The reoccurring Theme of the Day was that at every fly change, the new fly would catch fish where the previous fly had failed. The new hot fly would catch fish like crazy until it wouldn't. Try something else. Repeat. Starting out in lily pad cover and adjacent cattail cover, I caught a couple of bass on a well worn 3/0 White Marabou Banger.
When that went cold, I put on a #2 Chartreuse Hook Up Popper with some flash in the body and tail. On that I hooked a big pike in a cattail pocket I had just fished with the big loud Banger. It got off but near by I got this average pike and some bass. The HookUp Popper would fish through and get out of or over most of the weed messes I cast it into.
Three times I tried stretches of the sheltered water out of the wind along the rip rap edges of the long dyke. Each time moving farther down the dyke. In between trying there I twice paddled back into the windier and weed choked pockets surounded by phramites or cattails. I didn't land anything much in there. A Yellow Hookup Popper got blasted and missed by a big pike. Near by I hooked a bigger than average pike I thought I might land even though I didn't have a bite leader on. I couldn't maneuver the kayak past some phragmites to get to and open pocket to net him. He made one more run and cut me off.
Back along the dyke, in water the HookUp Popper got nothing, I quickly got some nice bass on this 3/0 White BulletDog. It had this great side to side Walk the Dog sub surface action.
That went cold. The water toward the far side of the big pond gets muddier
the farther out you go. I put on a loud popping shiny new 3/0 White Marabou Banger with extra long flash. That worked great, some stretches had big bass, some had lots of small ones, some had no bass. That has been a great fly for
the late evenings when the bass get very aggressive.
