My favorite way to target pickerel during the warmer months is with topwater flies. Pickerel are suckers for frog patterns! However, when the weather cools down, it is time to change tactics. My go-to flies are streamer patterns. While there are many effective streamer patterns to choose from, my favorite streamers are those that imitate yellow perch.
Read moreFly Tying Friday - Floating Dragon Fly Nymphs
During the dog days of summer fish often hold in deeper water. To be successful you need to able to put a fly in front of them. This can be a challenging situation for the fly fisher.
Early in the season, to reach fish holding deep, weighted nymphs and streamers usually get the job done. However, as the season progresses, many of the watersheds I fish become choked with aquatic vegetation. As a result, fishing standard subsurface patterns are an exercise in futility as these flies become hopelessly mired in weeds and muck on every cast. What's needed in this situation is a fly that gets below the surface but stays above the weeds.
Read moreFly Tying Friday - The Panfish Pazooka
A chunky little bluegill caught on the wet fly version of the Panfish Pazooka.
I often get inspiration from other fly tiers. There are so many remarkable fly tiers in the world that the inspiration I speak of seems endless. I particularly enjoy adapting flies designed for other fish species for use in targeting panfish.
Read moreFly Tying Friday: The Foam Beetle - Panfish Candy!
While foam may not be the ideal material to tie a delicate mayfly or caddisfly, it does a fine job on many terrestrial patterns, particularly beetles. There are somewhere around 400,000 species of beetles crawling around on this planet. In addition, beetles constitute almost 40% of known insect life and 25% of all animal life! So chances are pretty good that a few are going to end up in the water and ultimately in a belly of a fish.
Read moreFly Tying Friday - The Pumpkinseed James Wood Bucktail
The Pumpkinseed James Wood Bucktail
On a recent trip, I decided to tie on a fresh Pumpkinseed JWB and keep an accurate record of its performance. The fly pictured above caught thirty-six bluegills, nine crappies, four bass (ranging from 12 -16 inches), and one small pickerel before being inhaled and promptly bitten off by a second larger one.
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