76 Fish, but Who is Counting Anyway?

Nathaniel and I are not big fish counters, especially when the bite is good and our focus is simply on having fun catching the fish. However, Asher, my 8-year-old, always wants to know numbers. Therefore, when we saw that the action was going to be fast yesterday afternoon, Nathaniel and I went ahead and started counting, confirming the count aloud with virtually every fish caught. We could have missed it by one or two, but I'm confident that our tally of 76 fish in about three hours was pretty close to accurate. The catch included crappie, bass and bluegills, with some hard-pulling, hefty 'gills in the mix.

The top producing baits were the smallest size of Lindy Watsit Grub, which we fished on ultralight spinning tackle, cast close to the bank and worked slowly with little twitches of the rod tip. However, I also caught several fish on a fly rod, which was rigged with a Sneaky Pete and a Tellico Nymph, and Nathaniel caught several bass on buzzbait.

We only caught three crappie, but all three were somewhat noteworthy. I dropped a tandem-rigged pair of Watsit Grubs beside the pond's spillway, got hit immediately and set the hook into what turned out to be a pair of black crappie.

About 15 minutes later, while I was casting my Watsit Grub for bream and Nathaniel was buzzing for bass, I suddenly heard racket behind me and Nathaniel calling out, "Whoa!" I turned to find him scrambling to grab his ultralight rod, which was about to go out of the boat. It seems his Watsit had been hanging barely in the water, and a seriously aggressive crappie that wasn't the least bit scared of the boat had darted up and grabbed it. He rescued the rod and landed the fish! (Photo below.)

It was one of those fun fishing days where everything just worked, and the result was a big number of fish caught in only a few hours and a big dose of summer fun.