Went out fishing three times today

i just have to chalk it up to the water being cold, and the wind was really blowing...nothing was biting anywhere.
Well, I did get one

 But most of the day was spent pretty much watching turtles watching me. :)

There's always tomorrow.

Brrr, the water was cold

Went out fishing in my backyard today for about 4 hours. The water was distinctly cooler by at least 15 degrees.

There's such a food supply for growing fishies. :)

I don't know what it is with damsel flies and my stripping hand. Today they were flying and landing in tandem.

So, it was a little slow. There was also a baby chain pickerel and largemouth...and sadly, one that got away.

got out a little earlier

started off with the 9' 4-weight, a pink hares ear beadhead....then went to olive...then a black woolly bugger...
different retrieves, depths, 'skipping stones' presentation (side-armed bouncing the beadhead off the surface), another sip of coffee (that must be the problem), change rods a 4-weight 5' 7" with a olive hares ear beadhead, cast under some bushes and pick up a bluegill

Some more retrieves later and still not as busy as I would like. Put on a size 14 or 16 caddis and back under the bushes we go, I 'know' something has got to be there.

Okay, that's more like it. :-) Some more casts parallel to the right shoreline, and trying an over the shoulder curve cast, but that's crazy, settled with left-handed  roll cast and a little help from the wind blowing my way - to try and get around this big bush sticking out there, let it settle and twitch, and a few more bluegill to hand

Okay, time to head back home...

after these gents moved on, I was fishing there. Tricky cast around that big bush. :-) 

Hit the back yard mid afternoon

hunting for them bluegills with a size 12 olive beadhead hares ear...whoooo boy

Excellent start. 85 or so degrees at high noon more or less, and this little tugger felt good on the shorty four weight.

And this guy was next in line. This is my biggest bluegill to date. Pretty close to one I caught weeks ago in the back yard.

And then this mutant redear...damn, I think I should bathe after touching this one! Yuk. :)

Ahh, back to the slabs...nice gilly here. Had me doing the fish dance after he got close and in between my legs! So, it was an excellent day on the water and I had many visitors to my waders as well:

Damsel fly nymphs and shrimp. Jeez, them boogers are small, about a size 22 or 24...I won't be fishing those any time soon! But, the day started with my zombie friends screaming for more brains this morning:

and then off to the fishing hole (a different one) I went. And as I was pulling up to the "test your casting skillz
here" spot ... I noticed one of them portable speed bumps (to some)

and being careful not to dislocate his tail bones, I carefully walked him over to the water and one last pose and cya:

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my Wednesday adventures in fishing!

Weather has been wonderful

This is my usual lake about three blocks away. This is

high noon. Mainly just panfish this morning.

But stayed out until 10:30 pm and was getting into the

fatties. This one surprised me at how well it fought.

First perch at this lake. And, the biggest perch I've

ever caught. What a tussle it put up. Got all acrobatic 

jumping out of the water. 

First Black Crappie at this lake yesterday.

Even the one-eyed ol' bluegills were stopping by for a 

picture. :)

out with the 3 weight

What a fabulous day.
The wind was kicking pretty good and the bites were frequent but soft. A few were fierce takes by some nice phattie like the ones pictured here:

                                         
of course, I had to try a new tie for the four weight:

and the bluegills were just inhaling it.

Of course, with the temps approaching the 80's the bugs were happy too.