Favorite Warmwater species

[Guest]

that is a nice gill ,were you fishing deep for it? What is that fly? What part of the country you in?

 

 

John

 

 

[redneckshadrap 0]

Small mouth...

 

 

Uh Big D that picture.....

[Guest]

Got to say bass, with bream a close second! Tight lines and good tyin!-redneck

[HDS 0]

CARP CARP CARP AND MORE CARP!!! What else can you catch 10+ lb fish consistantly in great numbers in an afternoon? Its not like I eat fish anyhow...pcb's, mercury......so why not chase the one fish that will fight like a salmon that is tough and durable and in high numbers? Oh did I forget - they will take a fly too!!!!

 

 

HDS

[Sticky 0]

Smallie

 

I love catchin' smallies!

 

I'm going to try some carp next summer for laughs though!

[Guest]

Hmmmmm... now that's a hard one... I'll have to give it some thought...

 

 

[Guest]

 

For warmwater, Smallie is king !

 

But my eyes are always looking around to sneak up on a muddy flat to tailing carp, a perfect long cast a couple of short strips, watching the water explode !

 

 

[Guest]

Is waleye a Warm water species?

 

OSD.

[travbass2 0]

I love them smallmouth!! I had a goal of 20 for the year that measure 20" or better and surpassed it with 22, so far! I don't mind hooking one of those big, mean 30lb muskies either, with a big, bushy, flashy fly to plop down in ti's face or swim past it in a logjam...I like catfish on the fly. I used to catch some up to 25-30lbs on a 5wt. Good fights!! I prefer to stalk Redeye bass in Alabama and use the 2 or 0wt and catch those fiesty, pullin like crazy little bass species. Not rock bass, but the little fiery bass in southern appalachia. The world record is around 5lbs, but the average fish is 1/2-1 1/2lbs. My biggest was hiding next to a boulder and i stalked it and caught it. Those bigger Redeye are warry, smart little bass. We had to continuously change lures and flies, for they would stop hitting the same baits after a while. My biggest was 2.5lbs, a victorious and happy afternoon, shared by my high school best friend. We still meet there on the small creeks and rivers, and fish it like we did in high school. Serious bushwhacking and aggressive wading tactics were needed to find pools and runs filled with hungry, fiesty Redeyes, it was mid summer fun. We camp in the wilderness and walk the banks at night under a full moon. It is such a serene place and I feel most clear and alive in that environment. After a day of firing casts to the little bass, we begin to get more and more accurate and the next day, we are able to fire casts with pinpoint precision, when I guides and taught fly casting, I could have compeated in fly casting, but not now, with my dominant hand all jacked up.....I still take a small, short spinning rod and 4lb fluoroclear line, they are still a blast to catch on that tackle.

Some of my fondest memories ore from days and nights spent fishing for those beautiful little bass, with firery red eyes, blueish bellies and fins and orange fringed tails, golden green little bass that looked similar to a Smallmouth X Spotted bass X Shoal bass mix, and fights like a Red Drum X Tarpon X Bonefish X False Albecore mix, and feeds like a Largemouth X Tarpon X Peacock bass X Bluefin Tuna mix. It is a spectacular little bass that fights light years beyond it's small size. It manages to live in pure, highland streams and rivers that are cool, clear, and flowing, providing a high oxygen content and strong food base of insects, baitfish, and crustacians. If they grew as large as largemouth, they would be the sought after species with tournaments for it instead of the Green Trout. The geographical range would have to be the same size and it would have to be able to live in the lakes and streams that laregmouth mlice in as well. They have no tolerance for pollution, which helps to explain it's tiny range and the limited places it can live. That is a loss and we need to treasure and protect what little water they can live in. They are a special fish and deserve respect and preservation.

They are my favorite warmwater species.......

[dadsgnat 0]

I inherited a fierce preference for bluegill, my dad chased them in rivers and lakes all over middle California. He chased them with a fly rod and black gnats. I graduated from bobbers and worms to a fly rod with him. I can't recall the number of slithering stringers carried in wet burlap bags in the trunk of our car to home on the first leg of late night fish fries with piled high platters bluegill, sweet red onions, cornbread and iced tea.

 

We moved to Northern Arkansas in 1964 and brought our fly rods with us. I'm sure fly fishing was going on somewhere in Northern Arkansas then but everyone thought we were lunatics standing in the middle of pristine, clear water creeks casting these weird apparatus at shadowed banks and likely eddies.

 

It was on this gin clear stream, called Clear Creek, fed almost completely by springs gushing from the grounds and bluffs in its trek towards the White River, that I swayed from my origins for I discovered another fish.

 

Northern Arkansas has several Smallmouth Bass rivers of great reknown and I've stormed most of them in pursuit of that magnificent creature and will be happy to sing the praises of that swift and mighty fish. But my heart went to a creature of less celebrity.

 

Swarming and teeming in the streams, creeks and tributaries of Northern Arkansas, is an unassuming and underrated quarry known as the Rock Bass.

 

There are many subspecies of this fish and the one that caught my heart and soul along the miles of Clear Creek I fished, is called the Ozark Bass.

 

Gregarious, aggressive and almost clownish in its exuberance, it was the champion of those days I spent wading the upper and lower reaches of that creek I could hear from my bed when weather permitted windows being open.

 

What flies? Anything brown and dragged along the path a crawfish might take. Like a Woolly Bugger.

 

Anything that might suggest a minnow. Anything with a spinner. For Rock Bass, it isn't what you presented, but if you presented whatever you had in their realm. They were game.

 

They fought like a thing three times their weight, for a little bit, then became something like trying to pull in a Frisbee hooked in the lip.

 

Several years ago I returned to that creek of my youth and found, basically, water running through a ditch. Development of the surrounding lands had erased most of the stream I used to fish. Times change.

 

My vote for favorite warmwater fish goes to the Ozark Bass. They're still around, though I haven't caught one in years. But I have washtubs full of memories of catching them.

 

This is my first post. I've been reading this forum for a while and I feel like I've found my family.

 

Hello to all of you.

 

Tight lines.

[Guest]

Welcome to the forum bud!!!!!

 

During my Smallmouth pursuits I have caught many Rock Bass and when you can hook into a nice one they fight like a bull dog. I love the way the look: stort, stocky with shoulders like a line backer.

[Guest]

One post and I like this guy already!

[dadsgnat 0]

Thanks SmallieHunter, glad to be here.

I've moved from small creeks to these gigantic impoundments built on the White River drainage system, Bull Shoals in particular. It was a great lake in its heyday but time has worn all the structure to a bathtub kind of shape. Rocky points, thermocline and coves, that's the structure. But I have found something interesting, a connect to my early years on that long lost creek; smallmout bass still prefer things in Chartreuse. Woolly Buggers, Clousers, whatever. One fly I tie is simply an hourglass set of eyes, a chartreuse chenille body and sparse flash. If I tie it in brown, root beer, red, white or black chenille, I'll catch other fish, but if I fish the chartreuse, I'll nab smallies. Just curious if this color preference extends to other realms.

Have you noticed a smallie preference for that color?

[dadsgnat 0]

Hey, Luvinbluegills, that was a very welcoming response. I really do feel like I've stumbled across kindred spirits here. If you've read my reply to SmallieHunter you know I'm fishing big and deep lakes here in the Ozarks. I'm doing that because that's where my family's boat is docked. We converted a pontoon boat into a camping boat and my wife and I, along with my parents, tie up in coves and camp for two or three days at a time.

 

Fishing is, of course, is a prominent activity, but it shares time with a ten year long domino game whose score is in the tens of thousands now but the teams are less than a hundred points apart. That's the magic of fishing, building those kind of memories.

 

Dad is now an impale a worm on an Eagle Claw baitholder, pinch a split shot on six inches above the hook, drop it over the side until it hits bottom, raise it a foot and wait.

 

He catches the biggest bluegill, a fact I begrudgingly confess. As smart and informed as I am, he has always outfished me.

 

Our lake is so vast we haven't found bluegill spawning areas within our strike area. I don't know where they are and most of my inquiries are met with chuckles from those who chase Bass, Walleye and Crappie.

 

That's okay. I find a few here and there and the Bluegill's cousins are always ready.

 

I don't care where I am on the lake, I'm only bored if I want to be.

 

One question; best recipe for our favored fish?

[dadsgnat 0]

I would like to express my thanks to Big Daddy Hubbard for kicking off this stream of pot stirring notions. A really neat nudge to get a dialogue going. Just what I needed to join.

 

There are a lot of forums out there but this one is so comfy.

 

Friendly. Great idea Big D.