FLY FISHING REPORT 2019-06-03
Your Fresh Water Fly Fishing Report for Central Florida
Conditions: Excellent
Surface Temp: 84f
Clarity: Slightly Tannic 20-24 inches
Let us know what you are catching-or not catching-Send your pics of fish, beautiful places, or some of the flies that you have tied. We love to post them on our fishing report! Send to allen@andythornal.com
Calvin Lopez caught one of his all time best bass on a Umqua Diving Frog.
Tips:
Topwater for Bluegill in the morning. The fish are shallow early in the day. As the day progresses they head to deeper and cooler water. Clousers can cover a lot of water in this situation. White, Chartreuse, Blue & Chartreuse are best bets. Game Changer flies fished on a sinking line will put you in the same deep part of the water column as a conventional crank bait, but you can work the fly much slower, even suspended. Take advantage of this unique opportunity. Jigging style flies like Sloppy Jose or Clouser can dissect the water column. Using a sharp retrieve and a long wait between retrieves will create a high-low jigging pattern. Use this until you find the depth the fish are holding. Bass are pursuing frogs as they lay their eggs this season. Umpqua Diver Frogs and Georgia Bullfrawgs can produce the biggest fish of the day. Get out your 8wt and catch your personal best!.
Everyone got a good chuckle about this amazing tiny bass. We recently re-lined this ancient reel and rod, and put it back on the water, where it belongs. Love photos like this!
Techniques:
Bluegill are taking topwater flies. Examples include bugs with light bellies like yellow or chartreuse, yellow sprogs, and white rubber spiders. We also had a report of small crappie (Specs) biting in the morning on small white clousers. We recommend a floater/dropper tandem rig for panfish. Using foam body poppers or hoppers for the floater, attach a dropper underneath-using your choice of pheasant tails, hare's ear or a prince nymph. One of our favorite customers insists on grass shrimp for the dropper. Keep your dropper flies a little deeper than usual and focus on submerged grass lines when throwing streamers. Have you seen all of the dragonflies? It is a good indicator to throw blue poppers and/or green wooly buggers (dragonfly nymph.) Look for wind blown hyacinths, these create instant pockets of shade, and usually harbor tons of bugs. Panfish and Bass will be attracted to them, Tilapia will like eating the roots, and bugs. They create mobile cover for baitfish.
Trevor Brown caught some unexpected Specs in the Summer Heat
Forecast
We anticipate bluegills to be shallow or near shallow water. The topwater bite will continue in the morning. Small buck bass will continue to be good along weed lines and lilies. Frogs are laying eggs, and big frog flies should catch your biggest bass, this week. New Moon is on June 3rd. The high pressure that is parked over the Florida peninsula lowers our chances of afternoon rain and raises heat to near 100 degrees. End of the week shows increasing cloud cover and increasing chances of rain on the weekend. Winds will be moderate except near pop up storms. Expect lake levels and river levels to fall rapidly through the week. At the time of this report: the Peace River is half average level, Econ is a third of average approaching a trickle, Myakka River is above seasonal average. Hillsborough is a little low and the Withlacoochee spillway is almost 0 (which is normal in early June.) Kissimmee River gauge below the Hwy 60 dam is currently not reporting.
Neil Warnock with a paddle board bass. Note that Neil uses both a fly rod and a spinning rod.
Josh Johnson with one of his floating shrimp flies.
Learn to tie your own flies at our club meetings! Next meeting is June 4th.
Crabs and Shrimp Month! Fly Tying is regularly at Andy Thornal Company on the first and third Tuesdays of the month, 6pm-7:30pm. We usually tie two patterns including Bass, Saltwater, and small flies, too! This club atmosphere is friendly for beginners and experts, ages 10-70. Bring your tying tools or borrow some of ours. The class is free, but we ask that everyone make a $10 purchase to offset costs. Next club meeting is May 7th.
Allen Wyatt
Author