A somewhat good day to go fishing, winds at 25 mph, right about 80 degrees and partly cloudy. There was time in the schedule to head out to the pond for some casting practice. Given the blustery conditions I decided to start out with the heavier equipment. So I grabbed for the bait casters, one with a shallow crank bait, the other with a texas rigged worm with a 3/8 oz weight to send it out there. The last item was my heavy spinning rig with a skirted spinner bait.
I walk out there easily as my current set of sandals tends to throw stuff about as I walk and some of it gets wedged between my foot and sandal. Almost better to just walk about barefoot. I get over to water's edge and send out the spinner bait. The brightly red colored egg beater makes its way through the water with no interest at all. Ok, time to change to the crank bait. Pretty much every retrieve is cause for a pause to clear out all that algae that is trapped by the wobbling bait. Again no interest. Same thing for the T-rigged worm. Wow, maybe this wind is bothering the fish too.
What is really bothering me is the intensity of the sun. It is quite rough to stay fully exposed. So I make my way over to the other side of the pond to escape the sun and sit under some shade. While sitting there I decide to send the worm towards the center of the dam. Having the wind at my back makes the long cast there even easier. So I sit down and work the worm back nice and easy. Several repeat casts and I'm still sitting in the shade. One of the casts gets about half way back when I feel some attention. It plays out as a classic bass pickup on a worm. A light tap followed by a very light pickup and a gentle pull. It is during that pull is when I respond with a healthy return pull of my own. There is some really good resistance on the end and the pole really loads up good. I'm using the 10 lb mono on this rig and it is still quite a ways out so I decide to work in a series of hook sets. This time I really sent the hook home with a follow on set. When i got the fish to shore it had the hook nicely set right behind the jaw hinge. It was a really healthy 15 inch LMB with a modest belly. I'm guessing that it was a post spawn fish that was looking forward to enjoying that large worm. The pickup was pretty light and gentle. I had no idea from the characteristics of the pickup that the LMB would be that sizeable. Lovely good fun. There was very little fuss in getting the hook out and bass returned to the water. It is rewarding to see them swim off after a good tussle.
Several young families ended up visiting the other shore trying to tease the bluegills on the line. That got me thinking that it was time for a change of pace. I decided to walk back to the truck and switch out equipment and put the fish whip to work. I got the line rigged up with a small # 12 with a lashed up strand of twine. Amazing how effective this little fly works. It is nothing fancy or appealing. Just a longitudinal strand of twine lashed to the hook shank. Easy peezy!
I was catching bluegills like crazy. Even managed to catch a 13 inch LMB on that little fly too. I thought it might have been a quick catch and long distance release as the small fly was hooked right in corner but since the gap on a # 12 hook is only about 3 mm I wasn't sure if it would hold till I got it shore. The fly rod has quite a bit of backbone to hold off that LMB and keep it guided out of the snags. Wow, I'm liking this fly fishing more and more. What a hoot! It is so personally satisfying to catch and release these lovely fish using my own fly creations.
I also managed to catch a visually stunning green sunfish. This must have been a male as the fins had striking colors at the edges along with razor sharp little teeth. I fought that little fish as long as it took to shore the LMB. All really good fun. The wind is still an issue but at least it won't keep me from catching fish! Cool!
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