7/29/11 "Friday Night Fishing..Farm Pond Crappie"

Friday nights are for good food , cold beer and hanging with good friends. If you're anything like me, throw in a couple of hours on the water with a flyrod in my hand and I feel like I'm living right. Last night the usual gang met out at the barn to grill and chill for the beginning of the weekend. The incessant heat of the past couple weeks had slightly loosened it's chokehold and the temps were finally bearable... in the shade. We threw some eats on the coals and then all sat back and cooled off with our favorite adult beverages of choice.


After dinner the plan was simple , some of the others were going for a short trailride while Jim and myself were headed to our little honey hole down the road to try and coax a few fish into eating.
By the time we got to the pond clouds were rolling in and thunder could be heard booming off in the distance. The water level had dropped a good 3 feet since the previous trip , no doubt a result of evaporation caused by the string of 100+ degree days we've been having. I had the three weight rigged with a small bugger pattern and the five weight ready with a bass popper to try for a larger bass at dark. Jim isn't a fly guy so he opted to fish with a rooster tail on his spinning rod. I was asnxious to play around with a few of the saucer sized bluegill that I knew were in here and I didn't have long to wait...my first cast ended with a brightly colored bulldog of a gill in my hand.

For the next 45 minutes the action was pretty much non-stop , cast..count the fly down to 5..slow strip...and then BAM , the fight would be on. For pure entertainment it just doesn't get much better than that.


Occasionally the tug on the other end would be a small bass instead of a big bluegill.

As the evening rolled on and the sky darkened I picked up the 5 weight and began throwing a popper , hoping to attract the attention of one of the larger bass I'd been told were there. I don't think I'd made more than 10 casts when Jim hollered from across the pond to come check out his latest catch. Turns out it was a nice crappie that had eaten the rooster tail.

I went back to throwing my popper and less than 5 minutes later he had another one a little bigger than the last.

That was enough for me , I put down the bass rig and tied a brown bugger on my 3 weight. The fish must have been turning on just at that time because I hadn't made 5 casts before I had my first fish.

These were healthy slabs that put up a pretty good fight for a panfish not known for it's valiant battles. For the next half hour we each caught 6 or 8 more crapppie all over 12 inches and some pushing 15+ , unfortunately my camera just wouldn't take a decent picture in those low light conditions so the crappie pics are all shitty.



We had a blast needless to say and can't wait to get back on our favorite little pond and catch a few more of those chunky paper-mouths...I'm thinking next Friday works for me.