FishnDave

13 Goldfish and 27 Koi were caught yesterday afternoon.

What are some things you've learned over the course of your life so far, that you feel is knowledge that should be passed along? Or that you feel is knowledge or skills that are being lost?

Ha! Be careful! Livie might succumb to the siren song of flyfishing! Yeah, that sounds like a much better place to learn than a steep rocky/muddy bank with super-tall vegetation all around. 😬

...Also mis-hooked a big Crayfish And saw this Woolly Bear caterpillar amongst the dried weeds:

Like @Johnsfolly , I got into the sunfish over the weekend. Nothing big. Decent numbers. I caught Largemouth Bass, Bluegills, Redears, Green Sunfish, Hybrid Sunfish.

Check with @oneshot 1 ...He might help you butcher your deer!

Yes! They sure would! 👍

Similar, but different...

Ha ha! yes! I keep telling @Ham that I'm only good at catching Green Sunfish...the World's Easiest Fish to Catch. Absolutely, the ones with unique color patterns and scale patterns are definitely easy to recognize when I/we catch them again. The solid ones are a bit tougher, since there are multiple ones that are solid white, or solid yellow, or solid orange, etc. But even some of those might have longer fins, or slightly more/less colored fins. Its actually kind of fun to go through the pictures and try to match up ones I've caught before. Really cool fish. At the beginning of the day, the fish were pretty aggressive, and catching seemed easy. One passerby stood next to me for a bit, asking if there were bass in the pond. (No bass, and I told him so.) I saw a colorful Koi out in open water. I cast out ahead of it, and it immediately swam up to the fly from below, acting really aggressive. Bam! Fish on! It looked so easy! The guy HAD to have been impressed, right? I was. But he just mumbled "I bet there's bass in here," and wandered off. Soon enough, the fish got spooked or something, and the rest of the outing was a lot more work to find some willing to strike.

Absolutely those numbers include repeats, for sure on the Koi. They don't get easier to catch again, they get much harder to catch again. The number of refusals from fish I've caught before is hard to watch. Kind of the whole point of C&R, right? 😁 Based on photo comparisons, I for sure have also re-caught largemouth bass, northern pike, sunfish, grass carp, grass pickerel, bowfin, smallmouth bass. Probably gar, crappies and trout, too. I can't think of any reason why I wouldn't count a recapture.

I'm at 103 flyrod Goldfish for the year, and 131 flyrod Koi... (so far).

'Tis the season for some Pumpkin Spice...

We all just laugh at ourselves. The pond fish are stocked from hatcheries, just like most of the stream trout (a few Blue Ribbon stream exceptions). Fish where you can, when you can. Fish where you want to, when you want to. There's always somewhere better to fish, in our minds. I fish some of the most unlikely and unlikable places you can imagine. Its all good.

Wow! VERY well organized! I don't have that trait. 😬

We've certainly all got our own bits of crazy. And we can all say this about something or other:

Those are cool! I still need to catch some of those! 👍

Yeah, nice ones, right? A bit bigger at this spot than the last spot I fished...

Spent some time yesterday pursuing more "typical" warmwater species. Caught Largemouth Bass, Bluegill, Hybrid Sunfish, Redear Sunfish, Green Sunfish, Black Crappie, and Golden Shiners. Well...Golden Shiners aren't exactly "typical"...but were caught. BIG ones!

You're welcome! I usually try to keep my charity contributions on the down-low. 😄 The markings on that bowfin are amazing! Beautiful fish! Glad you caught the "new" species!

All those screws and bits and parts and whatnot.... Brought to mind a guy I met (on TV) when I was a kid back in the mid 70's... He started out kind of like that. Turns out, they made him better, stronger, faster. Steve was his name. And it makes sense that your wife is treating you so well. Cuz as I recall it, once Steve healed up, his dating game improved dramatically.

If that one doesn't work out...I've found A Rod for you:

I'm here to start a rumor that her passing was no accident...and she even tried to tell us. In fact, "Murder, She Wrote"!

Here's a review of ultralight rods from a few months ago: https://usangler.com/best-ultralight-spinning-rod-reviews/