My daughter, Theresa and son-in-law, Timm invited me and a coworker of

Theresa’s, Gene Elmlinger, to meet and do some fishing at their place at Little Wolf, a 160 acre area in the middle of the Daniel Boone National Park. It’s a beautiful setting surrounded by mountains and fields and a small pond of about 1.4 acres. The plan was for me to meet a fellow fisherman, get acquainted, and perhaps plan further fishing trips in the future. Well, we did that and I greatly enjoyed it all. Gene is truly a dedicated fisherman, loves the outdoors and is dedicated to the preservation of our natural resources as am I. The weather was warm and humid the first day and hot and humid the second day but fish we did. The last count that I can recall we caught 18 bass and about 20 bluegill during the heat of the day and part of the evenings until around dusk. The bluegill were all about 8-9 inches and the bass ranged from 10-14 inches. No trophies this time but fun anyway. Gene caught 2 more fish that I did but I caught the biggest bass. I fished with my fly rod using a 1/32 oz hula popper and Gene used a road runner with a ribbon tail jig on his ultra-light spinning rod. We did get many more hits but didn’t land the fish. I’m sorry to say that the 1/32 oz hula popper is, I believe, no longer being made by Arboghast (not sure of the spelling) as I believe that it is the best popper ever made. Over the years I’ve caught many bass on it up to 5 lbs. I’ve tried other poppers but haven’t found one yet that can catch bluegill and big bass in the same outing in as good of numbers. Well, I’m certainly looking forward to fishing with Gene again and have invited him to visit me here in Illinois, he is a true sportsman, a gentleman, and a pleasure to fish with. Please enjoy some of the pictures that were taken on our trip.

Took little Evie out to fish off the shore for some bluegills.  She caught two bluegills and one big fish, type unknown, broke her line as she was reeling it in .  Disappointment was apparent but we laughed it off.  I convinced her that it would be back some day to catch again.  We also sang songs and had a good time overall.  She’s wonderful.  She does like to fish but for short periods which is natural for a 5 year old.

Tight lines  Jim

On Monday the 7th of April wwe had another one day break in the weather.  I took out my two man boat on the sub-div pond thinking that the bass aught to be hitting.  I tried first with a zoomworm, pumpkinseed color… no luck,  tried a roadrunner with a curlytail grub…no luck.  I did bring some live nightcrawlers with me which I do not usually use for bass because of the possibility the bass might swallow them if they bite, I do not keep fish and I was actually trying for some channel cat.  No cats but I did catch two bass and they were not hurt… lip hooked them, but no cats.  I put the nightcrawlers away.  I fished for almost 4 hours with hardly any luck using spinners, grubs, and spinner/grub combinations.  At about 4:oo P.M.  I was back to nearly where I keep my boat.  There’s a small area of downed tree branches there.  I went back to my fly rod and tried the plastic black and white minnow.  Again I connected…28 small crappie, 6- 1 1/2 to 2 lb bass and one 2 lb channel cat before suppertime at 5:30 P.M.  That small plastic minnow is a real winner.  The weather has been bad ever since or I have been to busy to go.  I don’t fish when there’s a chance of me catching pneumonia!  That’s it for now, waiting for another break in the weather to…