The Fun Goes On

Yellowwood calls.

I start down the shoreline and find a big fat plastic bait wrapped in a bush. There is a fair amount of fisherman's trash here and it's very much visible before the leaves are fully out. Some I can pick up; some, like the lure I saw glittering from a branch thirty feet over the water, I can't.

I may use that big fat bait some day but today I'm using a big fat marabou tie. This is one of the ways that things have changed since catching that big bass. I'm constantly thinking about that fish and it makes me go with big subsurface flies. I also stay with them longer than I used to. And I'm trying to get them deeper and deeper.

I come to a little point in the shoreline and get a nice little hit on the fly. It's no lunker but it seems to confirm that I'm on the right track with this fly.

So I keep going with it past the beaver cuttings and on down the shoreline following my usual loop.

I spot a bobber bobbing in the weeds. There are quite a few bobbers. Some are faded holdovers from last year but this one was stocked this year. Sebastian will like it.

I cross over enjoying the peace and quiet.

A whippoorwill starts up. It's one of my favorite evening sounds. It seems to proclaim that summer is near and there's no going back.

I finally take off the big marabou pattern and tie on a muddler dry to see if the bluegill are awake. I get lots of splashy strikes and hook up with a few of those small fry. Then I catch a good one. Looking good in the bluegill department.

I kick along and see a fish rise and rise again. Expecting a bluegill I cast to it and get an instant take. What do you know, it's a bass.

That's the way I like to catch them.

I think of other bass I have known who relished a big bass bug twitched on the surface just at dark. I think I need to keep looking for a lake with lily pads and big bass who like to patrol them.

But then again, that lunker I caught just a few weeks ago is still in here. Do I stay with the subsurface flies, or is it time to go on top? And if I do, how do I get her and her ilk to come up and join me?

And the fun goes on.