Fishing with Susie

Type: Nontidal
Region: Southern
Location: St. Marys Lake

Susie and I decided to fish St. Marys Lake on Sunday. This time of year the bluegill are usually get ready to spawn so we grabbed the flyfishing gear and headed out. Things were a little slow at first but I eventually started picking up some fish on a small nymph which I was using as a dropper under a popper. Unfortunately they were all dinks. Susie only had a few halfhearted strikes on a yellow foam bodied spider so she switched to a black one with white legs. Soon she was picking up fish. As we rounded a main lake point she laid the bug down and it immediately disappeared with a loud smacking sound. The big bluegill put such a bend in her rod that she giggling out loud as she brought it to the boat. She proceeded to catch about four more in the same spot. Well I may be stubborn but I�m not a fool so I switched over to a black spider pattern and soon was into a big bluegill as well. Over the next few hours we found several spots with concentrations of big gills along with a half dozen largemouth between 9 and 11 inches, a crappie, a nice pickerel on a streamer and a couple of really chunky redear. While we never saw any nests, the sunnies were obviously starting to stake out their territory and were really aggressive. By this time a damp easterly breeze had started to pick up so we pulled on our jackets and paddled back to the ramp. We were feeling pretty smug about doing just what we had set out to do. Did you ever wish you could put a little bit of today in your pocket to pull out a month from now?