Utah has had an El Nino spring- cool and wet vs our more normal high Mtn desert climate of short spring and early dry warm summer. So fishing has been back burnered until this past week and weekend.
Took a break from WAAAAY too much yard work on a Holiday weekend and hit some local urban fisheries to test the action before taking a daughter along. Scrounged up a few cats and carp on Friday and then hit the work pond Saturday afternoon and caught 2-9#ers, 2-10's and a 14...all common Carp. My youngest daughter was away on a Shakespeare Showdown multi-troupe spring play retreat camp and promptly punched me and gave me a head butt to the chest when she got home and found out I went fishing without her. YEOW!! :D
So after the yard work/gardening Monday, we hit the road for Salt Lake to the work pond and started catching on the very first cast. Fished a couple hours and the tally was Emma- 6, Dad -4. She pulled in the big fish of the day - a 13.5 and the Mirror Carp, plus on the only double we had...she brought her's to the net and mine got off close in.
I started Emma off with her sister's purple Zebco spincast special and she really had a tussle on her hands with the very first cast caught fish... a feisty 12 #er. That's it on the grass. Enough girth to sit up straight for the photo pose.
After the net job, I played the next one in about halfway and yes, the Zebco short handled rod was a wrist strainer so we switched her right over to one of my GLoomis salmon rods with an Okuma Trio reel or the MagTouch rod with the Abu Inshore spinning reel. She was much happier and learned the spinning reel cast easily.
Here's more of the action, Emma hauling in the big ones, Dad doing the handling ( i gave her enough grief on not holding her own fish that she said she would next trip), Emma netted all my fish. We skipped a few smaller ones for the photo opp as the catching action was too hot to stop for anything under 10 pounds.
Good size buglemouth bass.
Lee are you referring to Steve or the carp :D ;D ;D
either way....it works.... They call them Golden Bonefish, too. Pull like no tomorrow. Keeps me in practice for the annual Alaska Trip. Only 113 days to go!
Very nice, I love the fight a fat Carp can give.
Girls is a chip off the ol'block, that's awesome.
Great pics, they make the thread.
Thanks, guys. This little pond holds large mouth bass, white bass, grass carp, football sized goldfish, mirror and common carp and maybe something else I haven't seen, yet. My office is just over my left shoulder behind me in the Mirror carp pic. It's such a cheater pond I rarely fish it. I mean, first cast is "Fish on!" every time. Great trainer for the kiddos. My son got his BSA Fishing Merit Badge done here 5 years ago and my girls enjoy the "civilized" nature of fishing it. Emma toggled between complaining how much her wrist tendons hurt and out fishing her dad. A reel treat for me.
Another one of her catches. Dark pattern common.
Hey Steve-O it's good to see you on the move after hibernating for the winter. Isn't it great fun to get the kids on the end of a fishing rod? I need to find a cheater pond for my granddaughters. The last 2 times I took them out we did not catch anything. I have to be careful it does not ruin them to fishing by being skunked too many times. Dominick