Presque Isle Bay

[sniperfreak223]

Planning a trip to Presque Isle Bay in mid-to-late June and would like a few recommendations:

-any good patterns to imitate the round goby.
-any recommendations for other specialized flies
-should I take an 8-weight or a 9-weight

 

[plombardo]

What are you targeting?

 

[sniperfreak223]

Most likely carp and smallmouth, probably going to be a little late for the early pike bite.

 

[sandfly]

emerald shiner, goby, alewife patterns. crawfish too. hex nymphs

 

[Fishidiot]

sniperfreak223 wrote:
Planning a trip to Presque Isle Bay in mid-to-late June ......-any good patterns to imitate the round goby.

-should I take an 8-weight or a 9-weight

Any good sculpin pattern should work for gobies - they're typically brown with maybe some olive and live on the bottom. A conehead bugger would work too.
I'd use the 8WT but make sure you have a decent reel with some backing if you're going to target carp (of course). I don't know if carp up there eat gobies - I'd imagine they would - but across the state in rivers they love crayfish so some crayfish flies might be a good bet. Have some surface flies for the bass too. Maybe some weedless(?). I'm not a Presque Isle guy so don't know if it gets weeds in early summer (I would think so).

 

[sniperfreak223]

yeah, after looking at images of the round goby, I'm thinking either a tan or brown sculpin or Clouser madtom would be a passable imitation for a round goby....still think I'll play around a little as I like to have a specific imitation for everything. I always bring crayfish regardless of what I'm fishing for, and I know those are like candy to both carp and smallmouth. I knew about the emerald shiners, did not know about the alewifes.

 

[McSneek]

Not speaking from experience but if I was targeting smallmouth with a fly rod in Presque Isle Bay the first fly I would tie on would be a chartreuse and white Clouser minnow. They work great everywhere else, why not there?

I think you can probably get into LMB especially in the shallower waters near shore and around the lagoons. Maybe a fly fishing version of a good ol' rubber worm?

 

[plombardo]

Yellow and White. & chartreuse and White Clousers are the only thing I have ever used.

Pike might be out deep buy then.

I used 7wt for bass and 10 wt for pike/musky.

 

[boychick]

Don't forget the olive over white clouser with red dumbbell eyes. Call Lake Erie ultimate Angler, they are in Erie. I'm sure they'll give you the run down.

 

[RLeeP]

So far as targeting smallmouth in the Bay, the earlier in June you go, the better. Depends on the year and water temps, etc. In warm years, I've seen them come off the beds in the Bay and disappear back out into the big lake by 6/1. In other, cooler years, they'll hang around a while longer. But mid-month is about the end of it even in cooler years.

The largemouth fishing should be about at its peak though. The weeds won't be so thick and high yet that they strangle the oxygen exchange in a lot of the smaller dents and coves in the Bay, including large sections of the Lagoons. This generally happens to a greater or lesser extent almost every year with the severity depending on water levels and how windy it has been.

Don't know the first thing about fishing for carp there, except that they are everywhere. On the other hand, if you want to be one of the nine or ten people in the state who have caught a gar on a fly rod, the weedy shallows behind the old Summerheim Pump Station on the extreme west end of the Bay used to be loaded with small gar.

 

[sniperfreak223]

^ I would LOVE to add a gar to my list of fly-rod species...I'll have to give that a shot too...

 

[streamerguy]

I caught a couple gar on the fly fishing the Ohio River this past summer. They're very tough to hook, and even tougher to unhook with all those teeth! Pretty cool fish, very underrated....

 

[sandfly]

mop flies for gar

 

[boychick]

mop flies for gar

Sandfly's right. Make a mop fly from a piece of rope. You don't use a hook, the fish get their teeth all tangled up in the rope.

 

[streamerguy]

^+1! The fly I had success with was a big articulated streamer with lots of bushy, rope-like material. The fish weren't even hooked, but instead the material was tangled up in their teeth. I tied up a few gar-specific "rope flies" but haven't had the chance to try them out yet.

 

[sniperfreak223]

could you recommend a rope or give me a source for the rope used for rope streamers? I'd like to add a half dozen or so rope streamers to one of the Erie boxes just in case.

 

[streamerguy]

I tied my gar flies with nylon rope, though I haven't had the chance to try them out yet.

Check out these sites...

http://www.flyfishga.com/gar.htm
http://www.flyfishohio.com/heat_wave_flyfishing.htm
http://www.orvis.com/news/fly-fishing/Longnose-gar-on-the-Fly/

The Orvis link recommends 8 or 9wt rods, though in Erie and the three rivers you shouldn't need to go that heavy. 5 or 6wts should work for gar. I used my 5wt on the OH river without an issue, but then again those fish were on the small side(20in class). If you're already using an 8wt for bass then just use that for gar..

 

[sniperfreak223]

so, just tied up a dozen gar flies, now after a little research, I'm thinking I might try to add a bowfin to the list while I'm out that way too...

and after discussing plans with the other parties involved, I'll likely be going up in mid-to-late May, so I'll be taking the carp rod, the bass rod (the 8-weight, since even the smallies in Erie are supposedly huge [average of 3 pounds]), and the muskie rod, seeing as that's about the peak of the pike in the bay.

 

[streamerguy]

I'm thinking I might try to add a bowfin to the list while I'm out that way too...

Definitely try to do it. I caught my first couple on the fly this year and they are a BLAST! I've never tried PIB for them, but from my experiences fishing for them at another location(Geneva Swamp) they can be very weird. One day you can fish for hours and not get a hit, even with cut bait on the bottom. Then the next day, under the same conditions, you can't keep them off the hook. My first successful outing fly fishing for them I originally started with bait, but once I ran out of dead chubs I switched to the big, heavily weighted buggy streamers and started hooking up right away. Very underrated sport fish.

 

[sniperfreak223]

^they are apparently in Presque Isle Bay, but there are a few other bodies of water within sane driving range from there that also have sizable bowfin populations, so I might hit one of those up either on the way to or on the way back.