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

We had a visit from Bill, my brother in law, two weeks ago.  He wanted me to help him with his fly fishing skills.  He just purchased a beginners outfit and had very litle knowledge of what to do.  But learn he did and pretty well at that.  He started out as most people do, wearing the fly line like the garland of a Christmas tree.  But after some back yard practice and hundreds of false casts  he was getting about 30 feet of line out and was catching fish the very next day.  I set him up with that plastic minnow and soon he was cathing fish witch included his very first fish, a crappie, on a fly rod.  Definately a good student and learner.  All in all we caught about a hundred fish including crappie, bass, bluegill, and channel cat mostly all on that minnow in a four day period.  So if you haven’t tried it do so and you’ll be a happy fisherman.  Some of the cats and crappie were pretty good size and the bluegill were in the 1/2 lb range which is really fun.  Of course we released them all.  Well that’s all for…good fishing to all.