Home Forums Fishing Flyfishing Fishing getting tough!

Dog days of summer and our little lake is starting to slow down! Caught a 1 1/2 lb bass this morning and a 2 lb catfish! on a nymph.....not one bream. Changed lures 3 times and nothing.

Will be taking the ultra light spinning and some worms as back up for those bream.....

Can you fish that lake at night?.... Iv'e had some good times after dark when it starts getting hot

Yes, I can but won't....up until a couple of weeks ago 10-12 bass just wasn't a problem on flies. But, this heat is cranking up and has seriously slowed fishing, on a lake loaded with bass and bluegill. The bluegill are slow on artificials but awesome on pieces of crawlers! The plan is to remove 75 bass between 8-12 inches, the bass are skinny and are bass crowded. I guess I should have started this in May, it was easy to catch bass on artificials then....may get some minnows for the kids on the 4th.

I'm wanting larger bass out of this lake, but want to be careful and not allow bluegill to explode. Probably hit 'em hard again in the fall before our deer season starts. October is a fantastic month for fishing here.

Do you have any luck using those flies that sorta look like rubber worms? I've seen them made with purple yarn with a little red tail tied on, 2/0 hook with heavy lead eyes, or something along those lines. I'll bet that those bass are hanging right on the bottom when that pond heats up.

You're right about those bass hanging on the bottom.....if I'm with one of my boys we bass fish with 6" worms and spinning gear and manage a few fish. I prefer worm fishing for bass, but never seen worms for fly fishing. Bass wouldn't even hit a wooly bugger yesterday and they were tearing it up recently. I'm wondering why the bream aren't more willing?

If you are having problems with stunted fish, the trick is to draw the lake down in summer which robs the smaller fish of cover. That allows the larger fish to eat'em and get bigger.
Usually the problem is with the Bluegill over populating and causing this. E

Not on our lake...it's been catch and release for years by the few of us that fish it. As a result we are left with a bunch of skinny bass and large blue gill. We can either feed the bass with minnows/blue gill fingerlings, or remove some of the bass. Since we want larger bass we're starting to remove the smaller bass...under 12" (and any that are longer but skinny).

Also, we're taking blue gills.....it's a great fishery that hasn't been managed. I caught a plate sized bluegill last weekend, a monster and let him go. We will start keeping those 8" bream.

Ah, that's more like it! Caught 9 small bass and 8 good bream and managed to feed 6 adults and 3 kids, all caught mid day.....could have slaughtered the bream! I've got to get some of these fish out of this lake. What a chore, eh?

Sounds good. Even small bluegill are fun with fly gear. Keep them all.
I'd put the small bass back as well. Extensive studies here in Kalifornia have shown that putting back small, under 8 inch, bass improves the quality of the bass fishing wherever it was done. E

We are only removing bass from 8-12", or any skinny fish....like the 14 incher I kept last week.

The bream are simply awesome on this lake. I read a study that recommended removing 5lbs of bream for every lb of bass to avoid over production and stunting of the bream. That's taking some bream out!