What a Day!

Yesterday was a rare occurrence.  I was free all day to fish wherever I wanted and as long as I wanted!  I decided to head up to our family farm in Ray County and jump from pond to pond to see which had the best action.  And while the conditions were less that stellar (still early in the year, water still cool, lots of rain recently, etc.), it was an amazing day full of fish and surprises.  Let's start with the surprises.

There were three things that happened yesterday that have never happened to me before.  The first was that I saw a bald eagle so close that I could have hit it with a rock.  Now obviously I didn't because these are majestic creatures and I don't want to go to prison.  I'm just using this phrase as a reference point.  It was feeding on an opossum in the middle of the road about five miles from the farm.  When it saw my truck, it flew up to a branch and I drove right under it in my truck.  That was the closest I have ever been to a bald eagle in the wild.  The second was that I jumped a male ring-necked pheasant at one of the farm ponds that I visited.  I have heard them around other ponds at the farm before but never actually saw one.  I wanted to yell "rooster" at the top of my lungs so bad but nobody was there to get the joke...but I did it anyway.  Again, it was a BEAUTIFUL bird!  Finally, and this is a scary one, I thought I was going to get stampeded by a heard of cows.  Kind of joking, kind of not.  I wanted to fish a pond that I frequent quite a bit but some cattle had recently been put here to graze.  I didn't see them until I was halfway to the pond.  Let's just say they showed their contempt for me by ushering me back to the gate.  It was only later that I realized that my red flannel was a poor choice of clothing for the day. 

So let's get to the fishing.  The bass didn't have much of a pattern and popped up here and there.  I could tell that they are just starting to become active and not quite sure where to be.  I caught a 16 inch and 15 incher in one pond and those were the big ones for the day.  After exhausting my bass fishing options, I turned to old reliable...bluegill.  At one pond, they were really active and more than happy to take a small fly.  For bass, I threw a baitfish streamer (The Brave) and the bluegill took a John Deere about two feet under an indicator.  While I didn't catch any monsters and didn't catch a lot, it was still a great day and an indicator of better things to come!