Martyn White | Thursday, 19 June 2025
It was a bit late in the year but I eventually made it out on the float tube this week. We almost didn't go with the weather changing about but by Sunday evening the forecast seemed to have decided what it was going to do. Chuck had already done a bit of tubing and been doing pretty well so we reinstated the plan.
I met Chuck about 1am, and headed to the lake so we could get set up and be on the water for the light coming up around half 3.
Unfortunately instead of the forecast 1-3mm of rain overnight we actually got about 30mm over about an hour & a drop in water temperatures. Unsurprisingly despite the warming air, there was nothing doing when it came to topwater bass. There were a lot of other more cold tolerant fish like mullet, bluegill and various silverfish showing all around. We decided to go with different presentations in the hope of finding something thar would tempt a lethargic bass. Chuck went with an unweighted, leechy looking streamer. He was letting it sink slowly around structure and creeping it slowly back. I went for short, chunky little bugger looking bug fished static below a popper around deeper underwater humps. I wasn't really using the proper as anything more than an indicator at those depths, but I hadn't brought any actual indicators with me and I wanted the control of a vertical presentation.
Neither method worked for bass, but we didn't bother switching things out any further as we both quickly got into fish. Chuck on some nice bluegill initially and me into some channel cats. I wasn't particularly surprised about the bluegill situation but I was not expecting to pick up any catfish on my approach. I usually only encounter them on bigger, baitfish imitating streamers. It's pretty reliable actually, when things are slow I'll go and swim a whistler around the bridges. I've never caught one on a little nymphy bug, that's something I tend to view as an option for neutral bass that will also pick up the larger panfish to keep me interested. It could be an anomaly, but perhaps I've found something I can add to the catfish on fly options when things are slow. I'm wondering about scaling it up with a big indicator and a 6 inch fly to see if I can select for bigger cats. After a couple of hours and a half dozen or so channel cats, the sun was getting up and getting hot so rather than continuing to get baked I'd shorten the dropper to a couple of feet and go into shallows so I could fish in the shade.
Chuck was continuing to pick up the gills and some other fish on his leech, so I wasn't surprised when my popper started jiggling almost immediately I put the flies next to some standing wood. I decided to rig up the 3wt with a smaller "indicator" but the same dropper fly so I could get a bit of fun out of any bluegill in the area and still have enough stick for a bass. Chuck has recently taken to a 0wt glass for bluegill. It's a lot of fun, but it's also absolute chaos when he accidentally hooks something else. Having rerigged I put the flies back in next to the standing wood and the popper shot under before it had settled. A bass! No. Another catfish about 6 or 7lb that lead me on a merry dance for several minutes before it's pads rubbed through the leader. A retie and another cast back in to the structure which was met with a nice bull bluegill about 8 or 9". Far more civilised. I didn't get any huge panfish, but I got plenty of nice ones around that size with the fly being a bit big for the little guys. I still enjoy them, in many ways I enjoy them more than small trout. Maybe it's because they're more of a novelty for me because I didn't grow up with them, but it's probably also connected to them being so pretty, I'd gladly keep some in a tank.
We spent the rest of the morning bobbing around hitting likely looking spots and chatting. We even ended up adding some Chinese bream to catch, making for an invasive species slam. I don't really like the Chinese bream, they're aggressive but just give up once hooked and come in like a slimy sock. They only started showing up last year, but they seem to be pretty common now and regularly disappoint by sucking the popper under like a confident bass only to turn into one of those weirdos when you set the hook.
It was a good morning overall but I think we were both glad to drag the tubes ashore for "lunch" at about 9. The clouds were all gone the shade was shrinking fast, and we were tired. The weather appears to have stabilised a bit so maybe this Monday will be better..