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3. "That confounded 3-weight" got it's first workout of the year!

What a difference a three-hour drive south makes. As has become truly an annual tradition for me, I started my fly-fishing season off in my hometown of Troy at Sylvan Glen Lake (next to the golf course of the same name) during my annual Easter visit to my folks. I have been fishing this lake for 41 years! And, since 1986 with a fly rod...Wasn't sure with the weather predictions leading up to the weekend if things would be worthwhile, or even if there still might be ice on the lake when I got there! Well, it was well thawed off (though apparently only about a week earlier) and the fish were in fact hitting on my flies! A three-hour trip on Saturday yielded a school of nice black crappies belting a #10 standard gray/silver KBF, along with a bluegill and a couple of smallish bass. Funny thing, though - they hit like crazy for about 40 minutes and then went dead, and I had no more hits for the rest of the afternoon...must have been something with a barometer change, I mean like a switch going on and off. Then yesterday afternoon, a nice fat 18" largemouth, about a 3-pounder, sucked in same fly (I say a little mantra..."the Killer Bass Fly works it's magic"...) and bent the little rod over double. Then later, slow but steady action on the crappie, bluegill, and the odd smallish bass on a #10 chartreuse Woolly Bugger with grizzly hackle...two best warmwater flies I've ever used!

Oh, and a bonus for self-described Nerder Birder Spence! This place is a stopover spot for migrating waterfowl and water birds, and I fortuitously took my pair of field binoculars (Bushnell 10X42 waterproof/rubber armored) since I knew this from past experience. As follows, Spencer:

Common loon
Black-crowned night heron
Great blue heron
Mute swan
Bufflehead
Lesser scaup (I think)
Hooded merganser? (not a good look)
Canada goose (fighting over nesting territories on the lone island in the lake), and of course
Mallard

I have also seen double-crested cormorants, great egrets, and ring-necked ducks on this lake, and have heard the occasional wood duck. And this is in the middle of freaking TROY, in the heart of the Metro Detroit suburbs!

No wildflowers in the woods yet though, still too cold. I'm just grateful that the fish were biting! Having broken dormancy on the fly rod, on to the trout streams (and ponds)!!!

Jonathon

Looks like a wonderful Easter visit! Thanks for thinking of me in terms of the bird list. :)

That is one chunky bass! Nice going.

You might like this...I'm doing the entomology section for the Boy Scouts Merit Badge coming up here in a couple weeks. In the past I helped out with the fly tying portion of the program, but unfortunately the club member who had done it in the past passed on last winter.

I'll have a friends bug collection with me and I think I'll walk down to the lake and take a sample and see what we might find there. Last year we pulled out a leech which was cool since they were tying Buggers.

Spence

Good work, Jonathon.

Thanks guys. This weekend was the first time in SIX MONTHS I have held a fly rod - last fall was too cold and windy for me. And, having gone ice fishing only once (again, too cold and windy this winter!), these were the first fish I have caught in SIX MONTHS. Yes, caps for emphasis...man did it ever feel GOOD!!! If heavy rains hold off and things get a little warmer - they are supposed to - I will be hitting trout waters within a week or two.

Guess I had better get the vise set up and start tying! I had only one silver KBF in my box and almost lost it on a willow tree! Having snapped it off and being unable to find it, I put on a pearlescent variant of the same fly, only to stick it in a log before I even got a full cast out of it! Upon breaking it off I turned around and my first silver one was almost literally sitting right at my feet! Got lucky on that one but I had better start making more pretty soon...

Jonathon

P.S. Glad you liked the bird list, Spence. This place really amazes me considering it's buried in suburban development, but I guess it doesn't take much habitat to provide for wildlife. Saw a big snapping turtle poke his head up, and saw some big deer tracks on the west shore where the woods are too.

Nice bass! And I love crappie on the fly too.

Nice catches, Jonathan! Always nice getting out after a long winter. That's a genuine smile.

Paul...It would of been a broader smile if he still wasn't partially frozen solid...Up where he spent the winter they had some 30 below nights this past winter.

I walked around a local pond yesterday with my wife and there were dead carp piled up everywhere. It was another serious one.

On our walk we were pleased at some of the birds that have made it back...Saw a turkey and it was calling out...Looking for a mate. Bufflehead, Ringed-neck, A Widgeon, in the duck family, Great Blue Heron, Egrets, and Sandhills back...

We saw a young Sandhill laying on an abandoned goose nest in the middle of a pond...Wondered how its chicks made it to shore if it decides to stay there. One Tree Swallow...Red-winged Blackbirds and Robins everywhere, but we still haven't spotted a Wood Warbler.

Not this weekend, but the next is opening day here in Michigan...Heading up to Grayling for the hoopla and to wet a line, finally!

Spring has sprung!

Spence

Sounds wonderful. You should be hearing those Yellow-Rumps soon. I can hear them now -a tinkling, reminiscent of tiny icicles tinkling together in a breeze. A few Magnolia's would be mixed in -similar song but wispier. Years ago I put words -a rhythmic phrase- to each warbler species song, so I would remember them. I did not want to forget them. I can remember more than once hearing an unfamiliar bird song, and the school bus would be coming up the road. The bird would call. The bus would loom. I'd be torn, and then run after the bird. I just had to know.

Never did put a phrase to the Yellow-Rump/Magnolia song. Tough one. But also, they came before all the others and were distinctive. Old friends returning to unleafed-out woods and hedges.