Topsy Pumpkinseed and Perch

I went to Topsy on Saturday and ended up catching some pumkinseed, a perch, and a tui chub. I also got to test out a new rod and reel (a Zebco Crappie Fighter combo) and it worked well, especially considering the price. The pumpkinseed all bit a redworm under a weighted float, and most of them seemed to bite right after I twitched it. The perch bit half a crawler on the bottom. I also tried some jigs and spinners, but it was hard to keep the weeds off for very long.

My first pumpkinseed:


Another one:


Probably the biggest pumpkinseed of the day:


This was also my first yellow perch:


The pumpkinseeds weren't exactly the biggest fish, but they're fun to catch and pretty cool looking.

I hooked two other fish on the bottom, but got snagged almost immediately, and by the time I got unsnagged, the fish were gone:doh:. I was using two baited hooks per leader, so next time I'll only use one hook and see if that helps.

I also fished the bypass reach below the dam using some nymphs, dry flies, and spinners, but I didn't get anything there.



I was expecting that most of the fish here would be trout, but the only fish I saw clearly was this black crappie that stayed by my feet the whole time and refused to bite anything.




I'm sure it knew I was there, but it just swam around a little and looked for bugs in the algae while I watched it. I saw a couple damselflies, and one fish rising, but there wasn't much of a hatch going on.

nice fish! sucks that there weren't any trout in that one area you were fishing though, it looks nice

Did you try fly fishing in the area where you caught pumpkinseed?

Agordon said:

I went to Topsy on Saturday and ended up catching some pumkinseed, a perch, and a tui chub. I also got to test out a new rod and reel (a Zebco Crappie Fighter combo) and it worked well, especially considering the price. The pumpkinseed all bit a redworm under a weighted float, and most of them seemed to bite right after I twitched it. The perch bit half a crawler on the bottom. I also tried some jigs and spinners, but it was hard to keep the weeds off for very long.

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How many Pumpkinseed's did you catch? I heard when they're biting they are kind of annoying at times because you'll just keep catching them since they'll bite on almost anything. Fun to catch stuff either way, and very cool looking. Just wondering how many you caught.

I didn't try it, but they would probably like poppers or even standard dry flies. The area was pretty shallow, so the fish would probably look up for a fly. I think the bypass region is kept relatively cool by springs in the river, so it might actually get cooler (and have more trout) farther down from the dam.

I think I got about six of them, but I wasn't counting closely. I didn't get any on the lures, and if I had switched to redworms earlier I probably would have got more.