It's important to have a plan, and this one was elegant in its simplicity. It went like this, drive to the marina, catch small fish and then use those very same fish to catch large fish. Compelling, eh?
And it worked well, initially. Cast into the depths with a small hook, a chunk of worm and pull out a little perch. Circle hook the perch under its dorsal and cast it out into the wider deep, and while you wait for a monster strike have fun catching more perch as you look at all the boats you don't own.
So far, so good. But the monster never struck, except once, when the light rod bucked and jumped as some ferocious predator snatched at the hapless baitfish. Big excitement, drop your amusement rod and head over to the real deal, which I did, and foolishly in the heat of the moment tried to reel in too aggressively. The big fish sensibly dropped the little fish.
Still, I lost count of the bluegill and kept a few to use as bait. If they'd been a little bigger I'd have kept a few for dinner too; so tasty, fresh bluegill out of Lake Whitney. I like them beer battered and served with fries, but pan fried's good too. Delicious.
Well, that'll come in a week or two. In the meanwhile, every blessing for the Feast of the Ascension and remember, plans are all very well but as with the apprehension of truth itself, rise and fall to the extent they're in harmony with that which is. The equation of mind to thing, say the philosophers. In this case, Leviathan Bass, maybe stripers, striking small perch at the marina, or not.
Fish on,
LSP
5 comments:
Still eye-balling boats, eh Padre? That wandering eye will eventually lead to no good.
Blue gill fishing story: my friend and I were camping up north in Wisconsin many years ago, and went out on the lake to catch some lunch for our families (I had a boat back then). After an hour of casting with lures, minnows, fat heads, spin-n-glows, etc., we got nary a bite except from pesky blue gill. We were fishing for walleye.
We decided that we were not going home empty handed, so we both agreed to do some production fishing. We broke out the salmon eggs, and our gear now set up with egg hooks, we proceeded to reel in approximately 100 blue gill in the next two hours. And then we spent another two hours or so fileting them (they are tiny, you know). And we threw none back, no matter how teensy (production fishing).
We battered the blue gill filets in Krusteaz pancake batter and fried them in a pan over a camp fire. Everybody agreed that those blue gill nuggets were great.
And they were. Production fishing. Those blue gill in the photos above would have done just fine.
For sure, Fredd, and I've taken the time to clean and cook the small ones. Tasty little morsel! Some even argue that the smaller ones taste better than the enormous dinner plate sized blues.
As LL points out somewhere, they're a bit like piranha. Fierce.
Anyway, I was hoping for a striper strike but they weren't in the area. Next time.
Bluegill are fine eating.
Crappie and bluegills are good eatin'! :-)
and don't throw the little ones back. bluegill are notorious for over populating and stunting themselves. then all you have is small ones...that get thrown back.
i keep the little ones to either use as catfish bait or to be buried in the garden for soil building. if ya got dogs, a sheet of scrap plywood and a couple of cinder blocks are needed.
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