A Couple of Dum Basses

I dunno what it is, but I've been fishing a lot lately. I think it's called a hobby or something.

Yesterday, Carl Jr., Rico, and I went off to Riverbend Ponds to fish after work. This is the location at which that famous story Cooler of Death occurred. This is the first time Rico has joined us for the after-work fishing, as he finally found his fishing license in the dryer.

I was raring to go, as I had a fistful of new lures that I wanted to try out. In the roughly 1.5 hours of fishing, I caught 4 fish, all with the same lure. Oh, did I mention I have a new favorite lure? The Rapala Jointed Shad Rap in black over silver. It was 3 bluegills (one of which was decent-sized) and some kind of bass that was 8-10". Rico also caught a couple of these bass, and we spent a long time arguing over what they actually were.

They had characteristics of both a smallmouth and a largemouth. In particular, they had a small mouth and the spunk of a smallmouth, but they had a horizontal spotted stripe along the side much like a largemouth. I believe that with enough googling these turn out to probably be the spotted bass, but reports differ as to whether these exist in Colorado or not, though I gather from these guys that they do.

I had to pick up HannahC from gymnastics at 7:00, so I dutifully set my alarm and packed up in time to get her. As I was leaving, Carl, Jr. inquired, "What time is it?"

"10 to seven."

"Oh."

Then he kept fishing.

Today, as the three of us were heading to lunch, Carl, Jr. said, "Soooo...I'm not allowed to go fishing after work anymore for a while."

Apparently, he fished until 7:30, then strolled into the old house and was confronted with some version of the age-old, "Where in the hell were you?" that a married-with-children man gets when he comes home an hour late for dinner and didn't so much as call, and being a fairly innocent soul, he responded with something to the effect of, "I was fishing," rather than lying through his teeth like he should have done.

So now Carl can't come fishing anymore.

And then, as luck would have it, Rico said, "Yeah, I got in trouble, too." He then proceeded to tell a story about how his girlfriend never cooks, but she decided to cook yesterday, and he didn't know. Except that she called him on his cell a bunch of times to tell him, but he didn't answer or listen to the voice mail cuz he was fishing and, not being married, he has no obligation to be at anyone's beck and call.

Which means that of the three of us, I'm now the responsible and reliable one.

I'm pretty sure I'll crack under the pressure presently.

The briefest of fishing tales

The fambly and I went back to Frank Easement Ponds last night for a little evening fishing. The Mrs. caught about an 11" largemouth using a hook with worm and a bobber. I caught a little 5" largemouth using a Rapala floater. The Childrens failed to catch anything (though The Mrs. caught her fish with MaxieC's rig right after he got tired of fishing).

I got in a lot of good practice with a buzzbait, so the trip was not completely in vain.

Playing Hooky

Yesterday was my birthday. My loving daughter presented me with a rainbow Rooster Tail fishing lure, and my darling wife prepared Taco Bell for dinner. Well, except I had to drive us to Taco Bell, pay, and bring the food to the table. Other than that, though...

It being Thursday night, at least the boyz bought me my drinks.

Today, I had the urge to try out the aforementioned lure and the new reel that I got myself for my birthday. As luck would have it, all the meetings I normally have on Friday afternoons got canceled. As luck would also have it, yesterday Rico wanted to see the pond near my house that was rumored to have bass in it (rumored by me, on account of I've talked to fishermen there who claimed to have caught some), since we were eating lunch not to far from there.

We hadn't intended to eat lunch where we were. We had intended to go to Carl's Jr., which is one more exit south. But Rico got to talking about wanting to check out that pond, and I was telling him how to get to it, and Carl, Jr., was driving and listening (cuz he likes to fish, too), and he accidentally started following the directions and got off the highway at the exit for that pond, and not the one for Carl's Jr.

Carl is fairly easily flustered when he drives.

So we ate at the Arby's there, then went to check out the pond, which is formally named "North Frank Easement Pond at Frank State Wildlife Area," but I'll just call it "the pond." We saw lots of bluegill teaming along the periphery. Interesting, as my fambly had tried fishing that pond one before (our first fishing of this season) and gotten skunked. But we only fished for maybe 20 minutes that time.

For over a week, Carl, Jr., has been hauling around his fishing gear in his trunk in case we could sneak off ever, and I've been bringing mine since Monday. Well, we finally decided that today was the day.

So we grabbed a quick lunch and hit the pond. Early afternoon is a pretty lousy time to fish, but mostly I wanted to play with the new reel, so going at a lousy time means getting a lot of casting/reeling practice.

We fished for over an hour, trying one lure after another. We could see fish jumping here and there, and we could see schools of bluegill at various places, but just could not coax any bites.

Eventually, we started working our way around the perimeter of the lake. Carl, Jr. at some point switched to a bobber and a yellow, feathery jig (kinda like this one). About five minutes after that, he caught himself about a 7" fish. I was a couple hunnerd yards away, and he was yelling how it was some kinda fish he didn't recognize. When I got over there, he declared that he was pretty sure it was a largemouth bass. I checked my "Colorado species identification" guide that I always carry with me just in case I accidentally ever catch a carp again, and sure 'nuf, it was a largemouth.

I immediately dug out a bobber and a jig that looked almost identical, though mine was greenish yellow rather than canary yellow. We kept fishing and working along the shore back towards the car (had to be back to work in about 40 minutes), and I got my first strike of the day. This is more than an hour and a half from when we started.

It felt like something big, and it took a bit of line with it. I got to use the fancy rear-drag control on the new reel to increase the drag slowly as it tired, which made it extra fun. What I ended up with was a 15.25" largemouth. Carl, Jr. snapped this photo using my cellphone:


The minimum size limit at this pond is 15", so this guy squeaked in to being legal, but I threw him back anyways. The Mrs. and I are going out for dinner tonight, and Carl, Jr., and I were in our work clothes and had no decent place to put a fish. Though it was tempting, given we were only about 5 minutes from my house.

The Cooler of Death

I don't know how she did it, but somehow yesterday morning HannahC managed to convince The Mrs. that she needed "some Daddy time" where just HannahC and I would go fishing. She chose as a venue, "that pond at Riverbend where we caught all those bluegill last year."

Well, why not. We've been fishing twice this year at new locations, and thus far only The Mrs. had caught a fish, and it was a stinky green catfish. On the way, however, we made a slight (40 miles?) detour up to Wyoming to hit one of the fireworks stores that's right on the border. Ya see, in Wyoming, eveything is legal. However, there are a lot of people who moved from California to Colorado not because they wanted to get away from the creeping death that is California culture like we did, but because they wanted to preserve the god-awful California culture, only in a nicer place. Like Boulder or Fort TomCollins.

In the city of Fort TomCollins, all fireworks of all kinds are banned. This is purportedly because of the danger of brush fire, however one would be hard placed to find any brush in Fort TomCollins. What one finds is a lot of "progressives" who spend most of their time thinking up bizarre ways to legislate away traditional American values - like fireworks and lot sizes larger than 5000 sq ft.

Happily, we don't live in For TomCollins, so only a small subset of fireworks are banned: anything that leaves the ground, and anything that explodes. i.e., all the "fun" fireworks. But we still can get sparklers and spark fountains and smoke bombs and such. So it's almost like being in America.

But if you drive to Wyoming, you can get all the good stuff. The place I chose among the three stores at the very first exit in Wyoming offered quite a deal - 140 free bottle rockets with a $35 purchase. Needless to say, I managed to score 140 free bottle rockets. And some free smoke bombs (yawn).

MaxieC, however, was terrified of the fireworks again this year. He sat in the back of the pickup truck with The Mrs. wearing hearing protection and crying that the house was going to burn down while I lit off a few of the things last night. I think just about everything I set off was actually legal in my area, too. Nothing scary.

This morning, he told me how cool the stuff was.

So, anyways, HannahC and I got to the fishing hole around 11:00, which is when the bluegill around here start biting. There were a couple other fishermen there, but they were not in our special spot. You could see the water teeming with little baby bluegills.

It was a good day of fishing. HannahC caught a fish about every 10 minutes, for a total of about nine, four of which we kept. She got a 7-incher, which was the biggest bluegill we've seen in any of the ponds around. She also caught a couple of the babies, including one within 30 seconds of her first cast.

A big turtle swam around the whole time keeping an eye on us. I only caught three, but they were decent enough sized to keep. I spent most of my time at the gutting board while HannahC continued to fish. It seemed like as soon as I finished cleaning her last fish and got my hook back in the water, she had another one ready for me.

I spent way too long a time trying to prepare these little dude for the grill. Bluegill is a very labor-intensive snack.


Fish heads, fish heads, roly-poly fish heads. Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up, yum!


A little onion and lemon and we're good to go.


HannahC is begging to go again today, only this time with the whole family. She thinks MaxieC might be able to catch his first fish at this place. Such an altruist.

Happy Birthday, HannahC

HannahC turned 7 today, so we had a fun-filled day that went fairly well, all things considered.

HannahC had just a couple requests for her birthday. She wanted to go fishing, eat lunch at Red Robin, have Alaskan king crab legs for dinner, and not have me work on the inground trampoline project at all. We managed to satisfy all these requirements. Even though with just one more day of work, the trampoline will be done.

After a leisurely morning of opening presents and having chocolate birthday cake for breakfast (The Mrs. is very obviously compensating for something on most holidays), we managed to slag our butts out to the usual fishing hole by about 10:15. HannahC insisted on the usual place, as she had caught a couple fish there before and wanted to repeat the adventure.

We got our usual spot and had our usual conflicts - where The Childrens start fighting with one another before I've even managed to get all the rods assembled. MaxieC was in a bit of a mood, and The Mrs. volunteered to play with him instead of fishing. What a trooper. Plus, this way, I couldn't make fun of her for not catching anything ever despite all her talk of fishing prowess and how fishing with something other than a string tied on a stick is almost cheating it's sooo easy and all those fictions from her childhood fishing on Grand Island with her grandfather.

So HannahC and I fished. We fished and fished and fished. Well, mostly I helped HannahC untangle her line from the end of her pole. But we got some good fishing time in there. Catching was in short supply. We could see the bluegills swimming around in the water, but for the first time, we also saw little minnow-like fish swimming around. Now, perhaps the fish have spawned, and these are baby fish. Or perhaps someone has lost all their bait fish. Dunno. We had a few worms nibbled off the hooks, but no catches.

Then, near the end of our time, on a lark I decided to fish one of the ponds I had not fished before, Turtle Pond. It's right next to the two we normally fish, but it's a bit smaller. It also has remarkably clear water such that you can see that there aren't any fish in there at all. But I gave it a mighty heave and cast way out from shore into the murky depths. Almost immediately, I got a bite, but it got away. However, now I was on to something. I kept casting out there, and nearly every single time I got a bite. I managed to hook four bluegills in about 10 minutes, but only landed three of them as one wriggled away just as I was pulling it from the water. HannahC joined me, and she managed to feed a bunch of bluegills her worm (we saw them pursuing it), but didn't hook any.

She did catch a tree about 15 feet up. I got it free, though. Didn't even lose the worm. It was a miracle.

I might add that I used the same worm for all 4 of the fish I hooked, plus a couple that got away. It was a mini-nightcrawler. It just kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller. HannahC had a great time, as I let her release all the fish I caught back into the pond. She would hold them carefully as I removed the hook, then place them gently into the pond, and they'd dart off. And she'd talk to them and say soothing things like, "You might die, idiot," and, "Maybe if you weren't such a stupid fish you wouldn't have a hook in your mouth."

One of those bluegills actually looked big enough to eat. Like, maybe, you'd eat a single fish stick. The bag limit is 20, and you'd need all 20.

We also saw Ratatouille today. It was quite good. I dunno if it had quite the Wow! factor of some other Pixar films, but the whole fambly certainly enjoyed it.

This is now the third weekend in a row that I have not mowed my whole lawn. I mowed nothing this week. Last week, I got the front and 3/4 of the back. I have sections that have gone to seed already. The HOA would probably get on my back if I didn't have all these de/construction projects going on that make the back yard look so much worse than the lawn looks.

Now That's More Like It

We went fishing again today. Hannah and I decided to climb down a bank to fish in a place we hadn't before in a different part of the lake. About two minutes later, I was wrangling with this guy.


I had to send HannahC running back to get The Mrs. and the net in order to land it. I was very worried about the quality of the knots I had tied, and we were on a slope where I couldn't move around a whole bunch. It's a good thing, too, as my line actually snapped right after this picture was taken. Only has 8 lb. test on it.


I think he's a smallmouth bass, cuz that's the closest thing to what he looks like that's in the Colorado game fish identification guide. He measured in at 19 inches.

[Update: The Mrs's brother has identified the fish as a carp, and I have to agree. It didn't match the photos of a smallmouth bass properly, but looks exactly like the photos of a carp. Well, that explains why it was so stinky.]

I didn't cook him well enough on the first try, though it looks good in the photo:


Mr. Stinkyfish had to go back on the grill after we cut into him and had a couple bites. He looked cooked, but did not taste cooked.

No, not at all.

Carp is not a sushi fish.

But, in the end, Mr. Stinkyfish was gobbled up.


HannahC also caught her first two fish ever. The first one, she caught when I told her, "Go fish over there in the shadows." She caught this little dude about 5 minutes later. Another bluegill like I got last week, this one measuring in at around 5.5". We tossed it back, having decided a proper limit for bluegills is 6".


The second fish she caught was a 6" carp. We tossed it right back without even taking a picture, as The Mrs. had already declared fishing was over, so HannahC and I had been heading back to base camp. But then we saw two big carp eating bugs in the shallows and tossed a couple casts at them. They disappeared. So we kept walking back, and then we saw a little school of 4-5 fish that looked like bluegills and cast into them. Turned out she pulled out a tiny carp, not a bluegill.

Charging into the holiday

Baby steps. Baby steps.

HannahC has been making a load of noise about going fishing. I myself am not much of a fisherman, given that I have caught a grand total of two fish in my life, both perch caught when I was about 10 on my first fishing outing off a dock in a marina in Sodus Bay where my sister and brother-in-law used to keep their sailboat. Then, no more fishing until about two years ago when StinkyJ took HannahC and Me, CherkyB fishing at a lake that had no fish whatsoever. We went again a year later just to make damn sure there were no fish, and that's the sum total of my fishing experience.

But, along the way, HannahC and I managed to pick up a couple fishing rods and some gear, as she declared that fishing was one of her most favorite things to do in the whole world. So now I need to take her fishing despite not really knowing what I'm supposed to do if we were to actually catch any fish. Like, do I bite the heads off at the lake, or wait until I get home? And is HannahC supposed to cover herself in the blood of her first catch, or is that only for deer?

I do know that most of the lakes around here have a 15" limit on bass. I'll have to figure out what a bass looks like. I assume that 15" is measured before I bite the head off.

As a Good Father, I have been doing a little web research about where to go. I found this page, which has been particularly helpful. Today, I decided to check out Riverbend Ponds, as I drive by there a lot on the way to the koi store. Riverbend Ponds is a big open space preserve with a whole bunch of lakes/ponds in it as well as a river (the preserve is at a big bend in the river, oddly enough), and all are open for fishing. The ponds have enticing names like, "Bluegill Pond," "Trout Pond", "Turtle Pond", and "Big Pond" (which is the biggest, duh).

I ate lunch not too far from there today, so I swung by on the way back. I parked by Big Pond and started walking, scoping out fishing places. There were a lot of places I though seemed like good prospects. Within five minutes, I had seen a turtle and a very large fish near the bank. This was good, as now I was sure that there were actually fish in the lake, unlike StinkyJ's favorite place. That was the only fish I saw, but I did see signs of other fish, such as a blue heron sitting on the boardwalk and a bunch of signs that said "fishing access" and a guy fishing.

This being Fort TomCollins, people are friendly, so I decided to chat with the fishing guy. I said, "Is this a good place to fish?" to which he replied, "I dunno. It's my first time here."

Friendly is not necessarily the same as useful.

I walked all around, inspecting the place, and I determined that the northwest corner was probably the best place, as they had Trout Pond" and Turtle Pond" very accessible for fishing with what seemed like miles of shoreline with lots of peninsulas and structure and benches on which to sit, and there was a floating fishing pier in Turtle Pond, and both were pretty close to a parking lot that had an outhouse. I worry, of course, that on the weekend everyone thinks this is the best place in the world to fish. We'll head out there tomorrow morning to check it out and then hit the sporting goods store to pick up a few items that StinkyJ used to supply as well as a license for me.

HannahC is determined that we pick up a fishing kit for MaxieC, but he's only three. Someone's gonna lose an eye. I may pick him up a kit, but just not rig up a hook on his line. He'd probably have a great time with just a bobber and a sinker.