Well it's warmed up considerably here the past few days so I decided to take a walk around the pond to see if there were perhaps any fish in the shallows, not expecting to see much because it's also pretty windy. Walked one shoreline and didn't see any so I went out on the spillway and saw three sunfish dart away when they saw me. They weren't huge, probably about as long as a soda can but they looked pretty chunky so I walked back up to my house to get a rod and see if I could catch one. The only thing I had that I thought might work were some trout magnets (little jigs) so I grabbed those. Made a few casts to the area where I'd seen them but didn't have any luck so I tossed in right next to the spillway and got a hit. Turned out to be a 7-8 inch bass that I lost next to the shore while trying to get my phone to take a pic. Wasn't real fat but didn't look really skinny, either. Another cast to the same spot led to another hit and I landed this guy:
A few more casts didn't land anything so I switched over to a small Panther Martin and moved down the shore a little and missed a hit then hooked another bass which threw the hook by the shore. A couple more casts and I landed this one which was about the same size as the second one I lost, maybe a little bigger:
All of these fish came out of the deepest part of the pond which also has the only major structure in the lake, I'm assuming that's where they've been over the winter. I would say the first (and smallest) one I hooked was proportionately the fattest of the four, the two I landed look to be on the skinny side to me, which I think would be normal for them in late winter. So I guess for now this puts a hold at least on adding the hybrid bluegill until the ponds fish population can be better assessed. I think I'll buy some worms and try again tomorrow to see if I can't land a couple of the sunfish. Any thoughts on the bass from these pics or is a larger sample needed?
