Adventures in "trad" fishing.

[BowBuddy]

Here's a couple I have on my phone.
I've got boxes and boxes of flies I've tied. Maybe I'll get some out for pics.

I would rather catch a 2# carp than a 2# red carp are a hoot to catch

[Draco]

I finally got to go yesterday. I missed several fish on a 7" lizard fly. I've got to get the reflexes tuned back up. Finally got a pretty nice one just before sun down, right at 4# on a 5/0 popper.

[SwampRabbit]

That's a good looking bass right there Bob! I'm hoping I can hit a pond this weekend. Still need to catch a bass on the clousers I tied with the buck tail from the deer I killed this past season.

[SwampRabbit]

Blanked at the Y this morning. Only got 25 mins to try. Going to hit a neighborhood pond later this evening.

[SwampRabbit]

Back on the board for 2015!

Took my son to a nearby pond and we both got our first fish of the year on flies. I was determined to land a fish with a fly that I used the deer hair I killed this past season with a bow. Landed about 9 decent sunfish with 2 different fly patterns that use deer hair. Still no luck with the bucktail clousers.

Little man with the bass he caught on a bluegill spider he tied himself.


My first fish of the year on a fly. Gotta start somewhere.

[Chunky]

Well campers, I just returned from a fabulous vacation in beautiful Thailand. I took my fly rod to try and catch a few fish with it. First let me tell you that we were fishing in stocked fishing ponds. These are fairly small, something like 3 to 7 acres, and are set up for fishing. I knew this going in.

It is very like hunting exotics in a high fence here (which you know I have done plenty of). The fish were plentiful, but are fished for almost daily. You have to use artificial baits. So if you knew what you were doing (like our very experienced guide did) we had a lot of success, but I didn't see many of the other people fishing doing very well. That being said, high bank fishing was a blast and we caught some awesome fish. Perhaps not something a purist would be interested in....but it pegged the fun meter for me.

The really big ones, I was told I could not even try with my fly rod as the smallest fish in the pond was like 30 pounds....but I was able to fish for a catch a good number of the smaller fish in the ponds were they were.

Since this is a fly fishing thread, I will post up a couple pics of fish on caught on my fly rod.

My 3 friends started out with spinning tackle, but when they saw how much fun I was having, they all took a turn (or several) with my fly rod and caught fish. A blast.

A special thanks to Scott for talking me off the ledge when I had equipment issues the night before the flight, turned out, they cut my whole leader off and put on heavy 60 lb test....which had to be changed after 2 or 3 fish, as they have teeth and pull really hard.

[Chunky]

I did catch a few "river monsters" on the heavier tackle in the other location.

[caughtandhobble]

WTG... Go big or stay home!!!

[Phillip Fields]

Some fine flyrod catches.

[little john]

Congrats chunky trip of a lifetime for sure

[Bisch]

Nice fish, Mark!

Bisch

[Buff]

Long years ago I lived up on lake Bob Sandlin.
I decided to catch the lake record for fly fishing for every differant kind of fish in the lake.
The spotted, sand and black bass were easy. I added a couple of differant kinds of bream in a hurry also.
Crappie was a little harder but finally mamaged one of those but could not manage a cat fish.

On hot summer afternoon I was running across the lake about a hundred yards from the dam when I hit something.
I stopped the boat to see that the water was alive with channel cats feeding on top.

The grass hoppers were flying off the dam and I guess they could make it about a hundred yards before they gave out and fell on the water.
They cats were swimming around with their mouths open scooping them up.
I caught several, the best being right at 4 pounds.
All the others have been bested but that one is still the lake record from back in the 90s

[SwampRabbit]

Love the bend in that rod in those pics. That must have been an absolute blast!!!! I have yet to need to get to the reel on my 5 wt and fight em with drag... I'm definately a jealous man right now. Glad you called and we could figure out the issue....

What kinda flies did they have you use?

[Chunky]

It was mostly a big all black fly. Big furry body with a bit of a tail...kind of comet like. Also used (and lost) ones with a feather body, one brown the other red. They sank slowly. I would cast and then wait until the fly was as deep as it would go, then strip in a little line and let settle back down. When they hit it, there was no doubt, we all had the little reel handle clobber us when the fish was stripping line before you knew it was happening.

[SwampRabbit]

Sounds like a wolly bugger. Man, that must have been a blast!