Okay, so I have taken to warm water fishing as of late so that at least I can get in some fishing.
I have found a spot about 90 miles north of where I am ( Kansas City ,Mo.) that has some really good fishing , about twelve ponds ranging from 2 acres to 120 acres.
So off I go on my planned day (planning for a couple of weeks) and its a downpour all the way. Not to be daunted I went . Got there and its still raining. Tough it out. Set up my newly repaired Orvis traveler and proceeded to give it a go from shore. Great . Got a couple of little fish and proceeded to break it again ! Third break for this rod. Not giving it another chance to fail me again. Of course Orvis has only two rods that aren't guaranteed. I have one of those models. Would advise against getting one, disappointment is sure to follow.
Any way I dug out another Orvis rod 4 wt cant remember the pedigree but it aint bad, loaded it onto the pontoon and rowed for about 600 yards to the area (I am tight and need the exercise too so I don't have a motor) that I wanted to fish . Rain has stopped and the sun is peeking out by now.
Did pretty good , caught several nice little crappie .
Then the fishing fell off like right now.
Okay , been here before so I thought and then " BAM". The tip of my rod slams into the water and I figure "GAME OM". I am positive that I have a really nice bass on the line. Clouds are all gone by now ,the weather is great.
This guy has my wrist bent over ( I mean I cant straighten it out "for nuthin") and I am having to switch hands ( cant horse him in 'cause I rigged light) since they are wearing out on me . I end up having to work this fish for longer than I care to think of and am wondering how long till I can get it up to where I can get a look at it . Then it happens , a subtle movement of the line . A twitch , a jerk . Then a bit of a rolling motion. Rolling motion?
Now I know what I have and why this fish isn't wearing out like a normal bass would. After about another minute I have in my gaze my first on a flyrod for me.A Flathead Catfish! Not big as flatheads go but they , I figure probably 5 pounds . Bad news is that I'm using a 3 lb. tippet (I was going after crappie and bluegill , remember?) . More bad news is that I have not brought a net (remember the crappie and bluegill notion?).
The good part is that the camera was on the pontoon that day. Have you ever tried to take a picture of a fish laying on the stripping apron in front of you on a pontoon? Yeah, right . I put the fish there and all you see is the dorsal fin of something. I had to put it back in the water and shove him out a way so that I could get all of the fish into the picture. The picture is not a digital and so far I haven't gotten it developed.
After that I had to get out of there, The wind was starting to kick up a bit over my comfort level and since I didn't have a life jacket with me ( I have one of those fancy self inflating things ,only that following the directions very carefully I had set the darn thing off while putting it together. Oh yeah, that was right after breaking my newly repaired Orvis rod .The day was not looking good at that point) didn't want to push my good fortune too far. Fortune was with me though in that I didn't have to paddle much at all to get to the boat ramp. I just steered , the wind took care of the rest.
In summation : A good day on the water was had by all.
Not sure if this is the right spot for this post but thought it would be fun to tell someone else about the fun day I had.