Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Couldn't resist......

Took a day off from work today to do some work at my property. I wound up taking out a spinning rod and a small Rooster Tail to see how the LMB fingerlings that I stocked in July were doing. I caught about 15 in less than 30 minutes. Most were 7-8" and a few were 9". Most were very fat from gorging on all of the forage in the pond. A few hours later I took out my fly rod and tied on a clouser and did just as well. Seems like things are progressing nicely.



Look at the belly on this one....

Rob,

Those are some pretty impressive and chubby fish. This warm spell has produced a lot of fun autumn fishing.

Since about this time last week I've tried to get out each evening, with my ultralight or flyrod, for a few minutes before sundown. Fat bass, and really big bluegill have been going crazy.

Thanks for the great photos,
Ken

Long time, no posts, Rob. Great pictures.

Rob, sure looks like they are growing nicely. What forage do you have in the pond?

Fatheads and Golden shiners. They had about 10 months to reproduce without any predators in the pond. There are huge schools of them for the bass to gorge on. It's really fun to watch this progress.

The excuse reason that we give around here is "Sampling to Obtain Relative Weight Data" (just for future reference).

Your fish are looking quite healthy!

RobA, if you're releasing those fish you might want to try using a Roadrunner as bait. The single hook might do less damage and they are probably as effective as Roostertails.

I just started "sampling" my 10 month old pond too. I'm already culling some fish but I'm using barbless hooks for any keepers that I might catch.

...or you can just clip off two of the hooks and pinch down the barb on the remaining one.

Nice healthy looking bass BTW.

Good ideas. I was worried about using a lure with a treble hook. Luckily they were lip hooked everytime and didn't get torn up. I was less worried about it when using the clouser minnow.

I was thinking more about your thumb than the bass. I seemed to get hooked more often than the fish with treble hooks.

Replacing the treble with a ring a long shank hook seems to increase hook ups too. I think they sell Roostertails with single hooks for trout streams where trebles are banned.