What up gang?
I've been pretty busy this past week. Weather has prettied up some, so I've been hitting the pond right hard. The girlfriend and I cleaned 40 speckled perch (crappie, specks, sac-au-lait....) last Thursday. I took third place in Men's Bowhunter at the clubs 3D shoot on Sunday and Katie WON Female Bowhunter.
Yesterday (Wednesday 3/31) was a red letter day for me. Went to the pond again, but the water was very very muddy after all the rain the whole eastern US got over the weekend. We tried it anyway, and after pretty much getting shut out crappie fishing for an hour, we decided to target pre-spawn largemouths.
Katie had some trouble last week working jerk baits/super flukes in the wind. The baits were producing big time, and we probably caught 30 bass and an equal amount of pickerel last week on them. With the wind kicking up and the water being muddy, I decided to let her fish a blade bait, since spinnerbaits are pretty user friendly. I picked a Stanley Black and Gold with a white and Gold Skirt and gold blades (notice how detailed I am getting here... there is a point). I told her (truthfully) that I had caught quite a few nice bass on it over the years, some as big as 5 and 6 pounds, and it always seemed to produce the best when the water was a bit stained.
I started explaining where to cast, and where to keep her rod tip and blah blah and I made a cast to an old tree with a wood duck box on it, and something that I figured was probably the loch ness monster grabbed that spinner bait and went west with it.
"Oh my God did you get one already?" Katie asked.
"Yeah.... big fish." I replied quick.
When the fish breached... it reminded me of the first time I saw a really big (70#+) Cobia come tailwalking out of the water. I just couldn't believe the size of the thing, especially after spending two weeks catching nothing but 2-3# and under bass.
After a pretty quick fight (I wasn't screwing around), I netted the girl and Katie was actually jumping up and down in the boat.. having never seen a bass like this before. She took some pictures, we took a measurement or two and put the girl back in the pond to go make some more bass. She was 24" long, and the biologists tell me a fish in pre-spawn that long is about 12-13 years old and will weigh between 8 3/4 and 9 pounds. Wow. That fish aside, the fishing was actually pretty terrible and I think we caught like three bass and four speckled perch.
This morning, we went and listened for turkeys. We heard 5 different longbeards and at least three jakes. I have one bird pegged to within 15 yards as I've seen his tree and this is the third time I've heard him in that tree. With some luck, April 14th ought to be his day.
Afterwards, we went by the farm and practiced shooting a bit. Katie is getting there. I think she needs a sight on the 1100, but we'll get it done.
I finally got to shoot the 20 banger with hevi-13 #7s. At 40 yards, she printed 176 in a 10" circle. I drew a turkey outline on the target just for grins... but I don't think you'd be doing much grinning after supper... I was a little low right with the shot and dead centered the body... hurt my teeth just looking at it. I took a second shot and whalloped the head and neck and got 161 hits in the 10". At 30 yards, it gave me 213 hits in the 10", and thats probably going to be about where birds get shot in this wooded patch I am fixin to chase them in. Everything is go... just need another two weeks to go by!
I've been seeing piles of gobblers (in places that aren't mine... but so it goes)... out in fields while driving mostly... henned up and happy too. Could have used the 4Runner to put Team 1 on the board on Sunday as I had one scoot right across rt 10 infront of me while coming back from the 3D shoot. Had a nice rope on him. Watched one strut for the ladies that morning in a field just across the road... head looked like one of those firecracker popsicles you get from the ice cream man.