Water Hazard Fishing

Lightning flashed over the ridge as my senko hit the water.  A storm was brewing only a mile away but lacked the energy, or motivation, to push itself over the top of the cliffs.  It was dancing its way east where it would find an opening formed by a river where it could continue south again.  I counted:  one.... two.... three.... four.... and set the hook on my twentieth-something fish as the thunder rolled over the ridge line, a trout stream, hundreds of misplaced golf balls and my head.  

Some intel told me of a series of seven small ponds in dense thickets and knee high grass; a result of a now defunct golf course.  Each pond consists of its' own mini-ecosystem and underwater terrain.  There are bowl  shaped ponds nearly devoid of structure, ponds the color of lime soup with high brick walls, ponds with duck weed dense enough to bounce a chip shot across, and the  ponds perfect for fishing, with a ring of weeds around its' edges and fallen trees protruding off rocky and sandy points.

I fished them all in hopes of a lurking lunker that could crush a stray golf ball in its' jaws.  After my fifth or so fish I realized that goal would probably not be obtained, but catching a whole bunch of 10-14 inch bass might be.  I tossed, and caught fish on, flukes, senkos, frogs, and crankbaits.  Fish after unsuspecting fish tore up my plastics and knocked the paint off my lures until my thumbs were raw.  In total, I caught 26 largemouth with 5 giant green sunfish and bluegill.  I am absolutely certain those panfish crushed whatever unofficial record I had of largest fish, of each species.  There may be some larger fish cruising under the weed mats, but I still had a great day.

This knocked off the challenge of catching my limit of bass from one body of water- which wasn't as grandiose as I was hoping- but added another challenge. To catch a bluegill greater than 10 inches.

Double Bass Thumb

A strange thing I noticed while fishing these ponds was that there were some green sunfish nesting.  It seemed as though they collected the lost golf balls and put them in the nest.  The first thing I thought was that they were acting like bower birds and collecting items to attract a mate, but in retrospect they were probably thinking the balls were big rocks to put in the nest.  Still interesting to see.

First Fly Rod Fish of 2012

It has taken me a while to put my 2012 fishing license to use.  April is normally the earliest I start fishing, and with this May-like weather we have had lately I couldn't resist any longer.  On Thursday, the temperature reached 70 with winds around 20 mph.  This left the reservoir I was at pretty choppy and the winds made fly casting impossible.  Out of 2 hours of fishing I ended up getting a tiny perch on the spinning rod.  Friday, I went to a nearby pond that I recently discovered.  I put on a generic dry fly and started catching lots of bluegill.  Occasionally I will go out to with the sole intention of catching panfish.  I, as well as everyone else, I'm sure, used to love catching them under a bobber, but I have acquired a new favorite way to target them and that is with surface flies.  There's not many things better than seeing a fish eat the fly, especially when it's on the surface.

First fly rod fish of 2012

Friday's pond fishing left me wanting more so I tied up some new dry flies and headed out the door for the same pond.  I caught more bluegill than I did on Friday and also landed a couple of shiners.  If you have never caught one, they put up a good fight for their size and they hit the fly with the intent on unraveling its every thread.  After only a dozen or so fish the dry fly became a wet fly and the fishing only got better. The fish of the day was a large bottom-hugging redear sunfish that was pushing a pound.

How the shiner got its name

Big Redear Sunfish

The guys cutting down trees Friday said they stock the pond with trout in the spring time for a kids fishing derby so I will be back to the pond after that for sure, or maybe I will show up during the derby and upstage some eight year old kids...  They tree guys  left a couple of lures that were lodged in the branches.  It just so happens that my favorite lures are the free ones!

A lot of the fish had black spot, a 3 host parasite that causes black specks throughout the fish.  It 

seemed as though the smaller fish had a heavier parasite burden.  I'm unsure if this is because the smaller fish eat more snails than the larger ones, or if it seemed like a heavier load relative to their size.  

The bigger fish should come out in the next few weeks!