“The killer awoke before dawn…he put his boots on”.  Many of you will recall that as part of a well known Doors song, and I don’t know why it popped into my head on the  particular morning I decided to try some early morning late fall fishing.  Maybe it’s because several layers and boots were required this day to stay warm.  We had never done this in the 40+ years I’ve fished my home waters.

Drake and I got some breakfast, I got dressed and topped off the thermos.  We were in the boat before light, and headed out at idle across the lake.  It was mild for October, and there was little wind, but surely we were the only boat on the water on the entire Portage chain, and it felt good.  Drake was standing right on the tip of the boat.  Man he loved this. We watched all the cars travelling the very busy Dexter-Pinckney road that goes around the lake, and I remember driving that to work just like they were.  No gloating.  Just a thankfulness that I have the life I have, and the freedom.

We went under a bridge into a small lake nearby.  Sure was neat to see the red and green boat lights reflect up against it’s underbelly as we went under it.  We set up on a sharp drop off found by backlit depthfinder, and had to rig under flashlight.  Drake growled at something on shore, and let out a sharp bark.  One could barely make out small pine tree, about 6′ tall, that he thought was a person.  Just a warning to stay away.  “It’s ok, Drake”, I said, and he lost interest.

Once again we were after those late fall bluegills, and I mean the beasts.  I think, with the way they fight, that if they got to be 2-3 pounds or more, that’s all we’d fish for and nothing else.  We rigged up with micro jigs again, this time gold tinsel, as they would reflect even the slightest light.  We forgot waxworms to tip the jigs, so we cut tiny strips from Berkley’s GULP powerfully scented natural plastic white minnows.  Not sure about this, but it was all we had.

At first light I cast the weighted bobber and jig along the dropoff edge.  No luck.  Tried down the opposite dropoff edge.  Nothing.  Fish were very active that day, as smallmouth were surface feeding and carp were on the flats rolling, so I knew the day had potential.

“Do something”, I said to myself.  “Move”.  We slid up the dropoff closer toward shore, anchored, and I let another cast rip way down the dropoff.   That was it, and Drake had his first fish lick of the day.  A  dozen or so later, and I decided to try the super ultralight, a rod made on a 2wt. 7′6″ fly blank with 2lb. test line.  Wow.  Those bluegills took drag!  To land one with this rig takes about 3 minutes of fighting…you don’t crank ‘em in.  By the way, kudos to the GULP strip, it was just as effective as waxworms in my opinion, stayed on the hook, and no mess.

Next, of course, the flyrod.  When the spinning is good, you have to cut over to the flyrod.  The wind came up, so it made it tough, but we caught a few on a sparrow nymph.  Wasn’t long before I was back to the 10′ noodle spin rod, though, as the wind made it tough and the fish stayed far from the boat, and the weighted bobber just blew right through the wind.

It started raining pretty good, and the fishing got better.   Drake doesn’t like the rain (loves water though, go figure), so he laid down and I covered him up with an old sweatshirt.  The rain came and went all morning, and it was the same routine, but it never did really make it through the sweatshirt, so Drake stayed pretty dry.

We took a few home for dinner.  Just the giants, and a few of them were solid 10″ fish.  We learned the lesson yet again that if things are not happening, make them happen.  We could have stayed in the same spot and not caught any, or just a few, had we not been agressive and moved.

As soon as we got near the shore, Drake was right on the nose of the boat, jumped off the dock and ran to shore.  He must have peed for a couple of minutes straight.   I think I’ll have to plan for bathroom breaks for him next time.

What a blustery day.  It was 65 degrees alright, but the wind was blowing 25-35 mph, and a drizzle didn’t help. 

I decided to take a client out on the river anyway, as he was a beginner, wanted some flycasting instruction.  I knew could find an area protected from the wind, get in some good instruction, and maybe catch a fish or two.

 While working on his flycast, he did manage several casts at some good cover, and had a reasonable retrieve with the deadly “boomshocker” tiny minnow imitation  I thought should have gained some interest.  Nothing. 

Smallmouth were shut down for the evening, and I sort of verified this when I was retrieving a snag.  Two or three smallmouth took off from under a logjam we were just working, and they had not given the boomshocker even a follow.

It started raining pretty good at that point, and I wondered what the heck I was going to do to pull a rabbit out of my hat this time.  My client had forgotten a hat, and his head was getting wet, so I gave him my Tilley and put my hood up.

I decided we should get out of the river and go to a huge tree that had fallen in the river, gathered up leaves, and became a hotel for bluegills.  I was thinking bluegills are less weather sensitive, they’d let him get alot closer to cast, and there would be less wind there, too.

Using a #10 sparrow nymph, my client caught somewhere between 20 and 30 bluegills from what looked like the same 5′x5′ spot.  Man they must have been packed in there!

Anyway, he got alot of practice casting, retrieving, hooking and landing fish.  Bluegills are excellent for this experience, anyway.  I got a sense my client still wanted to catch alot of big bass on his first flyfishing outing, but this never happens, and I think we ended up with an almost perfect outing given his experience and the weather.

What I took away from this experience is this.  On those weather change days when fish seemed to shut down, it helps to think about all the species you have access to, and which ones are sensitive to weather, which are not.  Don’t be afraid to make a drastic change to your method or location when what you are doing isn’t working.