A perfect evening

Yesterday - Friday June 12 -turned out to be a nearly perfect day. Weather was good - a little on the cool side, but missing all the weather elements I hate - no downpours, no horrendous winds, no scorching sun. One of the guys I work with - Jesse - had dropped his boat in the pond over lunch - he was coming back the next morning to get a load of 'gills for his pond. We fished for about a half hour over lunch to "scout" for him. Gills were plentiful on small grubs. I mentioned that I might come back in the evening, and he said to take the boat if I did.

My wife Stacy called at work and suggested we grab a pizza and go to the pond for the evening. Now, she goes along with me quite a bit in the spring, but rarely is she the one who suggests we go fishing. She likes to fish, but it has to be perfect conditions -no bugs, not too hot or cold, not much wind, and the fish have to be biting. That's a pretty tall order of circumstances to fill for one outing. Well, the everything came together last evening.

Stacy with one of the crappies.

I usually fish these ponds from shore, but having a Ranger to tool around with the trolling motor was a nice change of pace. Plenty of room for me, Stacy, and Joey. Joey didn't feel like fishing - he took a few casts and caught a few fish, but mostly he just watched us and read. No problem. We started fishing with 1/16 oz. jigheads and dark 2" grubs, and never looked back. Stacy started catching a fish on just about every cast. If she didn't land one, she had a hit on probably 90% of her casts. Same with me, even though I was experimenting with different baits. One interesting aspect of the evenings catch - very few largemouth, and none of any size. a few of them are still guarding nests, but most have moved off beds. The most interesting catch stat, in reviewing the evenings tally, was that we caught about 20 walleye. Most were the small ones - 8" - 10" - but 4 were around 15". We both fished UL outfits with 4 pound test, making every catch fun!





Another small walleye from the pond





The end of the evening showed a tally of an uncountable number of bluegills, around 20 walleye, 8-10 crappie, 2 pretty nice rainbow trout, and the catfish shown, that Stacy caught in the first 15 minutes. I'm not really sure what it weighed, but it was all her UL gear could handle. Some of the guys have told me they caught cats over 10 from here, but this is the biggest one I've seen personally from this pond. She got it on a 2" Yamamoto grub and fought it like a pro. Fittingly, it slapped me with it's tail when I put back in the water.

Stacy's catfish (She doesn't like to hold these)

No bugs, no wind, lots of hungry fish. I LOVE days like that on the water. The thing is, you have to spend a lot of time when it's NOT like that before you finally run into the great days. We had a blast fishing together as a family, and nothing beats that.








A contented son enjoying the evening

Picture Perfect

A Royal Slam at the pond - sort of

Made it out to my favorite ponds this evening. I know they get a little crowded over the Memorial Day weekend, so this might be my last chance for a while. The weather wasn't what I like, but you fish when you can. Last night we had a scattered frost warning - didn't make it quite that low, but it was cold. It was a cool, windy, clear sky weekend - exactly what I DON'T like to fish in. It rained alot last week - almost 3 inches. Ponds were either muddy or stained. I tried the upper pond, which was muddy, first. Fish should be crowded into the shallows and set up to spawn. Tough to tell in these conditions. Anyway, I got one largemouth to bite a buzzbait, and 3 more to hit a spinnerbait. Decent, chunky largemouth. Now the evening wouldn't be a total blank. On to the lower pond to see what might bite.

(My son Joey with our buzzbait bass. He decided he was too cold to fish tonight, and just "modeled " by posing with my fish. Still good to spend time with your kids, whether they're fishing or just talking)

On to the lower pond. The first thing that was apparent was that there was a lot of bug activity, and the trout were slashing into something on the surface. Of course, my fly rods were back home.. I picked up a few nice 'gills on the old reliable Cubby jig. Then, on a shallow edge of the pond, I got another hit on the Cubby. Definitely bigger than a gill, but didn't fight like a bass. A big walleye maybe? Nope - first catfish of the year. It was a yellowish cat. I've only ever caught channel cats here, and all have been the standard grey / silver colors. I assume this was just an off-color channel. Anyway - 3 species tonight. Now I need 3 more to catch them all - I needed crappie, walleye, and rainbow trout.

First, while the sun is still out, I try to fill in the trout. I pulled out another UL spin outfit and tied on a Mepps spinner that has been deadly in the past on these pond trout. Fished it hard for about a half hour. missed 2 that hit near the dock, and had one other short strike. Usually this spinner is death on these trout. Oh well - tonite's not the night for trout for me. So I move down the bank with my Cubby / weighted bobber. About 5 casts into it, right along the bank, I hook up with a BIG trout. It's on for a about 30 seconds, and it straightens the size 12 gold hook on the Cubby. Tough break. Naturally, that's the only trout I hook up with tonite. I re-tie and put on a 2" white Lindy Munchie grub on a 1/16 oz. jighead. Sun drops below the trees, and its like the light switch gets turned on for the crappie. 7 nice crappie in 10 casts. Almost time to go. Another light hit - a little walleye. That's all of them - all the species found in the pond. Hooked and lost the trout, landed the rest. Even though it was getting colder outside - 54 when we left - it was fun. It's always fun when you fish though. At least it should be.

A final note - this was my first time out with my newest rod. I picked up a 4'6" UL St. Croix Avid spinning rod. I put a Quantum Energy UL reel on it, 8# Fireline, and it's about as sweet an ultralite outfit as you can find. (The bass caught tonite were on a baitcast outfit for the buzzbait / spinnerbaits) The 8# test on a UL might sound a little strange, but if you follow my posts, you know I fish some ponds that have some pretty big fish in them. I can usually wear them down with the rod, but using the usual 4# mono gets me in too much trouble with cats, big bass, or sticks and logs in the water. The 8# Fireline is 3# diameter, feels great on the setup, and will land anything I hook in the ponds. Give it a try on your UL - I think you'll like it.