Sunfish Heaven Revisited

Watching my grandson again last week, so I figured I'd be able to visit the pond for some more fishing.  When I asked the Tri-lakes members to suggest warm water flies for the boys at Good Samaritan Boys Ranch to tie this fall, Paul made a few suggestions.  One that he said we should tie is the Briminator.  I don't have any Pheasant feathers, so I made a substitution to get almost the same look and, I hoped, action. I took my two Briminators with me last Friday morning to give them a try.

When I unlocked and opened the gate to my sister's place, I was greeted by a couple of cows. I didn't know if they had broken through the electric fence or if my brother-in-law had moved them over.  Either way, it meant they had the same access to the pond as I did. I drove past their yard and saw the gate closed, so I now knew there were cows in the same pasture as the pond I was going to fish. And, as I found out later, in the pond.

I decided to try the Briminator first, so I tied one on and walked down to the water. I started at the closest access point and caught a few sunfish. I moved over to the dam and caught a few more.  A few of the cattle decided they wanted to cross the dam, but after spotting me and the long rod, they watched me a while, decided they wanted to avoid me, turned around and walked to the other side of the pond.

Two or so hours of fishing and my Briminator was terminated. My thoughts about the fly, the fish and the pond are: I caught a lot of fish including two bass, but all small ones. There were several times when I had to get out the hemostat to remove a fly taken too deeply.  That wasn't a problem with the poppers I used two weeks ago. Instead of a six weight, I used a four weight that I built.  It was a real nice choice because none of the fish caught were very big.  The fish didn't seem to have any fight to them even on the lighter rod.

Sharing the pond



Sunfish caught on a Briminator

 

The next evening I decided to try my luck again and I thought I'd mix up the flies a bit. The fishing was the slowest this summer. All of the takes except one that I missed were easy takes, nothing hitting anything hard. I caught three bass and a few sunnies. The smallest bass, all of about eight or mine inches, gave me the best time as he broke water with nice jumps three times. The flies I used were a popper, a Briminator, and a bug-z.  I caught fish on all three.