I tried the banana peel on a fly again last night on a different pond for Grass Carp ( I just realized I didn't blog about the first time, but suffice it to say no Grass Carp were caught then). Once again no takers. The main problem seems to be that the water is really clear, and I haven't been able to cast the rig very far (have to be very careful when casting, otherwise the banana peel falls off...so its more like "lobbing" than casting), and it ends up drifting back into shore. And those Grass Carp are WARY, SKITTISH creatures. Oh well.

I had a good evening anyway. I was casting around again to pass the time while the grassies went about their business of ignoring my offers to "come and play".

I was excited to FINALLY find a handful of NICE male Bluegills in this pond. I caught the one below on a black microjig. Then I caught one on a brown craft fur Clouser with blue beadchain eyes. Then I caught at least a half-dozen Bluegills (males and females) on foam topwaters at dusk. After dark, I switched to a brown & orange boa yarn leech and caught at least another half-dozen on that.

The males were mainly on shallow flats on nests, and the females were out over deeper water, but apparently near the surface (or at least they would rise to take the topwaters or unweighted boa yarn leech). The females are getting big bellies. Most of the males were 8"-8.5", and the biggest female I measured was a solid 9-incher.

I caught a couple Largemouth Bass on flies, too.