In_Fisherman Magazine Jan 2007 Float and Fly Article?

Did anyone else get this magazine yet and read the float and fly article. They show a picture of the float and fly setup. All they use is a three way swivel and then attached the bobber to one of the the three sections on the swivel. Then the fishing line and leader is attached to the other two parts of the three way swivel.

This is nothing like the float and fly bobber that you guys were talking about last month.

I still think that my crappie fishing slip floats would work just as good. Using a long flexible rod similar to a fly rod to cast these light weight foam slip floats out away from the boat and using 2lb to 6lb test lines sure does work in those big slab crappies in early April and Late March. These foam bobbers are only 1" long and less than 1/2" in diameter and they land very softly on the water. And with a slip float setup you use bobber stops (thrill type) to set the proper depth.

What if you setup your float and fly bobber at the wrong depth? If the bobber is set to 10ft and the small mouth's are at 5 ft will they still hit the fly? What about if the bass are at 15 ft and your bobber is tied up for 5 ft depth? When it's cold outside it's harder to tie knots with numb fingers. But a slip float's bobber stop can be easily adjusted to the proper depth. You can do that with gloves on.

And these foam bobbers will pop up and lay over flat on the surface if any of the weight is taken off the jig below. This is great for detecting those bites where a crappie just moves up next to the hanging jig or minnow and opens it's mouth to #### in the jig but does not move or pull the bobber down. When the jig enters the crappie's mouth it takes the weight off the bobber above and the bobber will then quickly pop up noticeable. I have poor eyesight so I have a hard time detecting this from any distance. But younger guys with good eyesight can easily see this happen. I can see this happen if the bobber is closer to the boat. I have been able to detect small crappie on the jig by only seeing the bobber pop up slightly by 1/4". Or just a quiver of the bobber has shown that the jig had been sucked in by the crappie.

Bass feed in much the same way. They open their mouth and flair their gill covers and #### in water and anything that's within range. They can shut the gill covers and spit the water and jig back out if it doesn't feel, taste or smell right. Or they can open their mouth and flair their gills a few more times and try to crush the bait in the back of their mouth. I know this because I have captive fish in my aquarium and I have watched them feed for the last two years. This is how the attack a minnow or a wax worm. I have to assume that crappie in the wild feed in the same manner. And I have seen bass in an aquarium feeding on TV shows. They show the bass swimming at the bait and opening it's mouth and flaring it's gill covers open and therefore sucking in the bait. But a bass will often turn and swim away with the bait in their mouth while the crappie may just remain motionless and at the same depth and position. The bass bites are easy to detect as when they turn and swim away they will pull a bobber down. Crappie do this too at times. But at other times when the water is cold the fish can't swim easily and they will use less energy to get food. This is the time when they may just swim slowly up to the bait and look at it for a while and remain parked with their nose right near the bait. Then they may just #### the bait in and remain motionless and in the same spot. The only way to detect that you have a fish taking the jig in it's mouth is to set the hook or to see the lightweight bobber raising up slightly.

The key to this system is this system is to adjust the jig weight so that it pulls the foam bobber almost all the way under the water. But you want about 1/4 or 1/3 of the bobber to still be above the water's surface. I would think that a slowly sinking bobber would work as well. For sometimes the fish was a jig that sinks every so slowly.

Another trick that I can think of is to imitate a rising mayfly. Mayflies and other aquatic insects go though several life cycles. They are laid in the water as eggs from flying female and the eggs hatch under the water. The eggs sink down to the bottom of a lake or creek. Fish will feed on these slowly sinking eggs if they can find and see them. When the eggs hatch the larva live on the bottom of the lake or stream eating the dead leaf matter. When they are ready to change forms and become an adult mayfly they will rise to the surface and break though the surface film and pupate out into an adult. Here they are vulnerable to fish as they slowly rise to the surface from the lake bottom and as they float along on the surface film waiting for new wings to dry out and allow them to fly off. And then after a few days they will make and die and fall back into the water. At these times the fish may be keyed into mayflies and feed on nothing else. So take a floating jig head and a slip sinker and use this setup to imitate and insect rising from the bottom of the lake to the surface as if it were a hatching mayfly or other aquatic insect. Midges are very small and they to rise to the surface and become fish food. The fish are capable of seeing these tiny midges as the change from a pupae to an adult. Fish can feed on tiny zoo plankton such as daphnia and other small copapods. These small crustaceans are so tiny that we have to use a microscope before we can see them. And their bodies are clear and you can see though their bodies when you view them under the microscope. Yet the fish have not problem finding and feeding on these tiny creatures. During the summer months many fish species will be found feeding on these tiny zooplankton. Follow the wind as it blows these tiny creature and their summer food source phytoplankton around the lake. If the wind has been blowing steadily out of the south for three days then you can be sure that most of the phytoplankton and zooplankton and the minnow and shad that feed on these creatures will have moved to the windward Northern Shores over the last three days. This is why changing wind direction and intensity can change the fishing situation. The wind may scatter the food around the lake as it changes direction.

And these tiny plants and the creatures that feed upon them are effected by the sunlight. They rise toward the surface a dark and sink lower in the water column as the sun light penetrates deeper and with more intensity into the depths. There are diurnal cycles that the fish key in on too. Sunlight drives the food chain and the weather that determines where in the lake the food will be. Changing bottom types also dictate where the food and life will be. Some limiting nutrients like Phosphorous are needed for life to exit. And different bottoms have different minerals and soil types present. Each soil type may have various amounts of phosphorous in them. Some areas where two or more different types of bottom occur in close proximity maybe better fishing spots than others due to the fact that there are more different types of minerals in this area that are dissolving into the surrounding water. This in turns will allow more phytoplankton to grow here. For any phosphorus that is dissolved or introduced into a water system is almost IMMEDIATELY use by the phytoplankton and tied up. When these creatures die or are eaten the phosphorus is then release back into the lake and then used again in the cycle of life by the next organism. And different types of weeds require different depths and soil types to survive. And different types of animal life feed on different types of weeds. So areas with hard and soft bottom in close proximity will have more varied forms of plant life and more varied forms of animal life living in the submerged weeds. This is where the fish will have a banquet of food to chose from.


Anyone know where to buy some phosphate rock these days? They took phosphorus out of laundry detergent because it was causing the lakes to have algal bloom in the summer months and causing a process called eutrophication. You can start a small area of a lake to bloom full of life by adding some phosphate rock to the area. The phosphorus is tied up in the rock and will dissolve out of the rock slowly and provide phosphorus to the system over a longer period of time. This may be while certain rock piles or underwater humps have good fishing. Some rocks weather slower than others. Some rocks are harder than others. And as the softer rocks weather and wash away around the harder rocks a hill is formed by the harder rocks. These rocks evidently are not only different in hardness but the minerals in this harder rocks are different. Something to remember. If you take a course in Physical Geology or just read a college Geology book you can learn which chemicals are in which rocks. Or you can just talk to a geologist and learn some of this from there. My next door neighbor that I grew up had his degree in Geology but he specializes in coal these days. That's where all the money is in this area. LOL

Regards,

Moose1am