Micro-popping for panfish and bass in south Florida

Haven't posted in over a week.  This doesn't mean I haven't been fishing.  I've been out a few times but the action wasn't all that great.

Today I tried a small pond not too far from where we live.  We had heavy storms yesterday afternoon and the same was predicted for today, so I thought it prudent not to take a long drive somewhere if I might get rained out.

I fish this little pond about once a year.  There are some nice bass in it but the pond tends to be overlooked, as there is a larger pond just down the road.  I had planned to throw plastic worms on spin tackle, at least to start out.  But once I got my kayak in the water I saw how calm the water was - ideal for throwing popper flies.  I tied on one of the tiny poppers that I bought in a local fly shop last week and within a couple casts I hooked what I'll call a green sunfish.  Not sure what name they go by down here.  You can see them in the video.  If anyone knows their proper name, please feel free to add a comment to this post.

I kept picking up more of these sunnies as I slowly made my way around the pond in my kayak.  I was casting toward the cattail-lined shoreline and jerking the popper three or four times.  At one point something much larger than a sunfish busted out from the shoreline and blasted the popper.  I thought it was a big bass but it turned out to be a snakehead, which is a long, skinny fish with a mouthful of teeth. This is only the second snakehead I've caught.  The other one was in the nearby, larger pond last year and that one went after a rubber worm.  Snakeheads fight very hard.  There's some concern that once they get in a water system that they will pretty much out-compete every other species there and take over.  Not sure how long they've been in the system of ponds I fish down here but they're not yet in danger of over-populating them.

Over the course of the morning I caught about 15 fish.  I threw them all back, of course.  It was a lot of fun catching them on the fly rod.


Here's a link to the video:   http://youtu.be/ilocYVXkCls