Fishing the pond with a new friend 6-10-10
This is Roy, a business man from Champaign, Illinois. I met Roy while fishing at River Bend. He was loading his canoe onto his car after a day of fishing and I had just loaded my boat onto my trailer. I noticed that his canoe was a square back with an electric motor. My canoe is also a square back. I asked Roy how well he did that day and he replied that he had caught about as many fish that I did. On that day I had put 40 bass in the boat. ( I thought, he must be a pretty good fisherman, I wonder what he was using for bait.) I had talked to three other fishermen and they reported that they didn’t do very well. So, I asked. ( I had been using the Yum pearl stick worm and the Zoom trick worm in water melon red. ) He said,”I was using a Kevin VanDam (KVD) caffeine shad in white.”
Well, I didn’t have any of those in my bag so, I should probably get some. We got to talking about where he had caught most of his fish and it was in the same areas that I had fished earlier. When I’m fishing a good spot i seem to catch maybe four or five bass and then they’ll quit so, I move on. New lesson, change your bait and maybe you’ll catch some more. As I said before I was using two baits, the Yum and the Zoom and it never occurred to me to try three baits. Well, anyway, there must have been more bass there or maybe more moved into the area after I had left. Probably the latter. I do have a habit of moving on when I think that fishing in a spot is no longer productive.
Roy seemed to me a very fine gentleman and I thought,( I’d like to fish with this guy), having a companion in the boat with you can make it more fun if he’s of the same mindset as you are, a guy that really likes to fish, and who will share his experiences and techniques with you. He agreed.
We set a date to fish in the pond, 6-10-10.
Roy came to my house ready to fish in the evening at about 4:00 pm. We went in my two man boat. We went strictly for bass. I took two bait casting rods and a spinning rod. I believe he had two spinning rods and a bait casting rod with him. I was using the Yum pearl and the YUM water melon stick worms and A Yum craw. He was using a Jitterbug and a KVD white caffeine shad for the most part. He caught all of his fish on the shad except the cat. He got the cat on a Zoom super fluke in smokin shad.
The cottonwood fluffs were all over some parts of the pond so, I avoided those areas and set out to my favorite hot spots on the pond minus my favorite spot where the cottonwood fluffs were very thick.
Roy almost immediately caught a bass, shown above, a nice fish. I had hooked a small bass and it got off right at the boat as I hoped it would. I try not to boat very small fish and hope that they’ll shake the hook themselves, and it did.
As we moved on, fishing right next to the bank, it’s where I catch most of my fish, we kept getting bluegills grabbing onto our lures and pulling them down the hook shaft. The bluegills are bedding now and are very aggressive. They grab the worm or shad by the tail and run a short distance with it presumably to get it out of there territory. I managed to hook one and he was a nice one at that.
As we moved on Roy caught a very nice channel cat of about five lbs on the shad. We let it go as quickly as possible and I forgot to get the picture. He was about the same size as some of the fish that I had taken pictures of earlier and are in my web site.
I had two fish break off my line, I didn’t see them but I believe that they were probably good size bass.
Roy caught another small bass and followed up with another bass of about 1 1/2 lbs. That fish I had caught on another day last week in the same place. I could tell from the wound on it’s lip, I remembered where and how I had hooked it, through its lip and on the inside upper part of its jaw. It was difficult to remove the hook and left two very distinguishable marks. Roy gut hooked it but the hook did come out. We hope the fish will survive. By that time it was getting late, nearing 8:00pm so we decided to head in before it got too dark.
Well, Roy did out fish me, four to one in the boat. Next time…?
I was in town yesterday so I went to Dick’s and picked up guess what…some caffeine shad in white!
Roy works in Champaign, Illinois. The company name is “Strategic Farm Marketing.” If you’re interested call Roy 217 202-7827 for an honest consult.
Tight lines
Jim
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