Early May 2018

Early May has been (mostly) warm, occasionally cool, some light rain every few days....more of a typical "Spring" that we had heretofore been lacking this year.

Bass started guarding beds in most of the local ponds by May 5.  That shut the bass bite down considerably for me, but some have still been caught.

Bluegills have been pretty active...not quite nesting yet.
I did catch this dandy 9.25" Pumpkinseed Sunfish:

Pumpkinseed Sunfish, 9.25"

Crappies have been hitting well, with the males now seemingly guarding nests (I haven't seen them on nests, but they are hitting really close to shore, so I assume this is what is happening).

I finally caught my first flyrod Channel Catfish of the year, 19":

I caught the catfish while flyfishing for carp.  They are SO MUCH FUN!  The biggest one recently has been this 28.5-incher:

And some other ones in the 25-27.5" range (one fatty was only 23.5", but made up for it in GIRTH) ;o)

All the carp and the catfish were caught on Hybrid Carp Fly pattern variations:

Overall, the fishing has been fun...fairly steady....nothing "lights out amazing".  I'll take it!