{Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: Ode to the Red Breasts of the Redbreast Sunfish

Yes!!!!!! Well done Misha.

Redbreasts are my favorite Bluegills. The colors and color diversity are freaking awesome.....and they love flies.

  
-Trent

On Wednesday, June 9, 2021 at 10:21:25 AM UTC-4 mish...@gmail.com wrote:

Do you enjoy holding brightly-colored living jewels in your hand? How about solitude? Convenience? Epic and aggressive topwater bites? Numbers that rival a day on the Chesapeake Bay? A name that lends itself to innuendo? If you're like me, you enjoy all of those things. You should be fishing for Redbreast Sunfish. 

Redbreast Sunfish are aptly named; their breasts are red. Well, orangey-red, sometimes yellow. Their flagrant chest displays are not the only bewitching characteristic that makes them beautiful, though. The red shades into a brilliant turquoise color on their sides, sometimes shot through with dark vertical bands. They have turquoise streaks on their faces that shine in the water like war paint. They average 6-8 inches, but Gregg DiSalvo won the TPFR Bluegill Tournament ("Biggest" category) in 2018 with a 10.5" fish that was well over a pound. They often have surprising heft to them. 

I tried my spot last Saturday, and was pleased to find at least 3 major bedding spots holding fish. My idea had been to see if the creek fish were munching on the Brood X cicadas. I did end up catching 29 fish on my simple foam cicada pattern, but I'm not sure it mattered that the pattern imitated a cicada. I think probably any popper would have drawn strikes. I've attached an early prototype version of my simple cicada fly, which I've since refined, but the profile has stayed the same, and it's worked in multiple circumstances for the periodical bugs. I found the fly's low profile was essential to my success on Saturday, as the fly is not so beefy it couldn't fit in the fish's mouth like many cicada imitations. It still took me a while to figure out how best to hook up with the fish. 

The cheat code for hooking the fish turned out to be a downstream presentation, a straight leader, and a perfectly timed strip-strike. Casting up and across resulted in missed fish or fish hooked in such a way it would maim them (hooks through their faces and eyeballs kind of thing). Phooey to that. Downstream presentations resulted in fish neatly hooked in their lower mandibles. 

I made my presentation to the nests, which were clearly visible like little underwater targets. A good cast would spur multiple fish to charge the fly. They competed to smash my fly as soon as they could get to it after it landed. I see now it was a community effort to eliminate the threat to their nests. Maybe there's a species of diving wasp that preys on their eggs? If I initiated a retrieve, the fish would continue to chase the fly back towards me, but when a fish didn't get it in its mouths on the first try, the pursuers would just harass the fly as I retrieved it out of the zone. Shoo, fly.

Fish where you are, not where you ain't. Fish for Redbreast Sunfish. Misha out. 

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