Got to a pond for a couple of hours Sunday evening. 2.5 hours before sunset, but the afternoon clouds made it seem like sunset. This pond has loads of blue gill and at least a fair amount of bass. Have seen a couple of something else large that look like carp, but that go after the gills.
When I got there, was disappointed that a lot of algae had grown in the last week, but quickly cheered up seeing and hearing lots of feeding and chasing activity. I’m still green, and haven’t had much success with bass, so maybe this time, and newly armed with a RichZ-spec black boa leech.
Went to the side where there is a deep hole, but only managed a few gills with the leech. Since time was short, decided to go to a corner with shallows loaded with hungry gills. Tried a couple things; an unweighted green weenie was the irresistable winner, even when its tail got stripped down to white thread.
Here’s where it got interesting. I had noticed some thrashing fights going on all around, fairly often, figured bass after gills. But where I could see, there were patrolling bass and a couple of those carp models hanging around the shallows, and around these, the gills casually swam and hovered without apparent alarm or chase. But if I had a gill on and it fought near one of those fellas, it would give chase and grab on. Once it’s cheap meal proved tethered, it released - not enough hook to get the “dog”. During the play, the “dogs” would ignore the “cat” if I pulled it to the surface, or whenever it paused the fight.
After going through this 3 or 4 times, I quit. Seemed to be a bit hard on the gills, perhaps inhumane?, and more like live bait fishing, so switched approach. The gills did seem to recover OK; had to do some reviving to one, although a face-full of algae may have contributed.
I had what I thought was a darned good gill imitation with glass beads and super hair, so popped that on. Hover, jerk, side-to-side wiggles, jump to surface, dive, you name it, but the big fellows ignored it. Put on a bigger one; no matter, no interest.
Went back to the weenie and caught some more gills to feel better before needing to leave.
Not really looking for someone to give me a short cut to figuring out how to catch these guys, just thought I’d share the story. Might be interesting to try one o’ those propeller thingies, and perhaps a really large gill immitation, and …
But I am curious about some things. Have a good idea what those carnivorous carp impressionists might be? If the gills were being frequently snacked by the bass and such, why did they behave like best friends?
And how to best deal with 4 teenage boys who think its funny to throw rocks in the pond and yell profanity just to make an adult feel bad, but that’s another story.
Keepeth they back cast out of the freakin’ flora.
