Larry and I went out to Sunset Lake on Thursday.  We first tried all the most obvious places, i.e., shallow shoreline in reeds and weeds.  Not a single fish hit our worthy baits, flies: muddler minnows, clouster minnows, accardo poppers, betts poppers and Larry tried a floating ant.  We thought ‘ surely there are bluegills and bass on their nests and these are the most likely areas,aren’t they?  Being a purist fly fisherman, Larry didn’t budge from his fly offerings; but I did!  I tried a baby craw, a Shaw Grigsby paddle tail worm and an Excalibur crank bait that I have had success with before on this lake. All these to no avail.  We decided to go to the other side of the lake which has steep banks that drop off quickly from one foot to 20 – 40 feet of water.  Not the most likely of places at this time year.

Larry continued to cast his flies but he tolerated my switching  to a spinning rod using my Shaw Grigsby paddle tail worm.  I started connecting  with several small bass in the 1 – to 1 1/2 lb range.  I had five misses almost in a row.  I figured that the bass were hitting short, grabbing the tail of the worm but without getting the hook in their mouths.  I decided to cut off 3/4” of the worms head.  Then I started catching, 5 small bass in a row.  I did use my fly rod along the way using a rust colored crawdad imitation and caught a fairly nice crappie.

Larry tried the crawdad imitation too but without a hit.  Larry tried several of his bass flies when we did locate some fish but still could not connect until he managed a bass just before we decided to quit.

Well, better luck next time.  I plan to go again this coming Thursday and hope that Larry can go too.  This time we will not waste time and we will go directly to the place where we scored.

I’m finding Larry to be of fine character, a gentleman and generous to a fault.  He knew that I had purchased a new St Croix fly rod just like the one I had purchased before from Cabela’s.  He told me that I could have a Cabela’s reel that he was not using  to go with the new rod.  I used it and I really do like it.

Not only did he give me the reel but Cabela’s sent me a wrong fly line to go with it.  Larry purchased another line for me while he was in the Hammond Indiana area Cabela’s and said that he would return the miss sent one for me when he was in that area again.  Then to top all that he purchase pizza from Monical’s for our supper.  I said that I would pay for it but he was adamant.  He said,”You supplied the boat and transportation and that was enough.”  I advise him that I would pay for supper the next time-no buts!  I met Larry from his finding me on my web site, perchbugs.com and I’m glad I responded to his invitation to join up to go fishing together.

Tight lines

Jim