My youngest Brett got him a surprise this weekend when he thought he was fishing for Bluegill!! haha. With his little 4 foot rod and a lot of OMG's!!! lol he finally got this nice 14 inch HSB in the net! It was awesome to see my son working that rod and reel! I think this one got him hooked on fishing now!

RC

Nice work R C and Brett !

Nice looking HSB. Also congrats on that stud CNBG from your other post!

Thanks Snake! I even caught some RES this weekend but cant seem to find my big ones. All I ever catch is 3 and 4 inchers... The RES is a fish I guess I just don't quite understand as of yet... lol

RC

Awesome for sure!
Dave

I'm shocked that it's his first HSB.

What's he been doing all these years???

Congrats! It's great to see a kid really catch the fishing bug...

RC -- that is fantastic.

Did he invite the HSB in for dinner?

The smile is priceless! Congrats.

Hey! Some of us still haven't caught our first HSB! Ha, one of these days..
Thats a nice fish. My 6-8" have been in 18 months. Hoping they are getting near that size.. Are they good to eat? Fillet them similar to a LMB, or YP?

Cool to see your son so happy.

I'm sure RC has some back story. I made the comment because all of my HSB experience shows them as essentially easy to hook into, but not always so easy to land.

RC,

Great picture! That is what it is all about.

Hey thanks guys! Yeah my son has been a bit scared of landing the big one!! But he likes to BG fish! Well he got him a big one on that day weather he liked it or not!! Now he wants more!! lol.

Yes they are very good to eat! I just cooked up a 6 1/2 pounder I caught on Easter Sunday and it was awesome!! You just have to make sure you get rid of the red meat and they are good! I would rate them better than a LMB but not quite as good as a big BG. And yes clean them just the way you would a LMB easy to clean and easy to eat!

RC

Congrats to the young angler! That will be a memory for him in his old age!

I was poking a little fun at myself. I didn't have a lot of experience at fishing for anything besides trout, out West, on dry flies, in the month of August, before I built my pond.
I had hooked a million BG with my kids through the years with bobbers and crickets, off the dock, on trips to the Lake (Ozarks or TableRock) but they always "somehow" managed to get away. I fished a few farm ponds 30-40 years ago with my FIL up around Chillicothe Mo. We were always out there before light, and hammered them top water. Almost a fish on every cast.
Besides that, I've had zero freshwater experience.
The only YP I have ever caught was in my own pond. The only SMB and RES I've ever caught have been in my own pond. The same will be true with my HSB, when I do catch one! I've caught over one hundred YP now, but I'm still not particularly good at it. But much better than I was! Ha
I'm really looking forward to catching a HSB. With 25 in a small pond, I have to hook, AND bring one in, one of these days.

SetterGuy,
If you would get one of those 12 foot light action Mr Crappie brand rods, and put a very small spinning reel on it with six pound test mono, you could really have fun with those HSB. I caught about a five pound CC in my pond on a rod like that last fall.

I'm in. I'll look for one. I've got very light line on an ultralight now. I can cast very small jigs half way across the pond. I've been told to try chicken liver on the HSB.
That's going to happen in the next month or so.
I will catch one. It's bound to happen sometime.
Thx.
Hopefully I'll catch one as nice as RC's son!

Hey Setter, do it on a fly rod! Every fish is better on the fly. Lol

Those long Mr Crappie graphite poles are springier than any fly rod I have ever used.

Good stuff, RC....the best!

SetterGuy,
I suspect your BG would hit that dry fly just fine. If you're not catching some on a fly rod you're missing out on a good thing. I put 25 HSB in my pond last week and I'm wondering if they will hit flies.