Finally, a Decent Size Fish this Spring- Part 1

I have been on the water a decent amount of time this spring.  I'm not bragging, I'm just saying that for me, I've been on the water a lot for me.  I fished before the fish really started biting.  I fished when it was just a couple of fish here and there.  Currently, fishing is pretty good throughout the state and while I've been catching fish, I just haven't caught anything memorable.  I've caught some largemouth on a fly rod and on spinnerbaits and that's been great, don't get me wrong!  I've started catching bluegill, and that's been a lot of fun.  I just haven't caught that memorable fish that I think many of us are hoping for in the spring...until Monday night.

I was at a HOA pond simply because it was a nice evening and the wind wasn't strong.  I was hoping to pick up a few largemouth or bluegill on a small olive and white wooly bugger.  I wasn't picking up anything in the shallows so I started making some longer casts to deep water.  I still wasn't catching anything so I decided to just have a little casting contest with myself and see how far I could throw.  Once I reached my limit, it dawned on me that maybe fish were deeper and I needed to get my fly down further.  I tied on another wooly that was almost identical, but this one had an oversized bead head.  When I cast the fly out, I would let it hit the water and count to eight.  Why did I choose eight?  Well, that's because eight seconds is about as long as I can wait for a fly to sink before I can't stand it anymore.

On my third or fourth cast, I missed a bite so that gave me a little confidence that maybe I was on to something.  A couple casts later I missed another bite.  This is typical for me by the way.  I have to warm up sometimes when I get on the water.  As in the past, it took a couple of misses for me to really focus and get my mentality right.  I did not miss the next fish.  It ended up being an 11 inch crappie.  I was pretty pumped because I was able to "crack the code" for the evening and this was a really pretty crappie.  I was also hopeful that I might be able to catch a few more since crappie typically school up.  What happened next made my spring fishing!