Fishing the farm pond

I went to visit Randy, Bob and the kids last Friday and I was hoping to get in a little fishing.  After visiting with everyone for a bit, I drove over to my sister and brother-in-laws (all of a country mile) to try my luck at their pond.  The pond is not fished by many people so I had my hopes up.
Although the cattle have access to the pond and one has to watch were he steps, I saw no evidence of the cows entering the water. I tried a fly that I've no idea were I got it and had lots of blue gill take is as I was stripping it through the water.  The gills were biting good, so I decided that I'd go back early Saturday morning if it wasn't storming.

The next morning, the first and third casts produced bluegills.  After that I wasn't counting.  I moved over to the dam and caught more blue gill and a small bass.  Nothing very big, but lots of fun.

I worked my way around the pond and finally hit a spot were most of the strikes were bass.  That's when the fun began.  Again, none were very large, but there was enough of them that I was having lots of fun.  After about two hours, I went up to the barn and had a cup of coffee with Sandy and Joe.  Planned to come back Sunday morning.

The next morning started slow, a small bass, then another, no bluegill for some reason.  Then my line went tight, the rod bent and I had a big fish on. Played it for a couple of minutes, I couldn't keep it from a tree limb in the water and snap! Yes, I'd lost it.  Never did see what I had, but it was fun while it lasted.  Another small bass and then my line went very tight again.  Rod felt like it was going to bend double.  After several minutes and giving line a few times, I was able to finally hoist my fish onto the bank. I completely forgot that I had a tape with me.  But by using proportions in the picture I took ( I used the fish and the handle section of the rod).  I came up with a little more than twenty five and a half inches. I had caught one of my sister's catfish!!! It was a struggle and this is the largest, by a little more than an inch, fish I've caught on a fly.

That was fun and hard work.  The rest of the morning I caught several more bass, but no more cats and no blue gill. Below is a picture of the fly that I used most of the weekend.  I fished this color almost all of the time and it is the fly that caught the catfish and most of the bass on Sunday.  As you can see, my fly has a friend.  I used the artificial!