April Fools Trout

[Johnsfolly]

Planned on taking the family to the Jacob's Cave Swap meet on Saturday. So decided that why not go further south to Lebanon, fish at BSSP and then run up Rt 5 to the swap meet. We started fishing at the whistle bridge. There were a bunch of fish at the bridge. I fished with my new Browning Air stream rod and 2# Pline fluoroclear line. I started fishing with a 1/125 oz white microjig. There were a lot of fish active and interested in the bait, almost too many. I caught and landed two. Livie was fishing a multicolored glo ball under a float. She kept getting hits, but could not get a good hook set.  She switched to a John deere microjig and caught this 12" rainbow.

I switched to a John Deere and had fish all over the bait, I landed three rainbows. I typically like to watch the fish respond to the bait and as they get excited and follow the bait, I can anticipate the strike and set the hook before I feel the bite. I was not able to see the John deere clearly due to the overcast sky. So when there were several fish around where my bait should have been I would set the hook. I actually mentioned to my Betterhalf that there may actually have been too many fish interested in my baits. Often several fish would go after the bait at the same time and they would get into each others way and then scatter as they are going in to bite. If there were only two or three fish going after my baits, then I would likely have caught more than what I did.

Livie caught two more rainbows using a tan colored glo ball under her float. After her third fish she was cold and went with my wife and her siblings to get warmed up, get some food, and ice for the fish. She gave me her glo ball and I caught one on the first cast. I caught a half dozen more before my family came back with the ice.

When I fish with Livie at BSSP, she has to try to catch three or four trout before she can go after the sculpin in the stream. She caught three, so we moved to the handicap jetty for her to catch some sculpin and I needed one more trout and wanted a sculpin to increase my species list for the year. Livie used a unweighted multicolored glo ball to catch her first sculpin. It's likely to be an Ozark sculpin. From the photos I haven't confirmed if the lateral line complete, which would confirm this one as a banded sculpin.

Then another. This second one was a definite Ozark sculpin, which was Livie's 12 different species since the beginning of March.

I caught a couple of rainbows and finally put my fourth keeper on the line. I put on a beaded hares ear nymph and caught an Ozark sculpin as well my 15th species caught since March 1st.

Better photo showing the wavy coloration of the dorsal fin and the incomplete lateral line.

We left BSSP at 11:30 to head to the swap meet. Livie caught three trout and all were over 12" in length. My Betterhalf caught two rainbows and both were over 12" as well. I caught 15 during the three hours of fishing. It was a good day. The swap meet was fun as well and we didn't buy a goat or any livestock. Any time we can make that happen is a bonus day in my book.

[Gavin]

Good Times!

 

[JestersHK]

Love those sculpin, and looks like you all had a blast.  John Deere really has been the hot color down there this season.