Summer Fishing Finally Heating Up

After yesterday's hard work, I woke up with a sore back and legs.  After I finished my plan for the day, I texted Josh and had him come over for some fishing.  

At first sight, I knew the pond was finally heating up.  Dinner plate sized beds lined the pond almost the entire way around.  I immediately set up my 6 weight and taught Josh how to use a foam spider to catch bedding bluegills.  These fish are all very nice sized, from 7-10 inches.

Spawn colorations on bluegills are some of my favorites.  I could sit on the bank with snacks and catch them for hours.  Reminds me of the day I caught the orange koi.  Charles and I spent hours on the bank with a bag of deer jerky between spurts of bass action.

While Josh was having fun with the bluegill on topwater, I put a blue boogle bug on the 8 weight and caught two bass very quickly.  I kept fishing for awhile with considerably less luck than my first two fish.

Josh finally tired of catching sunfish and grabbed a spinning rod outfitted with a texas-rigged worm, while I carried an assortment of streamers to test.  We ended up catching the odd bass here and there up to 2 pounds, but not much over.

While circling the pond for bass, I saw a bass leap straight up to eat a dragonfly.  I ran back to grab my 6 weight, tied a dragonfly on it, and ended up catching one bass.

We spent some more time fishing, then saw a small koi tilted up in a corner of the pond.  We couldn't have missed it, but he wanted nothing to do with us, and slowly drifted out to deeper water.  

This got carp on my mind, so I convinced Josh to walk across the street to the carp pond.

I went back to setting Josh up with a bluegill fly for fun while I tried to stalk carp.  There were plenty around under a weedbed, but trees and weeds never gave me a good cast.

Meanwhile, Josh was busy catching bluegill.  The ones in this pond have different colorations and are noticeably smaller, but still provide plenty of fun.  Josh also managed a small black crappie, which appear once in awhile in the pond.

Josh had to leave after a while to let his ankle heal (he sprained it in a volleyball game a few weeks back).

I spent the next hour and a half trying to catch carp.  I tried every angle possible, and got a few good shots at the fish sitting in the weedbed.

I tried every possible technique I knew to get a fly in front of these carp, but with no results.  

I ended up landing a white crappie, some more bluegill, and a tiny bass on my carp fly.

I think the carp may have been spawning, because they often jumped out of the water for no apparent reason.  These fish get tough to catch, so I finally left them alone.  Tomorrow will be another shot.