The past few weeks have seen excellent fishing.  

But, the ledges and deeper rocky bottom have shown signs of slowing down.  Yesterday, with the hyacinth and loosestrife in bloom there have been hordes of dragonflies buzzing around the shallow shorelines.

Iridescent blue, orange/brown, brown, black and other colors in sizes ranging from a small helicopter to a big mosquito.

Needless to say, (So why am I saying it?) the bass have been very busy feeding on them.  The past few days I've been tossing a three inch, actually more like twenty of them, *** trick worm hung on a Jackall Wacky Jig, against the vegetation, and hauling them out.  But, some of the fish were deep in the weeds.

A weedless topwater would be good.  Even my slow brain catches up.  I've got just the thing, a Space Monkey on an Owner 4/0 weightless twistlock hook.  I'd only fished it for a few weeks in this stuff when it was starting to grow, and the bass were in the shallows.

Into the hyacinth and water lilies.  Forget about the loosestrife, that would be like tossing into kudzu.  The southerners will know what I'm talking about.

Three casts, and another monkey later, a three pounder, a three and a half pounder, and a three and a quarter pounder.

By the time I finished that one area, I had boated nine fish, the smallest over two pounds, and lost as many when they managed to wrap the line around several weeds and pull free.

Tomorrow, I just may toss the monkey using the Nitro combo with forty pound test line.  May not be very sporting, but when dealing with good sized bass in troublesome cover, it may be called for.

It won't cast far, but twenty feet is plenty.  Saw a single hyacinth twitching as a fish moved around it.  It wasn't ten feet from the canoe.  Tossed the bait, and the bass was on it in a flash.

Have to reorganize the gear in the canoe to accomodate the type of fishing I'll be doing tomorrow, and hopefully beyond.

Skinny down on the worms and jig hooks.  Put in an extra stock of the monkeys and a few Rage toads.  Maybe a Rage craw or two.  They make like them even better than the monkey.  Don't see how it could be possible, but it's a pleasant thought.

Nice!!! Way to get on 'em, man. Gotta love those Rage Tails, for sure! I've had a lot of luck with a keel weighted space Monkey or Lobster in that kind of stuff. The bass just can't ignore it!

Good info Rhino, I like the Monkey's versitility as well....one of has been a favorite here in Texas too.

Big O

www.ragetail.com

Tom, nice report.

Sounds like the same scenario I have here starting as early as late May and well into July. I guess you're further north, although with this cool year it may be extended here some. Have to keep my open and keep recording what I see.

It's the blue damsel, and dragon, emergences. The nymphs live in vegetation and a good pond can produce an awful lot of them. The bluegills move into the dense vegetation for them. When the nymphs are really coming off they sit at the surface on any piece of emergent vegetation waiting for their wings to harden. When this is going heavy the 'gills kissing the surface sound like popcorn is popping!

The bass are right in there with those 'gills.

I wonder if you have something similar going on?

Tom, nice report.

Sounds like the same scenario I have here starting as early as late May and well into July. I guess you're further north, although with this cool year it may be extended here some. Have to keep my open and keep recording what I see.

It's the blue damsel, and dragon, emergences. The nymphs live in vegetation and a good pond can produce an awful lot of them. The bluegills move into the dense vegetation for them. When the nymphs are really coming off they sit at the surface on any piece of emergent vegetation waiting for their wings to harden. When this is going heavy the 'gills kissing the surface sound like popcorn is popping!

The bass are right in there with those 'gills.

I wonder if you have something similar going on?

Sounds like we're talking about the same place.

Between the insects attracted to the blooms, and the hatch going on, the splashing of all sizes and species of fishes is non-stop.

It's a good thing none of the critters buzzing around are mosquitos.

Funny thing about the pond.  In the woods surrounding the pond are plenty of mosquitos, and even worse than them, deerflies.

On the water, even tight to the shore, there are no bugs that annoy you.

Not even at dawn or sunset.

Your dragons and damsels are busy doing their thing.

Hey..you know the alien in the movie Alien? It was patterned after a dragonfly larvae (except the "molecular acid" part). If you adjust for scale, Hollywood is hard pressed to come up with things scarier than what's out there in the real world.

Your dragons and damsels are busy doing their thing.

Hey..you know the alien in the movie Alien? It was patterned after a dragonfly larvae (except the "molecular acid" part). If you adjust for scale, Hollywood is hard pressed to come up with things scarier than what's out there in the real world.

There sure are plenty of them flying around in tandem.

The Blue Angels have nothing on them when it comes to precision flying.  Mid-air refueling comes as close as anything aviation has.  

Yup, those dragon flies make the bass get airborne,sometimes with a cart wheel thrown in.

 For what it's worth, River2sea tackle company makes a pretty cool loooking dragon fly lure.