Pantastic

Woke up this morning and had a hunch the panfish would be moving in with this warm weather we're having... So I headed down to the local lake to see what's up... Fished for about 5 hours and couldn't keep the panfish off the fly!   I was right.. They moved in with no hesitation.. Were found anywhere from 1-4' of water along the weed beds.. Full of spawn and getting ready to move in and bed down.. So they are crazy aggressive.. Took them on buggers and on poppers.. The day was full of action and I imagine I would've been able to take my limit easily 3 times over..(which would be 60 fish).. A ton of bluegill in the 8-9" range.. Good eating size.. And one random black crappie.. I love this time of the year.. Panfish on the fly are a blast and the next couple weeks(weather permitting) should be full of top-notch panfish action..  Think I'll head back down there tomorrow with the bucket!

Bonus Round!

Once I had gotten home, cleaned and grilled up my trout.. I was still yearning to get out and do some more fishing.. So I geared back up and headed down to the backwaters to do a little fishing and see what I could find...

To my surprise.. Wasn't a single fisherman at this spot.. Normally there is a minimum of 4 cars lined up.. With up to 8+ lined up down the road.. Maybe they were all streamside!  I tie on a simple white bugger.. Nothing fancy.. I attach 25# Vicious Elite Fluorocarbon to the end of my furled leader as pike love slamming all sorts of flies out here and better to be safe than sorry...  Within a couple casts I tie into my first fish.. It's something decent...  He starts jerking line out from my hand.. It's a biggger guy.. And takes off.. My reel clicking away as the fish runs and takes me to my reel.. Ok.. It's pretty big.. Or at least for my 5wt as it bends.. Almost doubling over.. I get a little edge on him and finally see.. It's a big pike.. He quickly jets back off and takes me for another short run.. Finally after about 10-15min of fighting I grab him behind the head and remove the bugger from his big toothy jaws.. 30" pike.. Biggest on the fly this year.. If not my biggest pike on the fly ever...

I continued fishing until I basically couldn't see where my fly was landing.. I caught a pair of crappies and that's all she wrote.. That pike sure was a blast though!