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| Any idea what this is? |
When good fishing fortune strikes it often takes the form of an avalanche. Nothing since spring and then BAMM, two new species on the fly on the same day. One I've been after for over a year and the other was a recent obsession.
Got to my spot about 9:00 and nothing was happening. After a 1/2 hour I went to plan B...worm dipping. I usually won't admit this to friends so please keep that under your hat. Anyway, after moving around and trying different spots I finally caught a mooneye. Next one was a goldeye and the third a mooneye again. That was enough...the worms went back in the cooler and the 4 wt came out. I tied on a #12 pheasant tail and proceeded to miss about a dozen hits. I tied on a #20 dropper and the first mooneye was in the bag. I caught a couple more in the next 5 minutes and then the action stopped dead. Excellent timing mixed with a little luck on my part. And for those of you who guessed it was a mooneye, give yourself a pat on the back.
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| Note the dorsal fin is before the anal fin |
Headed back to my original spot and it wasn't long before I had my first ever bluegill. Colour me a happy camper! I was starting to think I had pissed off Poseidon or Neptune or whoever the deity in charge of bluegills is. I had fished for them hard for over a year with nothing to show for except a bushel of crappies and rock bass. Well, that's all in the past and I'm now a member of the fraternity that has caught a native bluegill near Winnipeg.
A couple of rock bass and crappies rounded out a nice day on the river. Scott, who also fly fishes caught a number of bullheads and a nice crappie. I'll have to get that secret bullhead fly off Scott and see if it'll work with stonecats.
On a side note, I noticed many of the fish caught had damaged fins. I wonder if this is related to the mink family that has recently moved into the neighbourhood?
Nice catches and congrats on the new lifers! Mooneye are super cool fish, especially the teeth on their tongue.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ben. Checked out your site the other day and see you're still going great guns. And moving to Illinois. 111 species is pretty awesome.
ReplyDeleteHey Harry.
ReplyDeleteI've fished the spot twice since I last saw you. Fish seem to start hitting around 4:30pm. Have caught 3 suckers all around 10 inches. One bigger fish managed to get away after several jumps.
I've pictures, but I'm going to have to look closer to determine what kind of sucker they were. Really cool part about them is that the really fight hard and jump out of the water when trying to disloge the hook!
Back to work tomorow, may get out there next week.
C.Scott
I was there once after meeting you. Caught really tiny fish, a few pike, rock bass and a sauger...all about 4" long and I left about 2:00. I'll likely take my grandson there early next week, maybe the forecasted rain will bring some fish in.
ReplyDeleteharry