I was able to fish the Volga River yesterday -- finally after 1.5 years of wanting to get there again! Three of us. Water low and had to drag boats more than usual. Portage toons (like the meat in a sandwich) between 2 downed tree trunks in the water. None of us were complainers, and we had a good time. All SMB were small and then rock bass and a few chubs thrown in to widen the species caught. Ha! Too bad it wasn't the occasional white bass or trout that are sometimes pulled from here.
I did finally trial my yellow popper and after broadcasting a hole, I switched to chartreuse popper (ole faithful) and had a couple strikes and landed one after casting to the same hole. There were a few more strikes later on, but the day remained cooler and the fish were lazy like I had been the previous day.
Switched to streamers and had some more contact, but guys doing better (M knows the Volga VERY well). Then, I switched to an olive pattern -- no one fishes olive anymore, why is that?!-- and the game changed. Then Douggles switched to olive with orange. Bango!
Whether is was the fly color, the time of day the fish turned on, or a mix of both, I got most of my fish with that fly. For me alone, probably ~20 bass day overall after a slow start. But, at the hole that had already been fished, I did pull out an SMB in the first few casts with that fly. It was an unpainted lead eye crawdad-like pattern with 2 rabbit strips as legs. Olive tinsel chenille for body. Rubber legs and a little flash. With rabbit strips located at tail of body, I think they may have contributed more to profile color than anything else. I watched that fly while stripping it in the clear water. I tell ya, with that lead head and the chenille, that fly looked more like a thin baitfish imitation and almost translucent... delicate, thin and very vulnerable.
(Click on photos to see close-up images. Thanks for looking and please comment to let me know you were here! ~Twitch 9-5-15)
