I believe this was the Good Friday holiday. We were both off work and a spot we used to fish when we lived in Naperville and Aurora respectively was calling to us. We got our gear together and followed the siren song to this pond where I caught my first five pounder and where we've both caught some nice largemouth bass.
We settled into a spot and started the process of figuring out what the bass wanted to eat. The water was murky from spring runoff so I started throwing crankbaits with chartreuse colors thinking they'd be easier to see in the water. They were easier to see but all ran too deep and brought back weeds, not fish. Almost on a whim I reached for a lure-type I was ahead of the curve on in my angling circles; a jointed swimbait. Specifically jointed bluegill. I knew the bass in this pond got fat eating bluegill and figured if they weren't biting loud-colored lures, maybe they'd hit a big-ol bluegill. They had before. And they did again!
Rocking my amber lensed, polarized Cocoons fit overs I saw this bass through the glare of the sun on the water and got excited! This is my first non-ice fishing catch of 2017 and I got it on the same jointed swimmer that I caught my first of 2015 on. Pretty cool!
Dave likes to find lures different from what other fishermen are using. That said he had a crazy-jointed swimbait too in a smaller, minnow pattern. Using a reel up and let it die retrieve Dave hooked up with our second collective bass of the outing.
A nice, fat-bellied, pre-spawn bass came up for a picture. One each, who will hook up next?
Me! I got another on my bluegill swimmer. My second around 2lbs. Fun catching, but the action was a bit slower compared to years past for this pond. Still, catching is catching.
Dave would get one more, and here it is. Another fat-bellied bass.
All in all we had a good outing. Good conversation, good company, and good catching. It was a Good-Friday after all. We talked on the drive back to Dave's house about fishing, catching, and ideas for the next outing. I was thinking about writing a non-ice fishing blog and then time got away from me. This is the first blog for open water season for 2017 for me. I look forward to many more this season. There's plenty of open water time left and I look forward to fishing it.
