Latest Word - Fishing Reports and Latest Combat-Fishing® Adventures
- Riverside Landing Park, Dardenne Slough, St. Peters MO - 07 to 14 Sep 2024
- White bass and skipjack herring are hitting at any creek mouth or rock obstruction along the big rivers, feeding up before the cold hits in November on shad and shiners. Any shad looking lure will get hit, including white streamer flies, or for the spinning rod anything silver or white in the 1 inch to 3 inch range such as spinners, spoons, and jigs. As per usual, bite is best near sunrise and sunset.
- Montauk State Park MO, Current River, - 31 Aug 2024
- Always interesting to visit Montauk State Park trout park in season. The lodge, a must to get your daily tag, is well stocked with food for the angler and flies and lures to catch the local rainbows and browns. Daily stocking in season adds hundreds of catchable rainbows, in addition to resident brown trout, rainbow trout, ozark bass, white suckers, northern hogsuckers, and longear sunfish to name a few. Sculpins will also take a smalll fly and add a colorful small fish. Pick flies included olive wooly buggers, zonkers, red chennele bugs, and yellow or peach glowballs. If you are a flyrodder or marabou jig pitcher, hit the fly-only section to escape the bait pitching crowd below the flow over dam. Try for the slam of rainbow trout, brown trout, sucker, and smallmouth or ozark bass.
- Kaskaskia River below Lake Carlyle, Carlyle IL - 10 Aug 2024
- Always a producer year round, the park below the dam is one of the rare spot where silver carp become aggressive predators (see my technical write-up on Asian carp here ), and schools of white bass, yellow bass, and drum compete for shad, shiners, and other 1 to 2 in prey. Any minnow imitating lure slowly fished will catch something. For the flyrod, a 1 to 2 inch white streamer is perfect, fish it slowly (ala Atlantic Salmon style) to avoid foul hooking the carp. All predator will hit the fly. The bigger carp will run you hard, so this means an upsized flyrod, and 8-10lb tippets. On the spin, crappie style jigs are easiest.
- Riverside Landing Park St. Charles Co. MO MS River - July to 24 Aug 2024
- Sloughs on the big rivers are producing white bass, drum, gar, and catfish, on anything that looks like, or is, a shad. For a flyrod fisher, white streamers are the ticket. Look for fish blowing up along rip-rap shorelines on schools of 1-2 inch shad, and strip the fly under the surface just above the snags near the shoreline. Hit or miss, but given effort, you can land one every 10 mins or so. I use 8lb tippet due to occasional whacks by big drum, gar, and flathead catfish.
- Myrtle Beach SC Atlantic Ocean - 17 to 21 June 2024
- This was not really a fishing trip, but like every trip, we get licenses, and bring fly and spinning gear anyhow. The beach and piers were not really good at all, with a few ribbonfish (cutlassfish), pinfish, pigfish and sharks off the piers, a few whiting (atlantic kingfish, sand mullet) and small sharks off the beach, and on a headboat trip, a few sharpnosed sharks and Atlantic black sea bass between snags. The saving grace of this trip were the saltwater tidal creeks walking distance from our hotel. From past experience we knew that on the right tide many predators swim these shallow waters, from flounder to redfish and spotted seatrout (specs) in addition to more pinfish. This was a payoff move. Using a simple shrimp fly on the flyrod, pulsed near the top of tides in the morning, or a jig and soft plastic for my spinning rod bros, fun catch and release ensued for a magic hour or two each day. Once the tide fell to the wrong level, or became still, the game was up. So given the immense number of marshes and tidal creeks on this section of coast, and a small boat, a flyrodder could make an excellent trip. Maybe next time.
- Retention Dam Bluffview Rec. Area,Salt River near New London MO - 08 June 2024
- The gar are spawning, and given variable flow, the crappie, bluegill, and a few other species are biting on small white streamers and the equivelent spinning lures. Look for eddies behind structure and current holes along the banks.
- Busch Wildlife Area near Weldon Springs MO - 01 June 2024
- Cicada hatch continues, and bass and sunfish are feasting up. Any popper or floating fly 1 inch long slapped on the water near banks and overhangs will result in hard strikes. In my case, I tied a simple fly of black foam, estaz, and grizzly hackle on a size 6 fly, and it worked quite well. If it doesn't get hit immediately, wiggle the rod tip and the fly will become dinner. For the spinners, any teeny topwater lure works.
- Port Hueneme Pier, Santa Barbara Sterns Wharf, Goletta Pier, and Buenaventura Beach CA - 18 to 22 May 2024
- Piers are always an interesting fishing situation, (fyi...get the Ken Jones book...it is so very worthwile ), doubly so in California. This time we fished a little between other excursions around Ventura and Santa Barbara (such as the missions, towns, Solvang, SeeBee Museum, and the Reagan Museum). The most productive pier this time was the Port Hueneme Pier for jacksmelt by the ton, either on sabikis, kastmasters, or the 2-jig rig using 1-16thoz jigs and yellow powerworms. We also hit Stearns Wharf in Santa Barbara for mackerel, and Goletta pier which was pretty but fishless in the afternoon. Also saw some guys catching surfperch off the beach in Ventura, and that might be on the agenda next time (after paying $26/day for a license!)
- Sandy Slough near Winfield MO Lock and Dam 25 Mississippi River - 04 May 2024
- The white bass and herring are moving up, and in a few weeks will be spawning up near Foley, but for now, the shiners are thick, and the herring and white bass are feeding up. Any white streamer on the flyrod works, aas long is it moves quick and is cast near the surface feeding fish. This fishery will transform after the floods to a catfish, gar, and carp system by Memorial day.
- Sandy Slough near Winfield MO Lock and Dam 25 Mississippi River - 09 Mar 2024
- Very chilly winds in the post cold front day, and the slough is still low, but the days are progessing to the spring run. This day, there where no biting white bass etc., but in the warm side waters of the slough, large grass carp were feeding in 1 foot to 4 inches of water, just like bonefish. The side water on a sunny day can be very much warmer than the main channel of the slough. Note: same principle applies in lakes...main lake might be cold, shallow side water warm enough for bass, sunfish, crappie, and other fishes etc. The fish in these shallows are super-spooky and require a good fly cast a couple of feet in front of feeding fish, even though the strong wind was right in the face. While I spooked fish, they came back, and with some patient strong arm hauls, I plopped the size 8 florescent unweighted yellow chenelle bug at the right spot, in front of the right fish, and got bit (an egg pattern in same color would also work). While a missed a few hook sets, I did finally land a nice 8lb grass carp. More work yielded a few more missed bites, before the high pressure turned them all off.
- Aguadilla, Salinas,Fajardo, Puerto Rico (Atlantic Ocean/Carribean Sea) - 25-28 Jan 2024
- Took a vacation to PR, but of course took along some portable rods (fly and spinning) for us to catch a few fish as opportunity arrose. The first big step was to figure out licensing, so we took a run to the DRNA (https://www.drna.pr.gov/) in San Juan where several friendly people walked us around to find the right person. Once we found her at the Secretariat, she explained that we needed no license to recreationally fish from shore in the salt. Thusly allowed, we ran along many side roads, toll roads, and town roads (be able to read Spanish or you will be lost, pay attention to dogs, cats, chickens, and kids on the roads) and explored this wonderful locale. After extensive driving about on 3 the south side of the island between Manaba and Salinas, we hit a few little rocky beaches, with wind in the face, rocky reef near shore breaks. A yellow streamer right along the beach got hit by palometta here and there. We continued diriving, and a few days later ran to Aguadilla, were we hit a few more small beaches, and while I had a few hits, and saw some random needlefish etc, no fish. The best bite was near Fajardo, walking out from 7 seas beach (where you had to park) away from the swimming areas toward the rock points. At high tide, barracuda, jacks, and snappers showed, and while small were fun catch and release fish in a beautiful setting with great grass beds, coral, and channels. Again, streamers (below an indicator to keep it over the grass) on the fly, and on the spin, a small green crappie jig worked well. Get off the beaten path and enjoy the people, food, and places of PR.
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