Spring Has Sprung and the Spawn is On!

I headed into Williams after work last week  and I decided to check out boss pond with my buddies Rigo and Jaime.  What’s the worst thing that could possibly happen to you when you are excited about  going fishing? You forget something! And sure enough I forgot something important: my tackle box!  Now my dad is primarily a striper and catfish fisherman.  This means that his tackle box is full of heavy weights and large hooks.  Luckily a long time ago we shared a tackle box and I left a few things in his box. It wasn’t much but it was enough to catch fish. 

 We hit Boss Pond at around 4 PM. The water was crystal clear and the fish were plentiful. The spawn is clearly on right now.  You could see many bass, bluegills, catfish and even some humongous carp swimming around. My main goal was to catch some bass so I took my spinning Rod out and went to work. 

 First thing I did was toss in the old worm and bobber. Within seconds It was under water and shot in a different direction.  5 minutes into the trip I had my first bass on and it was a fighter! He shot out in many directions including under the weeds which made him tougher to catch but I managed to get him in.  The skunk was gone, the first bass of the season was in the bag and the season was underway! 

A bit later buddy Jaime hooked into a fatty bluegill. This was his first fish of the year and he was pretty excited about it. Now, one thing I managed to find in Pops’ tackle box was a “crappie thunder.” I didn’t even realize I had one of these in there, but I sure did. After a cast along the edge, I noticed a bass begin to follow it. I slowed down a bit and sure enough, CHOMP!  Fish was on and a few minutes later brought him in, my second fish of the day. A bit later we went to the same spot where I caught all of the bluegill last time I was at Boss Pond. 

Sure enough there were tons of bluegills hanging around but also quite a few spawning bass. Jaime tossed his bobber into the weeds and pulled out a nice 2 lb bass.  All of the bass we caught were female and quickly released.  We continued to catch a bunch of bluegill but after a while Jaime decided to try the creek that runs next to the pond.  Since spring has sprung, the spawn is on! That includes catfish as well.  There were a bunch of catfish hanging on the sides of the creek and at one point Jaime tossed his worm and bobber in and hooked into a nice size catfish. The catfish ran, peeled some drag but finally Jaime got it to the bank.  Jaime is fairly new to fishing so he kind of made a rookie mistake.  The bank was sort of steep but instead of looking for a place to better land the fish or getting down in order to pull the fish in, he depended on the 10 lb test and the rod itself. While slowly pulling it out of the water…. SNAP… the line broke and it was back in the water. He kicked himself for it and I’m sure it left that nasty taste in his mouth that will cause him to want to fish more so I’m good with it! In all we caught 10 fish and my buddy Rigo got skunked.  Hopefully I will be able to make it back out to the pond,  take  my tackle box and bring my fly rod out! 

Total Fish: 2 Largemouth Bass + 4 Bluegills + 1 green sunfish = 7 Fish