Fly Fishing Contest

[DanMarino]

I propose a contest for bragging rights for us fly fishing guys here on Snaggedline.com.

Would anyone be interested in trying to post photos of the largest and smallest fish you catch in 2017 on the fly? It would be very interesting to see what the smallest and largest fish that people can catch of different species while fly fishing.

What do you guys think?

Tom

[clm]

IMG_20170617_091935030_HDR.jpg

Caught this guy on my second cast last weekend. Noob at fly fishing. After watching a video, I decided to give it another go...ended up with 4 bass and 8 bream...to say the least, I'm hooked. My fly rods tripled this week. Picked up 2 three weight rods on the cheap to teach my wife and daughter (which is the excuse I used to buy more gear��).

[Mark]

My favorite fly rod catch this year was this pickerel from Unicorn Lake caught on May 1st:

P1020692.jpg

It illustrates precisely where they like to live -- heavy vegetation.

It hit this black foam popper cast on a 6 wt. rod with floating line:

P1020707.jpg

Shortly thereafter I caught this pickerel nearby on the same fly:

P1020693.jpg

By length, I think it is the longest fish I've landed on the fly this year in my kayak.

Two weeks later, on 15 May, I caught this bass in Trap Pond, DE on the same rod and different black foam popper:

P1020738.jpg

I believe it is the heaviest kayak fish I've caught this year on the fly.

I haven't targeted stripers on the fly yet from my kayak. I usually reserve that for the fall.

And then for grins, this is one of the smallest fish I've caught so far this year on the fly:

P1020750.jpg

You can see the wooly bugger was almost as long as the bass. Actually, it's harder to achieve a hookup on a light bite than when a big fish strikes.

Tomorrow I'm fly fishing for perch in the Severn. I hope I get an 11 or 12 incher. They pull almost as hard on a fly rod as either of the larger fish above.

[clm]

Nice when the entre come with a salad included��

[Mark]

Nice when the entre come with a salad included��

[Bigbev67]

Big blue

IMG_2392.jpg
30 plus inch yellow eyed demon from shore on Lbi New Jersey yesterday. Also the fish broke my reel. Will be getting service, so down a reel for the next week or so. Great fight lasted over 10 minutes and went for a few long runs into my backing, which was a first, including many fights with bull reds in louisiana in April.
This blue was caught on a homemade flat wing

[Mark]

30 plus inch yellow eyed demon from shore on Lbi New Jersey yesterday. Also the fish broke my reel. Will be getting service, so down a reel for the next week or so. Great fight lasted over 10 minutes and went for a few long runs into my backing, which was a first, including many fights with bull reds in louisiana in April.
This blue was caught on a homemade flat wing

Excellent catch.

[DanMarino]

You guys are kicking my butt on the fly rod this year. I'm catching fish, but nothing big. Maybe a few of the sunfish I've caught were large, but all the bass have been pretty small. I'll start posting some photos of fish on a measuring board as I catch them and post them here.

[Mark]

Tom,

It's not just size that matters. It's often more difficult to deceive a smaller discriminating fish with a fly than an aggressive eating machine.

I worked harder and was more pleased to catch 12 inch rainbows with a dry fly last month in the Casselman than any other species I've caught thus far on a fly rod in 2017.

That's not in anyway to diminish Bigbev67's catch. That's an impressive fly rod fish. I would have loved to have felt that beast ripping off my backing.

I'm just saying that from my perspective, the catch itself matters in fly fishing as much the size of the catch.

[DanMarino]

Yes Mark, I'm thrilled anytime I can catch fish on the fly rod. It is a challenge so far. Sure, sunfish on foam spiders is pretty easy though. haha.
I can't imagine what a big striper, bluefish, pike, snakehead, or bass would be like on the fly rod. My biggest fish so far is probably a largemouth around 14 inches. I'm even thinking about getting a 3 weight rod in the future.

[Brookmonter]

In New Hampshire with a 5wt over the weekend and in one afternoon north of Squam pulled in several LMB, pickerel, red breasted sunfish, some tiny brookies in the creek and this .... which had the locals guessing, but some consensus that it's a variety of buffalo black or bigmouth). Body of a carp, but a huge maw and no whiskers. All on some variety of nymph (in this case a damsel):IMG_0320.jpg

[eyedaddy]

Got a bluegill in a Delaware pond last week that was over a pound on a popper. My personal best bluegill and earlier in the week a 11 inch White Perch on the same Popper that sad to say was lost to a non reachable snag! Not nice to see an old man cry...

eyedaddy

[Mark]

In New Hampshire with a 5wt over the weekend and in one afternoon north of Squam pulled in several LMB, pickerel, red breasted sunfish, some tiny brookies in the creek and this .... which had the locals guessing, but some consensus that it's a variety of buffalo black or bigmouth). Body of a carp, but a huge maw and no whiskers. All on some variety of nymph (in this case a damsel)

That's nice variety.

[Mark]

Got a bluegill in a Delaware pond last week that was over a pound on a popper. My personal best bluegill and earlier in the week a 11 inch White Perch on the same Popper that sad to say was lost to a non reachable snag! Not nice to see an old man cry...

eyedaddy

Excellent. White perch will indeed hit poppers. I guess I shouldn't find that surprising since their larger cousins, stripers, routinely hit surface lures. But it's always special to catch a white perch on top. Sorry you lost the popper.

[Bigbev67]

So far this year I have had many great fights from fresh to salt water. I love catching trout on the river with a delicate setup and bass are eager to take a fly. It come in like a wet boot. The stripers have mostly been schoolies so far so haven't had a "reel" test on them yet. Reds fight hard and give a few good runs. But I was very pleased with the fight the blues gave me over the 4th. If they are on the feed they are not hard to catch and will strike anything. The run by the last blue was the deepest I have been into my backing yet. I walked several miles before I came across this blitzing fish and will definitely seek them out again.