I was essentially just running and gunning and around the half way point of the pond, I finally got a bite. It ended up being a decent size bluegill with fantastic colors. Since I was chasing bass, I chose not to take a picture of it. I realized almost as soon as I let it go, however, that this was my first gill on the fly. UGH!!
Now that I caught a fish, I slowed it down a bit and started working the rest of the pond a bit slower. For some reason, I just lost faith in my white/chartruese combo so I switched it to a color I have had better luck with - black. The particular fly was kind of a play on a wooly bugger, only weighted with barbel eyes instead of a bead or lead wraps, no hackle, and black estaz body.
I was finishing up when the wife called and asked me to pick up dinner. I told her I'm just going to finish my lap and I'll be on my way. I approached the last little cove of the pond and laid out a nice cast real close to one of several drainage pipes. In my fourth or fifth strip, the line got tight and it was fish on!! Blue gill number two for the day and two on the fly!
A cast or two later...strip strip strip strip fish! This fish felt much better. After a few moments of letting it tire itself out, my first large-mouth on the fly was in hand.
For the next few minutes, there was either a bite or fish caught on almost every single cast. Nothing was too big or noteworthy so they all went back without a photo.
Then one on of my last casts, I hooked into something big! It was something that actually pulled a little bit of line and had no trouble really putting a bend on that fly rod. I was positive that this was a bigger bass that I was hoping for. It took me a couple of minutes or so before I felt confident enough to really start bringing him in. Once I did, I was shocked to see a giant crappie! I had my regular camera in my bag along with a tripod so I quickly got it set up for a picture. I hit the self-timer and took the shot of a 15" crappie. After a bit of cropping to hide the background/location......
Since I didn't have a tape measure, I laid it down next to my rod for reference to measure later.
Once home, I laid out a tape measure and sure enough...a hair over 15"
I took a few more casts after that and ended up with a couple more small ones before calling it a day.
*Note - I didn't realize it at the time, but I just so happened to be wearing a shirt with a crappie reference today
