Catching in Kansas

[Johnsfolly]

We have risked COVID and been out in MO and KS to see our kids and granddaughter. Of course I am going to fish somewhere ! If you didn't know I am a multispecies angler and keep up a lifelist of species that I have caught on hook and line. As I have done more research I am beginning to work on trying to catch specific species and particularly trying to catch all species within a certain genus of fish. I have been working on the Lepomis genus which currently has 13 species. I know from my research that the orangespotted sunfish, Lepomis humilis, is common throughout KS. After @FishnDaveposted one that he caught in Iowa, I really needed to catch one. So I dug into some blogs and forum discussions about this species and found a creek in KS that looked to be a promising location and it was on the way to get to my son, who is stationed in Ft Riley. My wife puts up with my obsessions thankfully as she and my daughter were in the car as I was trying to catch an orangespotted sunfish. I will say to any one that uses Google maps that you really don't know what to expect once you get to a location in an attempt to fish. I went to a spot that looked on the map to be a slight grade spillway that emptied into the creek. Well it was a much steeper drop and coated with algae, which would have made for a very bad fall. So this spot was not going to work. Did see our first collared lizard.

I went to my second spot, which was a pool below a highway bridge downstream from the spillway. The spot was a plunge pool approximately 20 by 15 feet and looked to have a depth of 3 to 4 feet. The water was very clear and there were lots and lots of fish, from largemouth bass, carp, bluegill, longear sunfish, green sunfish, micros, and even some drum. I have only seen pictures of orangespotted sunfish from the side and not from above. That made it challenging to say the least. Also the other sunfish were really aggressive. I was fishing a Trout magnet minijig with a piece of worm. Caught a green sunfish as soon as the bait hit the water. This happened over and over again. I kept casting to likely targets. If it wasn't a green sunfish, then it might have been a bluegill or longear sunfish . Don't get me wrong I love catching fish, but this was getting ridiculous.

I moved to the outfall of the pool and actually saw my first orangespotted sunfish. I could tell by his coloration as well as his red eyes. Now all that I had to do was to get a bait down through the gauntlet of other sunfish, not spook the fish and get him to bite. Oh and I only saw two amongst the hoards. I tried tossing worm pieces to distract the other fish. I tried reeling up on the line and pushing the bait down to the fish. None of that worked real well. Fortunately these fish were easy to spot now that I knew what they looked like and they kept coming back to the same locations. After landing and releasing 32 other sunfish not counting those that I pulled out of the water but not setting the hook, I got the bait to the bottom, did not spook the fish and he bit!!! I got and bagged my first orangespotted sunfish!!!

Success

 By this time my wife and daughter were out and exploring the creek downstream of the pool. I had seen some logperch and Prairie Orangethroat darters in the pool and they were looking downstream for more. They didn't find any but they let me fish downstream. I caught a common shiner and my first central stoneroller of the year, which can be a hard species to get to bite.

I saw a hole further down stream that looked like it had some promise for bass or larger species. I went down and saw several bass swimming along with some larger green and bluegill sunfish. But what really caught my eye was a group of 8 to 10 large common carp, with one or two that may be 8 to 10 lbs. I tied on a 1/16 oz olive and black marabou jig and tipped it with some worm. I made a cast into the deeper part of the pool and it got smoked by a large drum. Even in a small pool this drum put up several runs before I was able to beach it and get it unhooked. I haven't estimated its size, but it might be a personal best for drum .

That was the last fish I caught before heading back to the car to finish our travel to the hotel near the base. What a successful day of catching in KS. I did think about going back, but it was my daughter that pushed that issue since she wanted to catch some bigger fish. But that will be another post.

 

[FishnDave]

You did it!  Awesome and CONGRATULATIONS!!                                        That Longear is a looker as well!  🤩