Today during lunch, I headed to a local public pond. Actually, it was Choice #2. Choice #1 has small but plentiful Crappies, Bluegills, and Green Sunfish. For reasons of my own, I was hoping for a "good numbers" lunchtime flyfishing outing. But the parking lots around Choice #1 were practically overflowing, and folks out and about around the pond. I prefer my crowds sparse or nonexistent. Hence Choice #2, which has far far fewer numbers of fish, but the chance to catch some larger, 8" Bluegills...and usually few people during lunchtime. This pond gets hit very hard on evenings and weekends, though, which is why the fish numbers are low.
Anyway, I tied on an unweighted black Woolly Bugger. I fished a short stretch of shoreline in the 30 minutes I had to spend at the pond. I managed just 4 Bluegills, and missed a few other strikes. The 2nd fish caught was this BEAST (by my standards) chunky 9" female Bluegill. This might not do it for most folks, but it got me pretty excited! :)
The pictures just don't do it justice. Beautiful healthy fish!
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| Dwarfs my hand! |
It does it for me!
ReplyDeleteMost of the big ones I catch are males. The fact that it's a female makes it even better. I need to go do some lunchtime fishing!
Almost all the 9" Bluegills I catch from this particular pond (not that many, really) are females. I attribute this to the irresponsible anglers walking along the shoreline in the springtime, harvesting all the larger males off their nests. A couple years ago, I caught almost NO males at all from this pond, and the historical nesting areas were completely vacant. This year I'm finally starting to catch a few males again.
ReplyDeleteThat 9" is a very nice fish here. A beast to me, who's largest BG is not quite 10". We have a small lake that periodically dries up. Very fertile, when conditions are right guys catch honest 12" fish, mostly at night on glo in the dark jigs. I guess some to two pounds. HIGHLY unusual and besides, I've no access to the big ones deep in the hyancith.
ReplyDeleteGregg
Wow! 12"! Fish of a lifetime! I've caught one or two 10-inchers...but not for many years. 9.5" is about the best I've been able to manage in the past 5 years! I usually catch a small handful of 9-inchers each year.
ReplyDeleteWow...12-inch Bluegill. I'm going to just daydream about that for awhile.... ;o)