We did one of our annual marl-pit fishing trips here this past week. They mine this marl from a lot of areas around here for road beds, driveways and such, which results in some deep "gravel pit" type fishing holes later on. Of course, the thing the land developers now do is to sub-divide the land around these ponds and then call them "lakes"; and there goes these wonderful bream & L/M bass fishing holes. There's one particular long and winding pit that is indeed slated for developement and "progress" is not too far away, but we still managed to get one more go at it. Short of a miracale happening, next year I would expect to see housing being constructed all along it's banks. Be as it may, there are some real big bream living in that pond and we relieved it of some and enjoyed a big fish fry right there along the banks.

Had an interesting thing happen that I have never seen before. I was working the edge of the pond using my "popper" fly rod, fishing from the canoe, and I made a cast in front of the canoe towards a point of land that jots out aways and marks a turn in the shorline. I saw this fish aggressively come out from the shoreline and really nail the popper I was casting. As it turned out that fish was a 13" L/M bass and, indeed, a real scrapper. But I noted that all the while me and Mr. Bass were in the midst of this knock-down, drag out, there was a shadow fish, about the same size, following almost every move the hooked bass was making. Sort of like a pilot fish that follows sharks and whales. As I got the bass close to the canoe I got a good look at the following fish in the clear waters, I could see it was another bass. Not until that caught fish was swooped up in the net did the other fish break off the pursuit and disappear. Of course, I use the barbless hook and after a quick measurement, Mr. Bass was back in the water. But in all my time of fishing I don't believe I've ever seen this shadowing by another fish. Was wondering if anyone else ever seen this happen.

By all means, let us not let the P.I.T.A. yahoos know about this, for fear of maybe giving cause that fishing will be the undue stress in fish relationships!


Dale

[This message has been edited by DaleW (edited 06 May 2005).]