I have come here to chew bubblegum and catch trout...

... and I'm all outta bubblegum.

Had trouble sleeping last night, like a kid before Christmas.  I'd been waiting for this day for weeks now. Visions of the giant trout from last year were swimming in my head.

Got to the Hooked on fishing pond right at 10am.  There were already 4-5 guys out there whipping a fly around.  I walked over to Jonn and said hello and then got down to business.

I had a brown woolly bugger with a bead on the head tied on for most of the day.  A few casts in I got my first bite:

Not exactly what I was expecting.  Caught two of these hand sized hybrids.

I let him go and moved down to a little inlet where we were tearing them up last fall.  After a few casts, Clif got there and we watched as a guy caught a few on nymphs.

Shortly thereafter, I hooked up:

That's more like it.

A few more casts and I hooked something huge.  It took off, making my reel SCREAM.  I don't want to say too much about the fight because Clif taped it and if he uploads it and I ask nice, maybe he'll let me put the vid in here later to tell the story.

After that, something possessed me to give up my honey hole by the inlet and move down the bank.  (I shouldn't have.  The guy who moved into that spot really tore into them later in the day, hooking a couple big ones that Clif has footage of.  Oh well, I gave it up fair and square.)

After moving down the bank, I managed to hook another one.  It seemed like at least half of my fish were on when I paused my stripping for a few seconds.  (usually when distra- squirrel!)  I would strip again, feel a weight on the line and set the hook.  Maybe I need to be using an indicator next time and do less stripping?  Anyway, here's the one I hooked down the bank:

Sorry bout the finger.  I'm not the most coordinated guy when I'm just standing still, let alone fighting a fish and taking a picture at the same time.

Didn't have anybody nearby with a net so I just pulled it up to the bank, snapped a pic and set her loose.

I moved back down towards my honey hole and the guy who had moved into it (name was Brian, seemed like a nice guy) and I took turns catching fish and netting them for each other.  Not intentionally, it just seemed to work out that way.  Here's my two out of the rotation:

I believe this net starts at zero in the middle and goes out on both sides (correct me if I'm wrong Clif) so this one is 17-18".

My biggest of the day.  Can't really tell because of the goofy pose but she was THICK.   This is the only way I could get ahold of her well enough for a pic.

These were all by about 1ish.  After that, my day tapered off.  It could have been that as it warmed up they wanted bigger offerings and the biggest thing I had was the woolly bugger I had been using all day.  Brian tied on a crawfish pattern, was just tossing it out and letting it sit on the bottom and was tearing them up for awhile.  He had a couple monster fish that got off and had a run where he had bites on like 5 out of 6 casts.  I'm for sure gonna pick up some crawfish flies.  I'm sure they'll come in handy on bass in between Hooked on Fishing park events.

So that was pretty much my day.  Fishing wasn't quite as hot as it was last fall (still probably the best fishing I'll experience all year) but I was happy to make a donation to a good cause in exchange for some good fishing and I'd be happy to do it again.

Doing anything on March 12th?

Well cancel your plans.

That is, if you live within driving distance of East Peoria, IL.  (I'm looking at you Wolfy and Zack.)

Why, you ask?

Well you remember that post I put up last September about my first trout on the fly?  You know, at the Hooked on Fishing park?  The one where they usually don't let anybody fish so the trout are huge, dumb, and fly hungry?

One of the smaller ones of the day.  I know there's no size reference but he was probably 14-15".  The biggest had trouble fitting into this same net lengthwise.

Well they're holding another fundraiser.

For a $25 suggest donation, you get fly fishing instruction from pros the like of Jonn from Streamstalker and five hours of fishing these fly-dumb trout.  If you've never flyfished or aren't very experienced, don't worry.  When I went last year I had probably used a fly rod less than a dozen times and Jonn had me casting and catching fish in no time.

Big goofy grin guaranteed.

The $25 goes towards the Hooked on Fishing park, which offers fishing opportunities to the elderly and people who normally wouldn't be able to have access to excellently managed fisheries.  Check out Nate's blog for more info.  It's a great cause and honestly, people go on vacations and spend thousands of dollars to get access to fish that are smaller and much harder to catch.

Even if you're not interested in showing, try to spread the word.  It's a great opportunity to get someone involved in the sport, especially those who haven't flyfished or kids.  (There was kid who was probably 6 or 7 years old who was fishing while we were eating lunch last year and he was having a blast, hooking fish all on his own, if only for a few seconds.)

For more information, check out Lunker Hunt.  Clif has a bunch of photos and some awesome footage up from last year.

Hope to see ya there!

First trout on the fly!

First off, I want to apologize for the lack of posting lately. Full time work + full time school = not much time for fishing.

Fortunately, after stumbling across an event on Clif's blog,  I decided the drought needed to be over.  So after my test (yes, an algebra class on a Saturday morning. blech.) I headed over to Nate's Hooked on Fishing trout pond to get some instruction in the way of fly fishing.

Right after I walked into the complex, Jonn headed me off and started me off with some fly-less casting lessons.  Turns out my self-taught casting method was too long of a cast and didn't come to enough of an abrupt stop to shoot the line out.  After a few casts, Jonn realized that something was wrong with my line.  After some examination, he figured out that my fly line doesn't have a taper, which is not very conducive to beginning fly fishing.  He went to get one of his rods for me to use, and while he was over there, I helped Clif land a nice trout and snapped a pic for him, which will probably be up on Lunker Hunt later on I imagine.

After lunch (absolutely amazing fresh grilled trout and a burger), Clif and I headed to the other side of the pond where there was a little inlet streaming in.  After a bunch of casting and a couple missed hooksets, I hooked into this guy:

(Thanks to Clif for the net and camera work)

We continued to fish that section next to the inlet with good success.  I caught 5 more, roughly the same size or bigger than the one above.  I tried to get some good pictures but it was becoming apparent that I was putting too much stress on the fish so the only other good picture of a trout I have is of this one, which I think is my third or fourth of the day:

I think he was about the same length as the first one, just a bit skinnier.

Clif had to leave for a bit so I was on my own for awhile for netting fish.  Caught two while he was gone, of course, my largest of the day was one of them.  It was awesome to fight him out on the flyrod, let him tire himself out and then lead him into the net.  He was so big that I had a hard time with it.  It was very difficult to get him unhooked and I had to let him recuperate in the net for a bit before he swam off but off he went eventually.

A little bit later, Jonn let me try out his Sage Largemouth rod.  It has a really heavy line on it and shoots out line like a rocket.  It made me, a total novice, feel like I was casting like a pro.  While casting the Sage, I didn't have many bites but I did hook up one time.  When I was stripping it in, it wasn't fighting like the rest of the trout I'd caught all day.   Turns out it wasn't:

A bass!  Woo!  Great way to end the outing.  It started raining and the event was coming to a close.  I chatted with Jonn a bit about line and rod options, said thanks for the lessons and headed home.

Overall an awesome reinvigorating day on the fly.  Thanks to Clif for helping me land fish and snap pics, to Jonn for the lessons and letting me use his awesome equipment, and to Nate for putting on such a great get-together.

I would suggest my readers (all four of you) to follow Nate's blog (linked above) and support his Hooked on Fishing ponds in any possible.  From what I've read and heard, they do some great things for kids and handicapped individuals in the Peoria area.  I'll definitely be looking out for ways to help out.

UPDATE:  Nate has updated his blog with pics of the event here.  Most of them were taken before I got there.  You can see the inlet that Clif and I were fishing four pics from the bottom.

UPDATE DOS: Clif has his version of events along with a really cool video showing how good the fishing was here.