Backyard Pond

We bought a house on a pond! I didn't know it was stocked with good sized fish. Found out there's a nice population of bass, bluegill, and a few crappie. 2 pics taken on my phone - the bass is 17". I'm digging my backyard. Likely won't help my species count. I busted out my charcoal grill (wedding gift '05). Oh my, I'd forgotten the taste of steaks on a charcoal grill. mmmm

John

Bullhead takes fly, Cat takes bullhead

Every summer for the past 11 years my brothers, dad, and a few friends go catfishing on the Elkhorn river. The past 3-4 years we've been fishing with bullheads as bait. 5-7" bullheads are great for catching big cats. They stay on the hook and lively until they get hammered. I brought the fly rod this year knowing I could get an easy species on the board. Once I got my 1-bullhead on a SanJuan worm I added crawler to my hook, much faster. This is a lame way to add a species in this contest, but I'm taking it.

We forgot to weigh these 4 cats in the picture. I'd guess 5lb average. This was the 1st night's catch. The 2nd night a couple of the boys pulled in a 10lber and 15lber.

John-5, LM, SM, Bluegill, Quillback, Bullhead.

More bass

I've been out 3 times now and have only increased my species count by 1 =( But I've been having some fun. Last week I got into a bunch of largemouth bass, which is the norm around here. I saw a bunch of carp spawning, but they were having nothing to do with my flies. Then last Sunday I got out Catfishing with a guy I work with. He put me on to one very large Cat-which broke my line. It was nice to feel a fish on the line that I couldn't control. Even big bass are controllable, but the catfish was all over the place, and heavy. Finally, I got a bluegill the other day, to increase my species total to a meager 3. But the backwaters are starting to fill up with species that John almost certainly won't catch-bowfin and gar. Oh yeah! A couple of pics posted above are from the other night, the gill and a honkin bass (19 inch, 4+ pounds). Since I started fishing warmwater this year, I have yet to take the popper that John tied for me off my 6 wt. -Its looking pretty ratty.

-N

Bluegill

Went down to southern Iowa for a company picnic at the Doc's farm. Caught many large bluegill on poppers and woolly buggers. I don't think I've ever caught bluegill larger than my hand. Gotta love farm ponds. Many bass caught, but nothing huge.

John