When Dave arrived and brought in his contributions to the day's cookout I noticed a container of nightcrawlers in his cooler. When I asked he replied yeah, we've got our rods in the car. I figured we could go fish after dinner.
I thought WOW, that's a great idea! I've still got my rods at the house so I have one for Lupita. Now to see if she wants to fish. Great! So long as we let them go she'll give it a try! Heck, I almost always catch and release. Let's go fishing!!
We arrived at a nearby pond and Dave made the first cast near an outflow pipe where water was pouring into the pond. His float went down. I was showing Lupita how you make a worm-half without scissors when Dave hollers that he'll need a little help landing his fish. I hurried over to find he had a NICE bass hooked.
Dave was fishing from the top of a spillway pipe and had no easy way to land his fish. I leaned in from the bank and lipped Dave's fish. It was 19 1/4" long and 13 1/2" around. That calculates to 4.9#! A first cast five for Dave!!
Pretty soon Lupita was calling out for assistance. She'd been re-baiting her own hook after bluegills stole her worm and this time her hook found a lip! Lupita caught her first fish!
It was a cute little bluegill! I showed Lupita how to work the circle-hook out of the lip of the fish and she admired it's blue coloration and beautiful banding before releasing it back to the pond. Then she said something that did my heart good; I wanna do that again!
Pretty soon Lupita was baiting her own hook, making worm bits out of worms, casting an ultralight (which isn't the easiest type of rod to cast), and catching and releasing her own fish. I actually got to bait up my line and catch a few fish while Lupita did her own thing catching pretty bluegills and letting them go. That is until she cast near a line of reeds. Her float went down, she raised the rod tip and reeled in the slack hooking in her words "something heavy"!
It was indeed something heavy! Certainly heavier than a bluegill! Lupita went from catching her first fish to having a multi-species day landing her first largemouth bass! She lipped it like a trooper once I showed her how and was very interested in all the patterns and colors on a largemouth. After a few photos she carefully set the bass into the water near shore and watched as in two flicks of the tail it was gone into the water.
Dave hollered to me that he'd landed a pretty nice bluegill. He wasn't kidding! What a beautiful specimen! I'd love to have a bunch of bluegill that look like that in an aquarium. I'm pretty sure that's not legal but boy would it be pretty!
Next Lupita hooks a nice sized slab of a bluegill! I'd better get a worm in the water.
OH YEAH!!! When you can lip a bluegill you know it's a biggie!! This was the last fish we caught this evening. The sun was going down, the mosquitoes were biting my girlfriend, and it was time to think about finding someplace to watch fireworks.
Sometimes a first cast fish is looked at as a curse on the trip. Almost as if it was too easy and now no one will catch anything. That wasn't the case however. We had a great evening, caught fish, and had a fun evening with friends! If Dave catching a big bass on the first cast helps all future fishing trips may he always catch a first cast five!
