With spring on the way, I thought it's high time to put some stocker trout in my pond for the pet bass to eat when they wake up. I usually drift the SoHo in my jet for this project but they haven't released water for ages and there's no reason to think they ever will again. So I headed for the JB Dennis bridge with a FishCat pontoon and a trolling motor. I did launch my jet there last week but once is enough. On the way, I stopped at Citgo for some nightcrawlers figuring I could catch my limit of dinks in short order by drop-shotting pieces of worm. A few delays had me on the water with little time before the next FH release so I headed upstream at full thrust toward the place I intended to fish the nightcrawlers. In the interest of multi-tasking I dragged a jerkbait behind the 'toon as I went but didn't expect anything to happen figuring the boat spooked the fish and I was going too fast for effective trolling anyway. Just as I finished thinking that thought, the rod bent double. The pulsation told me it weren't no log. I hoped it was the speed of the boat that made it pull so hard but after I'd stopped I could tell with dismay this was going to be much too large to feed to the bass. A gorgeous 19" rainbow eventually emerged. "What a beautiful fish!", I thought. "It fights almost as hard as a 14" smallie".
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After wasting some more time measuring the fish and getting under weigh again, durned if the same thing didn't happen agin! I didn't bother to measure this time but it was about the same size.
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Finally I reached my destination and settled in to catch some "trout minnows". After preparing the DS rig, I opened the crawlers only to find...dirt! No worms, just dirt! In my haste I hadn't checked before I bought and ended up with a container completely devoid of nightcrawlers.
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I drifted, dejectedly alternating between casting spinners, jerks, and crankbaits. Nada. The release soon came and took me back to the starting point. I debated whether to hang it up or not but decided to head back upstream with a little more emphasis on trolling.
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I alternated between trolling jerks and casting spinners, finally ending up with 5 "keepers" though none were quite as as small as I like. Also caught two more "hawgs" like the first. All in all, I think I kind of like this spot.
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Maybe when they start stocking again this spring I can catch some smaller ones.
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Finally I reached my destination and settled in to catch some "trout minnows". After preparing the DS rig, I opened the crawlers only to find...dirt! No worms, just dirt! In my haste I hadn't checked before I bought and ended up with a container completely devoid of nightcrawlers.
