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I caught this blue tilapia today in a local ( Pine island) private retention pond.

Good stuff.... lightly breaded, pan seared with a touch of olive oil...
What fly did it hit?

cag215 wrote:Good stuff.... lightly breaded, pan seared with a touch of olive oil...
What fly did it hit?

Good fertilized nitrogen enriched meal. I would not eat anything out of most retention ponds.

cag215

The fly in the tilapia picture is a light colored caddis fly that I clipped to be a nymph with a short tail.

I have also caught them on yellow, white or pink flies. An old beat up Clouser with plastic bead eyes is great. Just trim the wings really short.

cag215 and all

I am planning to cook and eat some of the tilapia from the "retention Pond"
That is an inaccurate description for three ponds on a 40 acre farm. The ponds are actually old shallow borrow pits and not near the farming operations where they would receive fertilizer runoff.

One of the smaller ponds was the source of recirculation water for a commercial tilapia growing operation which is no longer operating.

One of the farm hands cast nets a few tilapia on occasion to eat.

I am not planning to eat any tilapia or bass from the Cape Coral canals as they receive street and lawn runoff and probably septic drainfield effluent in certain areas.

Todd wrote:

cag215 wrote:Good stuff.... lightly breaded, pan seared with a touch of olive oil...
What fly did it hit?

Good fertilized nitrogen enriched meal. I would not eat anything out of most retention ponds.

How is that different than eating fish from Tampa bay, you see all them houses on the water with those nice green yards?

bluebill wrote:cag215

The fly in the tilapia picture is a light colored caddis fly that I clipped to be a nymph with a short tail.

A elk hair caddis? What size hook?

Even the larger tilapia have fairly small mouths so I would go with a size 10, 8 or 6 fly hook.

Yes, a trimmed elk hair caddis is ok but clip most of the hair so the fly sinks to the bottom. I just happen to be using a sink tip line as that was the reel that was most handy. A floating fly line with a nine foot leader would also work just as long as the fly gets down near the bottom. Many of my fish were in 2 to 3 foot water depth and many right close to shore.


good luck

When the zombie apocalypse hits we'll be happy to eat retention pond fish I've been getting some luck using tiny nymphs from a generic pack form BPS. Way too tiny for me to think about tying! Also caught one on a very small crab imitation Uumpuq makes called a San Pedro Crab. Its basically olive dubbing with 2 bead chain eyes.

cag215 wrote:

Todd wrote:

cag215 wrote:Good stuff.... lightly breaded, pan seared with a touch of olive oil...
What fly did it hit?

Good fertilized nitrogen enriched meal. I would not eat anything out of most retention ponds.

How is that different than eating fish from Tampa bay, you see all them houses on the water with those nice green yards?

You cannot compare the water quality of Tampa Bay to an inland retention pond. The water quality in the bay has been getting better year after year.