Golden sunshine and clear blue skies

20110330

It is a beautiful 80 degree afternoon, bright clear day, with a light breeze at 10 mph.  I've only got a few minutes to get in my typical casting practice.  The weed bloom is on full force.  The entire dam section of the pond has about a 2~4 meter additional false shoreline due to the thick matting of these really fine filimentaceous weeds.  The individual filaments are finer than most hair.  Fortunately they are not very durable so snagging them with the hook is not that big of an issue. 

The wind and sun have created both heavy concentrations of these floating blobs.  There positioning is quite dynamic too.  The small sunfish are taking full advantage of them.  If you look carefully you can see many of them hovering directly in the shade of these floating canopies.  This also turned out to be a nice strategy too.  Just cast right beside and slightly beyond one of them to see if anyone is interested.  This was exactly what I did when I first approached the pond today. 

I made some initial casts using a small plastic swimbait of sorts.  Got plenty of following interest, just not much commitment.   So I switched over to the fish whip, flyrod with my hair fly.  Lots of interest and several short strikes.  Gotta get my technique of stripping the line down better and minimizing the slack.  Missed quite a few initially, started to get better at it as time went on.   The wind was still an issue in getting my accuracy in placing the fly tough.  I did manage to tie on and get several to the shore. 

Apparently my actions got the interest of several, unbeknownst to me.  A familiar photographer who was in the area strolled by to say 'hi'.  They were watching on of the blue herons that migrated over to my side of the pond and was watching intently.  Apparently it was interested in the fish that I was catching.  While I've enjoyed sharing the fishing experience with many I failed to realize that so many folks were watching me so closely.  Guess it might be prudent to improve that situational awareness factor and not get so focused on one element of the environment.  Lesson learned. 

I eventually snagged the fly on a submerged branch and ended up loosing it.  No worries switch back over to the swimbait lure.  Toss that a few time out to the edge of the weed clumps.  Waaahoo!  A very nice and health green sunfish.  Lots of fight power there!  On the 2 lb line it is all good!   The girth on these fish is impressive, much like the amount of energy in resisting.  To all of them, thanks for playing.

Maybe a chance to head over there towards the end of the day, maybe...