Stepson visting for a couple days. He was here a month ago and we attempted to get him a big bluegill, but all he was able to catch was small, one pound fish. He is one of the few adults, family and friends, who has not caught a bluegill weighing over 1.25 pounds.
I knew he was coming and bringing granddaughter with him so shut off the feeder two days prior to his visit. We met at the pond and sat around on the porch as dusk approached. A cold front had just past and the temperature was in the high '70s with low humidity. Downright pleasant and we were enjoying just rocking on the porch with some refreshment.
I ask him if he wanted to catch some bluegills, that I had crickets in the house and my two weight flyrod rigged as well. He'd never used a fly rod but said he'd like to try.
I grabbed scales, bump board, net, flyrod and walked the twenty yards down the hill to the pond. Within five minutes he was managing the flyrod and fishing. About the fourth or fifth cast his line twitched and hooked up with a real brawler. He's a skilled saltwater fisherman and fought the fish well and soon had it in the net. We just stood there for a moment in awe of the beast he had just caught. The barbless stone fly imitation he was using looks like a cricket and is a good bluegill fly. I put the scale on it and I couldn't believe what it read so I eased the fish back down into the net and weighed again. No change, same as before, new pond record, but more importantly, this bluegill, obviously one of our original stocking, was 3.5 ounces from the "two pound" mark. I now believe we have a realistic chance of producing a "two pounder" by late fall. I never would have believed we could produce these large bluegills when we started this project. The bride's grandmother is surely smiling over our accomplishments with her pond.
Ignore the rod in teeth pose, stepson was hamming it up for one of his partners in their camp on the coast. I had him push the bluegill out some to better show it. I've found it difficult to capture these massive bluegills with a camera.
He caught one more fish, a bass weighing 2.5 pounds before we retired back to the porch to enjoy rest of the day.
