I had planned to spend Thursday evening pestering Puget Sound sea-run cutthroat trout during the incoming tide. But the warm and humid afternoon -- the air felt thick -- got me thinking about largemouth bass whacking popping bugs burbling across a glassy lake.
So, that's where I found myself an hour later. The lake looked like a mirror, and the water smelled like a mix of wet mud and the weird --almost fruity -- scent of panfish. This little lake is a pretty popular spot, but most anglers fish it for hatchery rainbow trout -- and ignore the nice largemouth bass, bluegill and pumpkinseed sunfish that knock around in the weedy shallows.
In fact, holdover rainbow trout were lazily rising -- stringing rings along the water -- to a nice hatch of big midges. I might have been tempted to hook one or two of those fish myself -- setting up on a trout porpoising on glassy water is one of the elegant moments in fly fishing -- but my trout gear was at home.
I noticed lots of dinner-plate-sized clearings on the bottom -- mostly in shallow water near the shore. All the mud and weeds and junk had been cleared away, and I knew bluegill and their colorful cousins -- the pumpkinseed sunfish -- had created nests on the bottom. Little male bluegill and pumpkinseeds each patrolled their own nest, and I knew they would whack any fly dropped in their territory.
But I wanted to hook the females, which tend to run a little bigger. I cast my fly -- a bead-head Cate's Turkey variation -- to the deeper, weedy water just a few feet away from the shallow nests. The weeds in this lake create green forests that blanket the bottom and reach for the surface. I felt like I was floating over a submerged patch of thick woods.
After a few casts, my line tightened, and a fat little pumpkinseed was Frisbeeing around the float tube.
Pumpkinseeds are as gorgeous as a tropical fish on a Hawaiian reef. Blue streaks decorate their faces, their bellies are bright orange and a tiny red dot decorates that little tab on their gills. Pumpkinseeds never get very big, but they are super aggressive, fight hard and taste really good when filleted, rolled in cornmeal and dropped into hot oil.
I decided to keep four or five fish and have a lakeside dinner. My camp stove and cooking gear were in the Subaru -- and it's funny how often I bring kitchen stuff along when I'm fishing warmwater lake in early summer.
It looked like this fish was about to lay her eggs, but I kept her anyway. Panfish -- such as bluegill and pumpkinseeds -- are very good parents, and they can easily overpopulate a lake and start stunting out. Keeping a few panfish for supper is actually good for the lake. And the fish are a delicious, guilt-free meal.
This is a great time to take kids or new anglers fishing. Just about every lake or pond in western Washington and Oregon -- and the rest of the United States as well -- has hungry panfish. The fish hang out in big schools around weedbeds, sunken trees and boat docks.
I kept four fish in the little mesh bag that hangs in the water from a ring on my float tube -- and then rerigged for bass. A foam popper -- I learned to tie it when a good angler named Gene Trump created a little tutorial on the Westfly.com website -- was soon plopping into the the nooks and crannies along the shoreline.
In this lake, the bass often spawn right after the panfish, so I suspected the bass would be shallow and jumpy and aggressive. And late spring is the best time of year to fish for shallow largemouth bass.
Gene Trump's popper worked great -- four bass took it down in 90 minutes of casting -- but operator error bungled the hookset every time. I have a bad habit of setting with my rod -- as if I were fishing a dry fly for trout. It's best to just keep stripping line until you feel the fish when a bass whacks a floating popper. Setting up with the rod is a dumb move.
Yeah, I yanked that popper right out of the gaping mouths of those bass. I'm always a little jumpy and squirrelly on the first trip or two when fishing poppers for bass. I do wish I had hooked at least one of those bass, as this lake grows thick, hefty fish with green sides and pearl-white bellies.
After a while, I started watching the bluegill and pumpkinseed nests. The fish each had a nest, and there was a lot of fin-flaring and tail-chasing whenever another male got too close to the clean gravel. I lost track of time while gazing at the little fish, and it was soon time to get out, clean the fish and fry up the little fillets.
Bats were flapping over the lake as I waited for the oil to heat up, and it was still light at 8:45 p.m.
I love this time of year -- especially the long evenings with thick, moist air -- and the electric tugs of amped-up panfish.
