Babies on the Fly

Flies catch fish: big fish, medium fish, and small fish. Normally we go after the big fish - at least I do!  Compared to traditional spin/bait cast fishermen, however, fly fishing excels in the little fish category. 

Here in Northern Mississippi crappie is king.  Nearly everyone I have seen fishing for them uses small tube jigs.  The problem is the presentation options are very limited.  People with boats spider rig (which I think would be pretty fun, personally) or simply drop their jigs over likely structure.  Fishermen from shore almost all use bobbers.  There really isn't a good way to slowly work a jig at a desired depth while maintaining direct contact with the jig.  Most crappie jigs look a lot like woolly buggers or semi seal leeches: marabou tails with some sort of chenille body.

Enter fly fishing.  Fishing a small bugger or leech pattern on a floating or sink tip line, fly fishermen can slowly, erratically retrieve their flies, keeping them in the desired depth range and maintaining direct contact with the fly.  The correct depth and erratic movement mean that more fish strike, and because there is a direct connection to the fly, the fly-fishermen is more likely to feel the strike and effectively set the hook.  This technique is especially effective in shallow water situations or when fishing for really small fish.  Today we did the latter!

The weather today was beautiful!  Due to recent rains my white bass spot was under feet of water, as I expected.  There is a backwater pond near where I duck hunt that supposedly has good numbers of bluegill and bass, so we decided to check it out.  We had a couple friends joining us.  When we met Ryan and Jennifer they said that they had some fishing gear but hadn't been forever and had no clue what they were doing, but that they would love to go.  Luckily for us, they were up for a scouting adventure today.

Using spinning gear Jennifer hooked into a decent bass on her third cast, but she lost it.  Sadly, that was the only fish she would feel for the day.  I caught a small largemouth on my spinning rod almost immediately and quickly gave the rod to Cheryl and rigged up my fly rod.  I took the kayak out and explored the lake for half an hour but I couldn't buy another bite.  Finally I went back to the crew, and they hadn't caught anything either.

Eventually I switched to a #12 bead head semi seal leech pattern on my floating line.  Almost immediately I caught a little crappie and a baby bluegill.  We had found the ticket.  For the next couple hours we occasionally caught fish.  The fishing wasn't good by any means, but Cheryl and I each caught double digit numbers of bait-sized fish.  I even caught three bluegill that were big enough to get invited home for dinner - but they were spared this time!

I also took some time to teach Ryan and Jen how to fly fish.  Ryan caught on as quickly as anybody I have ever met, and was soon consistently casting 30' of line.  Soon he was catching fish too!

Ryan and Cheryl with a crappie/bluegill double.  They are going to have
some sore shoulders tonight from all the heavy hauling.  Break out the ibuprofen!

Ryan even got big fish honors with a respectable crappie.

This was easily the big fish for the day.  Note the title of the post!  Not bad
for Ryan's third fish ever on a fly rod!

Overall we had a good time.  The C-ster was super happy and loves being outside.  We enjoyed a beautiful day outdoors, and even though the size of the fishing was lacking, we still had some action and stayed busy.  I wouldn't want to spend every weekend catching tiny fish, but now and then it is fun.  I was grateful to get out at all.