4 Tips for Catching Crappies on the Fly
(Editor’s note: Here’s a post from Noah, the youngest member of the crew and resident panfish guru, on a few tips to help you catch more crappies on the fly.) Thoughts on flies, location, presentation, and gear that’ll help you start catching more crappies on the fly rod. As lightning flashed in the distance I stood on a dock casting aggressively. “Just one more fish,” I said frantically to myself. Despite Conner’s warning I stayed on the dock and kept fishing. Stripping in my line, I felt a tug and set the hook. After a short but spirited fight I landed the fish – a crappie, my very first on the fly. Crappies, a feisty panfish with a big mouth and a bigger appetite, eat flies voraciously and put a good bend in a light fly rod, making them a blast to target with fly gear. To catch fish consistently you’ll need a stocked…
Crappies On the Fly, Catfish, and Hot Dogs
May 28 There’s an oddly satisfying charm to the simplicity of catfishing. It’s about as far as you can get from the clean elegance and complexity of fly fishing for trout, but for some reason it has captivated me since the moment I first encountered it, probably striking some young boyhood chord rooted deep inside that still likes to play with worms and run around barefoot in the mud. The anticipation of watching a freshly-baited pole is nearly unbearable, and you never quite know what’ll end up eating your bait, which is a large part of the intrigue. Rivers and catfish haunts have a habit of holding all sorts of crazy fish, and, at least when fishing casually, there’s no particular skill or reason involved in hooking big catfish, though landing them can be a different story. It takes a good bit of skill to entice a big brown trout, but it’s just as…