Thread: What a difference a day makes.

Saturday: mostly sunny, high in mid 80s, no rain (it was forecast, but so much for that).

I started around 9:30am, hit the local "big" park lake -- by big, I mean it's a few acres LOL. I got a few short strikes and picked up a couple of bluegill, but they were just not in the mood to eat. I hit 4 other areas that day. One was a community pond (an acre or two maybe), one was a creek with a max depth of maybe 2 feet, one was a pond behind some small businesses (maybe an acre), and another "park" pond, but it's way in the back and no one else was fishing it (again, maybe an acre).

It was probably 12pm when I reached the first of those 4 spots. Third cast, I caught a 34 pound bass, which was probably only 3 (or less) pounds. The bite was one of those "heavy" weights like I hit some of that dreaded snot algae or something. But it seemed to also go to the side, so I set the hook. 3# test line on a 1/32 ounce beetle spin type bait. He (or she) was pretty -- biggest (non catfish) fish of the season. I proceeded to catch a decent amount of bluegill. Nothing of size, but that's okay. It was my first trip there as I'd found it on Google maps and I had some other places to check out.

Next stop, the small neighborhood pond. It's catch and release only, which is fine by me. I found this one rocky area near an inlet maybe the size of a kiddie pool where rocks surrounded a mostly mud bottom. Water depth was a foot or two. I caught (what I believe to be) one shellcracker after another. A couple of decent size, but mostly smaller ones. I believe they were bedding.

Next stop, the small pond behind the businesses. The bank is a steep one, so it's not a great place to stand and fish, but I couldn't cast without getting a hit. They were all small bluegills, but I went around the entire pond (maybe an acre, probably smaller) and every cast got hits by these same small gills. They were so small, it was funny.

Final stop, a "creek" -- (again, google maps). Steep bank, not running much at all, and only a foot or two of water in the deep spots. I could see fish everywhere. I caught every species of bluegill I knew about and some I didn't. This wasn't a bite every case, but multiples. I'd cast, as soon as it hit the water, I get a hit, miss the hookset and the lure goes 4 or 5 feet closer to me and before I can reel up the slack, another fish has hit it. I lost count on the fish. I caught a couple of short but thick bluegill. It was fun to hear them hit the water. It wasn't the typical plop, but a thump like you'd just dropped rock into the water. I thought most were shellcrackers because of the red ear, but looking at photos, I'm not sure what it was. I wish I'd taken more photos.

I'll post a couple of fish and let y'all tell me what they are. The odd thing was the bright colored fins. I caught some beautiful fish that I can't identify (probably a hybrid of a few kinds of bluegills.


Now, Sunday rolls around and I drag my fishing buddy to one of those spots beaming at how great the bite will be. We both caught some fish, but it was NOTHING like Saturday. Same temp, overcast mostly, but the quality and numbers just weren't there. I dropped him back off and kept fishing. I caught a few here and there at other places, but it was mostly a scouting day. During the day, the downpours came. I noticed that all of these ponds, creeks, whatevers were all fed by run-off water. They went from stained to chocolate milk. I went back to the pond I'd showed my buddy earlier and it was up 6" or so. The overflow had been running lightly that morning,but the water coming in was more than the overflow could let out. The water was very muddy (to be expected). I wonder if the fish didn't feel that front coming and were just feeding up before it came and upset their normal conditions. I told my buddy that the worst words in fishing are "should have been here yesterday". LOL

man I love a nice big hybrid …..that puppy is just lovely
congrats brother on a dandy green cross ….
KABOOM is the word