Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The local ponds are on fire!!

Well, at least they're on fire figuratively. There has been some stabilization of the recent weather, and the fish have been eating. I love this time of year - the fishing is really pretty good all day. Bluegills are drawn into the warmth of the shallow waters along with the bass. Low light finds active crappies. And, as I showed in an earlier post, one of my favorite ponds is stocked with rainbow trout, and they are shallow as well. You truly never know what you'll catch. But you're pretty much assured you'll get something. I fished over lunch yesterday and had a terrific time. Spent 40 minutes on the water. My go-to lure this time of year, as it always is in the early season, is a Cubby Mini Mite suspended under a weighted bobber. It was literally a fish per cast. Tally when I left - 21 'gills, 3 crappie, 2 largemouth, 3 walleye, and 1 BIG rainbow trout (around 20"). Perhaps the most memorable part of the lunch hour was when a pretty big largemouth took a big swipe at the bobber!

While I love to get the periodic "fish overload", it is absolutely the best time of the year to introduce new fishermen to the sport. I have a few people at work that I'm trying to get out over lunch. Also, one guy at work has a couple of girls - ages 7 and 10 - who really got hooked on fishing last summer. Pardon the bad pun. They'll have a ball for the next 2-3 weeks, or until the water heats up too much. I'll continue to fish ultralite with tiny baits for about a week, then switch over to topwaters and spinnerbaits for shallow prespawn largemouth. There will be a lull in the action after the spawn, and then the channel cats heat up along with the water temp.

Now is truly the time to Take a Kid Fishing. And don't just limit it to kids - take your neighbor who hasn't fished since he / she was a kid. Introducing - and re-introducing - fishing is the mission of Angler's Legacy. Read more about the Angler's Legacy at the following link. I took the Pledge year's ago - it's fulfilling for all parties involved.

http://www.takemefishing.org/community/anglers-legacy/home

By the way - in my haste to get outside and fish, I've been forgetting my camera. Sorry - no pictures. I'll take it along tomorrow and try to post a lunchtime photo essay. I've also been feeling rather philosophical about my recent forays to the ponds - I feel a rambling, bare-my-soul to the world post coming on in the near future.

Get outside and fish!

5 comments:

spotted face said...

Sounds like you're a lucky man with the pond close by!

I work with a guy who has daughters that want to go fishing, and he doesn't have a clue what to do. He just didn't grow up around it. We plan on taking them pretty soon. Isn't it funny how kids just want to fish? All of them do!

Wolfy said...

Owl - i have NEVER seen a kid who doesn't light up when they catch a fish. The only problem they have is that they don't have anyone to take them. KUDOs to you for helping introduce kids to the outdoors and fishing!

Anonymous said...

Great message, Wolfy! Thanks for keeping the topic of introducing new anglers up front. Besides that, you sound like you had some top fishing to go with it. Can't beat that.

LarryB said...

Sure is a dandy pond you've got there friend. Lots of variety and nice sizes to boot! :-) What, pray tell, is a Minimite?

Also, I Love your blogging style. :-)

All the best,

lb

Wolfy said...

Thanks for the compliments, Larry. Actually, you can find my take on Cubby MNini Mites by checking my older blog entries. I wrote a post titled "My Favorite Things" and posted pictures and wrote about them in there.Click on 2008 on my Blog Archive and scroll down to November 11 . Take a look around last years blog posts - I think they're actuelly better than this years have been

Wolfy