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After reading several "Willard is Dead" posts I still look a chance and loaded up the tube this morning. Hiked the west dike and was fishing by 7:30. Started out pretty good and stayed that way until I left at 11. Managed to catch my first slam of the summer. Fish count for the day was 7 or 8 kitties, a dozen SMB, a wiper and three or four crappies. All were caught within 20 feet of the rocks and all but a couple kitties on a red headed rat's ass. The cats that didn't eat my fly liked the oil stain flig tipped with a crawler that dragged along behind me. Seems a little early for crappies along the rocks. Usually it's the middle of August before I start seeing them. Yup Willard's dead.
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Can I get one of these or don't you give a rats ass?
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Make sure is the RED Headed kind.
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O.C.F.D.
![[Image: download.jpg]](https://i.ibb.co/zS9dSGY/download.jpg)
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WTG Larry, great report and nice to hear it's not done for the summer... but then again you do have the touch when it comes to Willard on the fly... Congrats and thanks for sharing... Later J
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[#0000FF]Marvel-ass.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]By the way, that flig color is "motor oil"...but if you catch fish on it you can call it anything you want.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]Nice work. I might be tempted to launch up thataway next week sometime. Got a tip on something and someplace I just gotta try.
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Easy pattern to tie.
Sz 8 streamer hook.
Med lead eyes (tied a little back of the front
Body is dark or black sparkle chenille with a
Black  dle hackle palmered back to front over the chenille
Tail - extra long piece of black crosscut rabbit fur
Head - dub red ice dubbing around the eyes and around the front of the hook shank
Its really just a wolly bugger body with a monkey tail. Dubbed head gives it a hot spot the fish seem to like. When I get home I'll post a picture.
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Okay, I'll bite--what's a red headed rat's ass?
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The older I get the more I would rather be considered a good man than a good fisherman.
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RHRA picture attached.
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That’s how you kill bad rumors, well done [cool]
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Great report Larry, sounds like you had a great day at the Bay.
I think the Willard is dead comment was talking about walleye and maybe to a lesser extent wipers and most were talking about catching numbers. I think there is always a chance to catch one or two, here and there and of course cats and SM bass were never in the Willard is dead discussion. I think now that the water is back up in the rocks there will be an endless supply of SMB and the cats have been the mainstay for many many years, once the eyes and wiper catching slows down.
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Curt, I assumed that they meant the "easy fishing was over." The fish are still there if your willing to work a little harder and try different means, locations and methods. Traditionally, July and August have been my favorite months as longer as your willing to accept that walleyes and wipers are the exception unless you stumble on a significant boil. If course you and Ira are the last folks I need to tell this.
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The willard slam, pretty cool. Fellow co- worker also said he got some slabs up in the rocks. Might have to go try and tease one out
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I trolled this evening until the wind blew me off. I was able to get one 19” walleye on a flicker shad at 3 mph. That was my only bite.
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Looks to me like 7/11 was your lucky day!
Not a bad day for a float and a flig. Showed them naysayers! Pah!
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Thanks for the report, I took your information and went out yesterday evening 7/11 and worked the west wall in my boat and caught a bunch of small mouth on a ned rig and a night crawler under a slip bobber. Those small mouth are fiesty, I caught some up to about a pound and a half.
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Hahaha......
When the picture you posted was loading up on my laptop, it started with the crease of your leg and I actually thought you posted a pic of a butt-crack! Imagine my relief when the rest of the picture finished loading!
Are you fishing the fly on the bottom or suspended mid-column, and are you using an aggressive retrieve or slowly stripping it in? I'm thinking I want to give the fly a shot on Willard within the next week.
Mike
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Mike, I'm using a sink tip line and all but bouncing the fly off the rocks. I retrieve it with six inch strips that hopefully keep it close to the bottom without constantly hanging on the rocks. I've found if you're never hanging slow down. Constantly hanging. Speed up. When there is a pretty good chop I've had success hanging it below a bobber with about six feet of leader. Find the place where the water is about that deep and suspend off the bottom. Waves and chop will give it some action. I think the hardest part is learning how fast or slow to work down the bank in your tube or boat. My philosophy is if you think your going too slow, slow down a little bit. Catfish on a flyrod are seriously fun. If the government finds out about, they'll soap a son tax on it.
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Thanks for the info Larry. I'm gonna try it. I've never caught a catfish on a fly before, but I'm going to now!
Mike
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[#0000ff]I was probably one of the first nut jobs to seriously fish Willard with a flyrod...or from a float tube. That was back in the late 1970's.
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[#0000ff]In those days there was only the "holy trinity" in Willard...crappies, cats and walleyes...plus lots of bluegills and green sunfish. The crappies were so numerous and cooperative I started flinging flies at them. In those days...BS (before shad...and wipers)...the fish mostly hung out near the always flooded rock dikes. That's where the food was...the fry of all species and plenty of crawdads and other invertebrates. So fishing along the dikes was the best place to fish.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I flung a 9' for 6 weight rod with a sink tip line. And most of my successful patterns were variations on black...sometimes white or chartreuse. My best all around fly was a "silver Hilton"...a steelhead pattern I brought with me when I moved from California.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]When I first started chasing crappies with the fly rod I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the "other guys" liked flies too. On an average trip I would catch grundles of crappies, more than a few cats and a surprising number of decent walleyes. They were all cruising the rocks looking for baby crappies, sunfish and/or catfish. And they all readily munched the feathers.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]After moving back to Utah in 2004, I was pleased to find that flies still worked. But because of the changes in the ecology of Willard...shad and wipers...the populations and habits of all species had changed too. However, it didn't take long to discover the joys of hooking wipers on the fly. Yahoo.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Since my fly tying and jig making skills had progressed over the years, I introduced a lot of new styles and colors to the Willard denizens. I have found that they will hit almost any color fly or feather jig...if it is properly presented...at the right depth and speed. But variations of black seem to remain the overall best colors. These include some of the newer combos, like the Captain Midnight (black with blue and red flecks) and the Diablo Rojo (black with red flecks). And as Fatbiker and others have discovered, black patterns with red, orange or even pink in the mix are attractive at times.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Back "in the day", I actually won a $100 bet with a know-it-all customer from Anglers' Inn who disputed my claims to be able to catch cats on flies. I actually lessened his likelihood of losing the bet by agreeing to catch a limit (8 cats) within an hour. When I looked up for him in the crowd...from my float tube on the water...after catching the 8th cat in about 30 minutes...he was a distant speck walking back down the dike to his car. I never collected.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I don't wave the long rod much these days but still throw marabou jigs with spinning tackle a bit. And, like FB and others have found, the mix of species in
Willard makes it an exciting challenge on any given day...to go for a slam...or even a grand slime (5 or more species).
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Hey Pat I know what you mean about being considered a nut job with a fly rod. I spent a little time in San Antonio a few years back. I took my fly rod and fished the stream coming out of Canyon Lake since it was about the only trout water in Texas. Struck out on the trout so I went up and fished the lake. I waded out from shore near a fishing dock that was loaded with anglers in their lawn chairs. When I started fishing I got some of those strange looks. I caught a few smallmouth a catfish or two and some small stripers.
Maybe I'm wrong but that photo with the silver Hilton looks like it was taken on Mammoth.
You need to mention your Green Meanie hot head. It is a great pattern on Starvation Reservoir for rainbows, walleye, and smallmouth. Your hot head patterns are definitely effective, just like your fligs.[  ]
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