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After spending quite a bit of time on the water the past couple weeks, I figured I needed to tone things down a touch and spend a little more quality time with Reese. I managed to get a guilt free fishin’ pass on Thursday though… an opportunity that DEMANDS to be taken advantage of!

I’ve been wanting to scout out a few new areas I’ve been hearing about (stay tuned!), but I decided to stop off at my favorite local golf course pond to get in a big fish fix. It had been over a week since I had seen the backing on my reel; obviously chasing down some big carp and/or catfish was in order. The LMFR wild rainbows were a treat, don’t get me wrong… but there’s something addictive about hearing your reel scream and finding bruises on your stomach from fighting fish.

The water was a couple feet lower than the last time I had seen the pond and the fish weren’t feeding in any of the areas where I had seen them before. I only had a couple of hours to fish and was worried I was going to strike out. I kept walking along the bank and found some promising activity in the form of a tail flicking around above the surface. I figured it was a carp, but upon closer inspection it turned out to be one of these:

Cat tailing along the bank

He had his head buried under the edge of the bank most of the time, giving me a great chance to get above him and highstick/dap a crawfish imitation (headstand) right next to his face. He didn’t look twice, grabbed it almost immediately and was off to the races.  He wasn’t a monster but still managed to put a solid bend in the rod.

Meow

I didn’t have too much success following the catfish so I took off to a different area of the pond… Spotted a shadow moving around a few feet off the bank. I tossed one about a foot in front of his nose and hoped it was a big carp. Gave it a few strips and saw the shadow turn… set the hook and the water exploded. He went on a decent initial run, but began running 30-40ft back and forth along the bank with an occasional run into deeper water. I wasn’t sure what I was hooked into until I was able to finally drag him in close.

Throwing off a nice vortex... headed on another run

He wasn’t a monster, but the fight lasted long enough to put a few bruises on my stomach and for a few different groups of golfers to finish the hole I was fishing near. I don’t know that I’ll ever get tired of catching these fish.

Sayin' hi