I visited a local public pond at Westside Park, one I rarely fish and even more rarely is it worth the time invested (for me). Meaning, I don't catch much, or they are really tiny Green Sunfish. After ice-fishing there once this past Winter, I discovered there were some decent bluegills, green sunfish, and crappies. Nothing HUGE, mind you, but certainly worth catching. Some fish would be near shore, guarding nests, but I felt some of the better fish would be out in the middle and a bit deeper than I had fished the pond previously. In past years, I fished mainly topwater or unweighted subsurface patterns. Since then I've been using microjigs more often, and small beadchain-eye Clousers, which fish deeper. I've been doing well with these.
So, I get there and tie on a dark-colored microjig thinking it will look more natural since the water here is very clear. I put a Thingamabobber strike indicator about 4' up the line. I'd cast out, let it sit...retrieve a foot or so, let it sit 5-10 seconds, retrieve some more...you get the idea. I actually had some pretty good strikes at the indicator!
I saw some big tadpoles, an adult bullfrog, some green sunfish, a handful of crappies, and a decent bass.
I caught 8 Green Sunfish up to 8", 4 Bluegills also up to 8", and an 8.5" naturally-occurring Hybrid Sunfish. I had 2 crappies hooked (one was pretty nice!) but both got off. I messed around with 2 other crappies I could see guarding nests. One just swam away. The other one I coaxed into tasting my microjig a couple times, but it didn't take it in far enough for me to set the hook. I really wanted to catch at least one of the crappies, so I guess that gives me a good excuse to fish this pond again soon.
I've fished ponds where the bluegills get a nice purple color during the spawn. Others get a lot of orange. The ones today had a pretty green cast to them (click images for larger version):
I also admire the pretty colors on spawning Green Sunfish:
And below is apparently what happens when Bluegills and Green Sunfish accidentally bump into each other on a dark night at this time of year:
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