Martyn White | Thursday, 11 July 2024
With temperatures rising to the high 30s this week it looks like we're getting to the end of a rather weird and over-long rainy season. More stable conditions should be ahead of us for the rest of the summer. Monday saw us getting some of those conditions, 38 degrees and wind of 1-2 m/s forecast after several similar days. So we decide on a night session in on the tubes.
We arrived at the lake around 1.30 am and got set up. Almost predictably, I had a puncture in my tube but I had patches with me and got things sorted nice and quick. I was still pretty frustrated though as I can't seem to go 2 sessions without a hole in one of the bladders. To make matters worse I got a puncture in the seat-back bladder a little later, how I don't know but it made for a pretty uncomfortable morning. Luckily the fishing was pretty good, as we launched the tubes around 3 we could hear bass feeding. Things were pretty slow for the first half hour or so until the sky started to lighten before sunrise. As soon as there was enough light to make the outline of the bug visible the fish started coming. Both bass and highly ambitious bluegill were eating the hairbug with intent.
I was switching from the hair frog to a 3wt with a mini popper dropper any time I saw a big bluegill attacking my frog, only the big bluegill mind. Essentially if the fish could pull the 2/0 bug under or I could see it as it bumped the frog, I picked up the light rod rigged with the smaller leggy bug and a size 8 J-lo hanging below it. The idea being that I could catch some of these aggressive specimen panfish. I usually do it the other way, fishing the light rod to find baitfish and then work a streamer around them looking for the bass that hang around the edge of the schools in search of a meal. Conditions were just so good for bugging that I wasn't willing to pass up the chance of a topwater bass bite. As things worked out I didn't catch any big gills, just a few average fish. I did have a surprise bass on the J-lo. Presumably it had been hanging around and been turned on by the cast with the frog that the bluegill had attacked, because as soon as put the small rig back in the same area the popper shot under-before it had even cocked with the weight of the dropper fly. A nice 45cm largemouth bass had hooked itself. The rest of the morning continued much the same for me with fish coming to the hairbug and the popper dropper rig. Chuck on the other hand was struggling, he was fishing a foam and shrink tube popper that often produces for him but he couldn't get bit except for the odd bluegill that was having a go. Eventually he switched to deer hair too, with a small tap's bug and started getting more interest. Although he'd missed the peak time, he managed to pick up a few panfish and a small snakehead from a hyacinth bed. There's something about hair, I don't know if it's the sound, softer landing or the way it floats, but it does just seem to work better than foam or cork, on still water at least. It's more work to tie and keep them fishing, but they do seem to work better,. Maybe some days the difference isn't enough to warrant the exrtra work, but this week it definitely was!
By 9 it was getting sunny and hot, and the bite was slowing. We were also getting tired, so tired that I'd missed the last couple of fish that ate the bug because I trout struck them..no good. So we decided to drag the tubes out for "lunch" and drink some Red Bull... We had been planning to fish again after eating, but at some point while eating we telepathically decided we'd had enough, the but had tapered off, heat and humidity was getting too much to bear and there was no point in ruining a good morning by going back out when we could be heading off to cool down,