Evening Fishing, 6-4-2010

I drove by a pond I was hoping to fly-fish for bluegills, but found too many people along the shoreline. So, I drove to another city-owned pond that I haven't fished this year. Its a decent-looking pond, at least 12' deep, edged with limestone rip-rap, fountain in the middle...but there is a horrible ring of algae around the entire pond, out to about 12' to 20' from shore. I've only ever caught tiny bluegills from this pond, so I rarely fish it. But Jim ice-fished it a couple winters back, and had several fish break his line, plus he said he caught some decent bluegills. I never doubt what Jim says. :icon_salut:


My success was dismal, and only managed to avoid a SKUNK by catching this Green Sunfish on a Gurgler:

By the way, in another pond I fish, the little Green Sunfish are spawning right now.  Check out the egg-filled belly on this little gal!

Anyway...ss the sky darkened, I decided to hit the original pond I was going to try. The other anglers had all left!
They didn't leave me many fish, it seemed.

I switched flies to a brown nymph thing I had tied up. I caught a couple bass and a few medium-sized bluegills. After it was completely dark, I finally landed a decent bluegill, this nice 9" female that was fat enough, she may still be full of eggs, although the spawn is several weeks past.

Just a few casts later, a big hit! Oh WHAT A FIGHT! I'm sure I'll still lose my share of big fish, but I have pretty much learned that if a big fish wants to run...LET IT RUN. It took a while (which is part of the fun anyway, but I never want to overplay a fish), but I finally landed this 22" Channel Catfish.

After releasing it, I check my tippet, and it was very scratched up and STRESSED...like when you pull on a plastic bag so much it stretches but doesn't break. I didn't feel like changing the tippet just then, so I called it a night.