FishnDave

Crazy! At this point, might as well see what the weirdest fly you can catch a bass on. #22 Midge?

Put in some windshield time for not much fish action this weekend. Caught a Common Carp, Bigmouth Buffalo, a couple White Crappies and a couple Bluegills. Lost a few fish as well.

Tied up some of these: Caught one of these: And one of these: And 19 of these!

I hope this guy makes it thru this season. Might be impressive in another couple years. He's got the points, but not the spread or mass.

That's a cool-looking shirt! I'd like an XL, please, and let me know who/when/how to pay since it would need to be shipped. If nobody wants to mess with all that hassle, I totally understand. I'll look forward to seeing the pics from this upcoming event, it always sounds like such a great time!

I'm that guy. Until you've tried it, you can't fathom the soul-leeching disappointment of fishing near StL. It's a similar feeling to working for someone else... and just wanting each day to be your last, but retirement isn't in the cards just yet. So you keep going. But the fishing often just makes me wanna sell all my gear. And I haven't done the Urban Trout thing for the past few years either.... ever since the one pond I enjoyed going to, of course they drained it for renovation and still isn't (as far as I know) ready.

Tried a new-to-me spot. Had a wiper break me off, and it wasn't a real big one, not sure what happened with my tippet... must've had a nick on it, but I'd just put it on fresh like a couple casts before. Bummed I didn't land it, would've made the trip much more enjoyable. Saw this guy just hovering in the water not far from shore. If he was sleeping, then I had to wake him up. And this gizzard shad was not intentionally snagged, but was accidentally foul-hooked. also caught numerous Green Sunfish and a hybrid sunfish, but didn't photograph any of them.

I hear you. Even the small ones are a lotta fun. My biggest ever before this was from quite a few years ago, at 20".

Another big cat: https://www.wired2fish.com/news/105-pound-blue-catfish-breaks-21-year-old-iowa-record

And I caught what I was after.... Hybrid Striped Bass! Those dudes are STRONG! Every one seemed to fight the same way. I'd feel the pressure, like I'd snagged something. It wouldn't move. Then I'd notice it was moving slowing, so then I'd set the hook harder, and the fish would take off on a blistering run straight downstream, although one or two ran upstream. Then they'd park in the middle of the fastest water, and just sit there. I'd put a LOT of pressure on them with a 9 wt fly rod, with 12 lb tippet, and still often couldn't move them. But, I'd persist, and put even more pressure on them, and eventually get them to move. Then they do some shorter runs, and eventually I'd get them to the net and land them. Pretty cool stuff! I caught some on Clouser Minnows and variants, and some flyrod jigs I'd tied up. I landed 11 of them, including a new PB Hybrid Striped Bass... 25"! The 3 pics above are all of the 25-incher. Below are some of the others.

@Ham decided to give the bullhead spot one more try, and I was excited to try the Wiper spot Hamilton and my other fishing buddy had just fished (separately), so I hit the road, armed with some great intel and advice! I accidentally foul-hooked a Silver Carp: Caught a good-fighting Freshwater Drum:

@Ham and I hit our first spot for bullheads. Maintenance work kept us from achieving what should have been a very quick and easy score. On to the Koi and Goldfish ponds... @Ham Got what he wanted, and more. The sculpin spot turned out to be more difficult than I'd predicted, but Hamilton captured his Flyfer!

Then I wanted to check out a spot Ham and I would be fishing the following morning. We'd had a good rain on Saturday, and wanted to make sure the creek was even fishable. Quickly caught a Bleeding Shiner and 2 Mottled Sculpins (which would be our target species the next day), and left. I felt we'd have good success tomorrow.

A fishing buddy from Iowa was gonna pass thru StL, and wanted to catch some fish. Koi and Goldfish were selected, as this would give him species #200 and #201 on fly for 2025. Yes, for just this year. That's a considerable more species on fly than I've EVER caught on fly. So, that was pretty cool.