outside of your waders be often wet and the inside be always dry!