Prospect Park zug bug

Nine foot, five piece, five weight fly rod this afternoon and always wear polarized sunglasses.
Temperature was a comfortable 70F.  I fished near the Boat House.

My polarized sunglasses allowed me to see that fish were holding but not actively feeding.  A bead head prince was my first choice of the flies I fished.  A crappie showed interest and this time I was able to set the hook. But as I raised my rod tip Ol' paper lips got free.

I had no more takes until I used a bead head zug bug.  I was fishing a deeper part of the area in front of the Boat House.  After a few strips, I felt the tug of a fish.  The rod tip began to bend as the fish resisted my efforts to bring it in.  To my surprise it was one of the seldom caught yellow perch that
can be here in the spring or later fall.

A Belgium cast later and the zug had enticed a crappie.  Not bad for less than ninety
minutes of fishing this afternoon.

The Meer - Fly fishing a Stalking Bug

The weather forecast calls for temperatures in the low 70 F. today.  One of my favorite
places to fish in the early spring is The Meer, in Central Park.   This lake quickly gets algae blooms
as the warm weather heats the water.  So there is a small window of opportunity to fish here in the
spring.  The water is clear and visibility is excellent.  Fishing for bass is very good! .

Spring has made it's presence felt slowly.  Temperatures have been cooler than normal and rainfall has been above average for New York City, for the month of April.  I was more than happy to hear the forecast for today.  Very little wind,warm air and the first good day to fly fish.  I tried several flies before I started to catch fish consistently.  I caught a couple of blue gills.  They were small. No more than two years old.

I have a couple of old "stalking bugs" in my fly box.  These are tied on small #14 hooks.
I remember once trying to catch fish in Florida using the stalking bug.  I made several cast
before I had a big take.  It was a huge large mouth bass.  I could not believe the size of this bass.
It was clearly more than five pounds.  And I easily lost the fish due to some nifty maneuvering
 by the monster bass.  But it showed that the fly could catch fish.

When I fish The Meer there are several spots that hold fish in the spring.  I know that I can fish these spots and catch bass, blue gills, and or crappie.  This day it was no different.  The water was clear
and visibility was about five feet.  After a few cast I located where the crappie were holding in the cove I fished.  I moved on after catching a few nice size fish.

The next spot I fished usually holds mature blue gills but today I did not see or catch blue gills.  Bass had entered this spot.  I hooker several large mouth but was only able to land a one pound bass, all on the tiny stalking bug.

The Meer looking north west.

A beaten but proud "stalking bug"

Today's Honorable Mention Award  goes to Conner who caught large mouth bass using
kernels of corn.  Nothing else was working.

Proof that carp bait will catch bass under the right conditions.

Day two chumming for carp

This is the second day of my chumming here.  I arrived about two hours later today.
It is about noon now.  The water is still cold enough to keep beer.  Too cold for unprotected hands
trying to remove excess chum from finger tips after they've been dipped in the lake water.

Looking west.  The temperature could reach sixty this afternoon.  I have used boiled pigeon feed,
corn and some bread crumbs to make this batch of chum.  Pigeon feed is really simple to prepare
It can be pre soaked for about an hour and the boiled for a little more than hour or until the
seeds are soft to the touch.

I have even skipped the pre soak and simply simmered the feed until the peas are soft.
Pigeon feed is a mixture of seeds and peas.  I order mine in twenty five pound bags from
amazon (because they ship it to my door).

I try to spread this mixture over a wide area and for each successive chumming I apply
less chum in a smaller area.

A wood duck and his mate where out this morning.

A cardinal feeding on the chum that fell to the ground.

The telephoto lens on my camera made the bird appear much closer to me than it actually is.

This tree stands in front of my house.

Prospect Park - fishing for carp

Well, it's that time of year spring.  Time to try and catch spawning carp again.  This past
winter, I tried to get an early start on fishing for carp.  But there have been a few false starts to the fishing season.  Every time it looked like warmer weather was here to stay; a nor'easter storm
would change the weather.

I've chummed this spot several times during the winter.  Each time, after a few warm days,
the weather would go back into winter mode and a cold spell or nor'easter would come into
town and drop snow on New York City.

There have been no signs of carp in this spot, yet.  I'm working on blind faith that there are
carp feeding in the afternoon.  It is the warmest time of the day here in the spring.
As the pictures show, even the trees show few signs that winter is gone.  The only activity I see
are the ducks getting ready to mate and lay their eggs in a few weeks.

The current forecasts is for five days of warm weather; with air temperatures above 50 degrees.

I hope the water heats up as well.

Remember the early bird catches the worm.

Early signs that the weather is changing.

GIANT CARP! Fly fishing carp on a 3wt (sight fishing)

Topwater Fly Fishing for Fickle Pickerel. Lots of blowups

Llano River topwater action on a bamboo fly rod