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Warmwater Species

What warmwater fish is your favorite to cast flies too?  

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Blue gills are nice...

 

A guy down here in South Carolina showed me how to make a hatch for carp by thorwing out handfulls of frozen corn and then fishing the hatch with yellow egg patterns or just plain nymphs and small crawfish patterns (size 10 or 12).

 

Bass are king with most in the south.

 

I love striped bass!

 

I fish the Saluda and the Catawba in the spring. The is nothing like hooking a striper, but GAR! Holy #$%^!

 

These alligator looking things grab stunned minnows below the dams on the Catawba. I fish for them from my kayak. Their mouth is real bony. I use a stout circle hook streamer that looks like a shad/alewife.herring. I sharpen the hook with a small file often. They range 24 to 48 inches long! When you get them they just try to swim south like a freight train. They don't jump until they are close to the kayak. Be careful taking them off the hook, they bite worse then a northern pike or bluefish.

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I forgot about Gar. We use nylong rope frayed with a 30# mono loop whipped on the end. Mostly just long nose gar. Alligator gar get up to 8' in length. I don't think a real big one (200 + lbs.) has ever been landed on a fly rod.

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How could you forget Gar?

 

The first I saw someone catch one it was a four foot Gar a bass fisherman caught on a large minnow. He cursed as soon as it hit. It took almost every bit of his line. I sat in my kayak and watched him land it. It took at least 15 minutes. I could not believe that this guy was upset with catching a huge fish that fought like crazy. Being from the north, I had never seen a monster like this. I just had to catch one. I have heard the mono rope trick and have never tried it. I figured that my luck I miss a great bass or striper while I had no hook on the fly.

 

 

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Definitely sunfish. This includes using sinking ants for bluegill and redear on the beds, all the way to stripping small crawfish and minnows in rivers for green sunnies and goggle eye (rock bass). You also sometimes get a surprise visit from a smallie or a catfish in the mornings.

 

The solution to the problem of the gar-fly, tie it on a short-shanked circle hook, so you will get everything that bites

 

Rob

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I voted for bluegils. They may not be the biggest fish in the pond, but they are the most aggressive when hooked. Bass are nice, but the jump is what everyone is after in the fight. Trout are nice, but only because they love to run. Bluegills, they just fight. Its hard to explain, but for the size, I'd rather fight one over any other fish any day.

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If bluegills got bigger, they would be where it's at.

 

 

 

I agree and have said that for years....recently, I may have found the large version of a gill---peacock bass....only fished for them once in S FL so far, might have been a good day, but DANG....a fish that wants to live...stripers and amberjack being other favorites that fit this category.

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Blue gills are nice...

 

A guy down here in South Carolina showed me how to make a hatch for carp by thorwing out handfulls of frozen corn and then fishing the hatch with yellow egg patterns or just plain nymphs and small crawfish patterns (size 10 or 12).

 

Up north we call that chumming

 

 

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Redbreast Sunfish #1

 

Rock Bass #1.01

 

Smallmouth Bass #2

 

 

"Heaven" -- at least on Earth -- is for me a shady, freestone, coolwater creek swimming with the three fishes listed above . . . A Wet Wading & Wet Fly Nirvana!

 

:)

 

 

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I had to vote for Smallmouth... because I grew up with them, and largemouths were considered a lazy cousin from the 'hood. Now, I'm very thankful to have access to a couple of ponds that have largemouths in them, because that's my only opportunity to fly fish near home.

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I grew up in New England and I've caught most on the list except a musky. However, my attitude was adjusted after 13 years in Miami living on one of the Peacock Bass pilot study canals where the Fish & Game Department first introduced them.

 

If you want a treat you really need to try peacock bass on fly. The only fish that really compare are saltwater fish.

 

I should have voted for largemouth. After moving to Naples from Miami, the only thing I've been catching is largemouth during my afternoon after work atitude adjustment period - and the topwater hit is especially good. I don't know if I turning into a southern gentleman or a redneck - 138 largemouth on fly since January :P Six inches to 28 inches!

 

I fear that the days of the sunfish in my lake is numbered since we now have Mayan Cichlids showing up. I just hope that the redears keep getting big and maybe they will continue to prosper. The only bluegills we get are runts :(

 

This redear weighed a pound, and although it doesn't look it, it was more than 1.25" thick!

 

<just noticed this is an old thread I already posted in - oh well it keeps things moving along!

 

John

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