Urban Creek

I fished an urban creek recently.  In most areas it was easy to forget that I was surrounded by neighborhoods, businesses, and all things urban.  In many places the stream had very high banks.  Add to this the fact that it was heavily wooded and it felt like I was fishing far from the urban sprawl.  I heard a rumor this stream held smallmouth bass and that was my target species for the trip.  I began fishing a few good looking holes under an overpass.  No big fish but I ran into a pack of hungry green sunfish and creek chubs.  All the green sunfish I caught were pint size runts but eager to hit my fly.  The chubs were easily as aggressive and had a little more size to them.  Oddly enough they reminded me of small trout, just with squashed heads.

I worked my way downstream but most good areas I wanted to fish were hard to get to.  The banks often had 6 to 8 foot vertical drops, no way to get down or up so I moved on.  I came to another bridge and was able to access the river again.  I came upon two good size carp on a flat.  They were burying their faces and lazily working the flat sucking stuff off the bottom.  I placed a few casts in front of them but did not get them to eat my fly before I spooked them.  In the pic below there is a carp with its back out of the water.

 It is the thing that looks like a rock just breaking the surface of the water.  Below the bridge there was some good looking water with a little current to it but I did not get a hit from anything, strange.  Daylight was slowly fading so I headed back toward my car.  I want to return again sometime and see what I can find.

Topwater Cats

Dave and I attempted to try our bread trick on some grass carp in a few smaller community ponds recently.  At the first stop we did not get any fish feeding on bread, or I should say any grass carp.  We caught some bluegills, and I managed to catch a nice little largemouth while we waited for the grass carp to start sucking down the bread.

They never did eat our bread.  On to pond number 2.  We breaded the surface and waited.  The some big fish started popping the surface in our slick of bread!  It really got the pulse racing.  We assumed some big grass carp were responsible for the big boils on the surface.  Something smacked Dave's fly and bend his rod over.  It got into the moss but he waded out and got his line free.  The fish was still on and it turned out to be a large channel catfish!  Not a grass carp but a really nice catch on the fly rod.

We did not know if any grass carp were in the mix creating the big boils on the bread or not.  A bit later Dave hooked up with another nice cat!  I think my fly may have been sinking a little too fast.  I think the fish were really focused on the top.  Somehow some bluegills managed to get caught on the big size 4 hook I was using on my bread fly.  No grass carp were caught but it was a fun evening out on the pond.