Late Bluegill Addition & More

A few taps of my jig and a snap of my wrist connected me with a solid bluegill, which had a bit of a surprise element. Catching a bluegill is seldom a surprise because they inhabit so many types of waterways and are quick to bite. Neither was catching it on a finesse bass bait.

The surprise was that it was April 1, and I was just catching my first bluegill of the year. I’m not consistent enough with keeping annual fish lists to quantify how rare that is, but I can say with confidence that I seldom catch 10 other species before adding bluegill to the list.

It was a pleasant surprise that came courtesy of a Rebel Ultra-Finesse Jig and that bit at the end of a presentation, when I was about to lift the jig out of the water and make another cast. Unfortunately, it was alone — or if it had buddies, they weren’t buying what I was selling.

Other Species Added

A little later the same morning, at a different river, I added two more species to this year’s tally: a shadow bass and a Coosa redeye bass. Both are regional species that are found in some North Georgia rivers.

The shadow bass looks and acts like a rock bass. In fact, when I caught it, I was thinking it was a rock bass. Only later did I remember that shadow bass are native to the Coosa River drainage, where I was fishing, and rock bass don’t actually live there. 

When I went back and looked at shadow bass photos online, I could see dark splotches that match my fish and that aren’t on true rock bass. Maybe they are the namesake. I’m not sure.

The Coosa redeye (also called just Coosa bass or redeye bass) is one of a handful of native upland river black bass species found in North Georgia. It’s one of the species that is part of the Georgia Bass Slam, but mine was tiny — well below then 8-inch minimum for qualifying fish. Hopefully, I’ll catch a bigger one some time this year! For now, those fish were species 12 and 13 on this year’s catch list.

Favorite Fishing Destinations Countdown: No. 6 - Lake Pymatuning, Pennsylvania

It's hard for me to not get excited about Lake Pymatuning as I write this because I'll be visiting there in a little more than a week, staying in a lakeside cabin in Pymatuning State Park and splitting fishing time between Pymatuning and a couple of other Western Pennsylvania lakes. Lake Pymatuning might be the most user-friendly major lake I've ever fished, and it a fabulous destination for family outings. It's fairly large, covering more than 17,000 acres, but it fishes small in the sense that good fishing is widespread and you don't need specialized knowledge or a fancy boat to tap into great fishing for multiple species. 

In truth, you don't need a boat at all. Multiple tracts of Pymatuning State Park offer extensive shoreline access to much of the lake, plus multiple piers, and the lake's shallow margins lend themselves to good wade-fishing in several areas. Seasonally (some winters, anyway), Pymatuning is also an excellent walk-on ice-fishing lake.

From a boating perspective, motors of more than 20 horsepower may not be operated on Pymatuning, so there's no threat of big boat wakes from pleasure boaters. Most boaters are fishermen or paddlers enjoying the lake, so Pymatuning is great to fish from a canoe, kayak or johnboat. I'm actually bringing my kayak along on my upcoming trip and am looking forward to putting it to work on Pymatuning.

Adding to its user friendly nature, Pymatuning is a fabulous multi-species lake, and because it has a lot good shallow cover and structure around it's edges, those fish tend to be in predictable places. Crappie (both black and white), walleyes and bass are the headline species, but Pymatuning also offers great opportunities for catching catfish and a host of panfish species. A couple of years ago, I spent a fun spring day on the lake with my good friend Darl Black, and we went out with a real multi-species mindset. If memory serves me correctly, we caught 10 species that day.

Beyond offering great fishing access, the state park lends itself nicely to overnight stays, with nice cabins at a reasonable cost and plenty of campsites in two different campgrounds.

Area information: Visit Crawford

Park Information: Pymatuning State Park

Still No 'Gill

With no late-winter ice trips or spring headstart trips to the coast having occurred through March, my fish species catch list for this year has been slow to develop. With April only a few days away, the tally is seven species.

In my mind, the most noteworthy missing piece a quarter of the way into the year is a bluegill. In fact, I haven't caught a bluegill or any of a bluegill's nearest kin (redear, redbreast, green sunfish, etc.) so far. The closest thing to one, I suppose, would be a white bass, and that really isn't very close.

That'll get fixed. I have zero doubt about that. I might need to be intentional about fixing it very soon, though!

'Gill Needed

Two species on the catch list two days from the end of January is just plain pitiful and means that I haven't been fishing nearly enough. I enjoyed great trout fishing at the White River a couple of weeks back and caught a bunch of rainbows and browns, and I'm thank for that trip. That's it, though. No ice adventures or trips to the coast, both of which are types of outings that commonly get the fishing year off to a quick start.

Beyond the bigger trips, though, I haven't even done any afternoon pond fishing this month and therefore don't even have a largemouth bass or a bluegill on my list. That's the part that must be fixed soon. I need to grab one or more of the little people who live in this house and head for a local pond so we can at least catch a few bluegills.

Fishing Adventures Near & Far

If you glance at this page from time to time, you likely know that last summer I spent most of a month on the road with one of my sons, Asher, trout fishing in the West and sharing stories on the Rebel Lures website and Facebook page. Asher and I also made a few spring trips that we called "spring training" to collect similar content and I did some related work from closer to home through the year.

Beginning with the new year, I'll be doing that kind of content gathering full-time. That means I'll be fishing a bunch, probably even more than before, and traveling to a lot of different places. Some fishing will be local, but I already have plans brewing for several larger trips, including a few to coastal waters.

I know I've been pretty slack about posting on this blog of late, by the way, but I hope you'll keep an eye on this page for the latest fish stories!

Related, I caught my first fish of 2016 a few hours ago. Asher went to the pond this morning, and when I went to pick him up I roamed the banks and cast until I managed to land a bluegill.

Middle of Nowhere Bluegills & Blog Reawakening

For starters I must acknowledge that the pond trip I'm reporting was more than a week ago. I've fallen woefully behind with posting blogs. More so than since I started this blog, I'm pretty sure. Plan is to fix that, beginning immediately. I also haven't fished enough since my return from the Trout Trek as I've been playing catch-up on writing. Plan is to fish at least three full days this week, so that part should be reconciled too!

On our most recent pond outing, Asher and I weren't getting much action by throwing the usual stuff around the usual cover. Then I randomly threw a Lindy Watsit Grub toward the center of the pond, let it sink, and started to work it a little deeper than we had been fishing. Almost immediately, I caught a bluegill. Naturally, I repeated the cast, and the result was the same. That showed Asher and me what we needed to know, and we proceeded to catch a bunch of bluegills and a couple of bass.

I found no rhyme or reason to what the fish were relating to, and they weren't in the deepest water, near the dam, like they sometimes are during the summer. They were in the middle, but up the pond, maybe relating to the channel that divides a shallow flat. The pond is small enough that you don't have to get really precise to catch them if you find the right general area. I've never really noticed the fish positioned the way they were on that day, but maybe I haven't cast to that area enough to have found them when they've been there. You can bet I'll try it again when the fish aren't around the regular stuff!

Marked Man

Most fishermen know that it happens from time to time. A little mess spills out of the wrong end of the fish, and when the fish flops, the mess gets transferred. This time it landed barely off-center on Eli's forehead, and we didn't realize what had happened until after we had gotten a few photos and he had released his fish. In my mind, it kind of messed up the photos, but maybe it's not a total loss. They seem to be Eli's favorite shots from yesterday.

Variety is the Spice of Santee Cooper Fishing

Yesterday's plan included probing deep-water brush for crappie and bluegills and drifting the canal with cut bait for blue cats in the current.

This afternoon we will set up over deep water in lower Lake Moultrie and fish live herring on down lines for big blues and stripers. However, we could just as well be going up onto shallow ponds around Marion or Moultrie to cast for largemouths or pitch worms under floats for shellcrackers or gearing up big with perch and gills in the bait tank to hunt flatheads.

One of my favorite things about the 180,000-acre Santee Cooper system (and there are many!) is the sheer variety of types of opportunities that are available pretty much all the time.  So many species abound in these lakes and grow to big sizes, but the variety extends way beyond the species mix because any given kind of fish can be caught many different ways.

Really the hardest thing about fishing down here for me is deciding which fun thing I want to do any given day!

Fishing for Everything that Swims

When asked what I like to fish for or the fish species I write about, my normal answer is that I fish for everything that swims. I suppose that's not technically accurate. Dogs and grasshoppers sometimes swim. Still, I truly am an all-species angler, and I enjoy variety not only in the sizes and shapes of the fish that I catch but in the settings, the gear and the techniques used.

Ice-fisherman? Yep. Fly-fisherman? Yep. Worm drowner? Occasionally. Bass fisherman? Yep. River rat? As often as possible. Catman? Absolutely. This list could go on and on, and the answers would remain similar. I don't do a lot of big-water salt, but that has as much to do with opportunities and writing markets as anything else. I certainly enjoy a day on a big boat, the chance catch something huge and the ever-present uncertainty about what might take the bait next.

I do prefer to have a rod in my hand, when possible, and I favor fishing situations where I'm figuring out what I want to fish with and where I want to cast. That said, I've enjoyed some wonderfully fun days on the water with guides where my part in the process honestly has been that of battling fish to the boat after they bit.

A fondness for variety adds to my excitement about next week's travels to Crawford and Mercer counties in Western Pennsylvania. I'll fish three lakes in three days, and each is quite different in its offerings, the ways anglers approach it and the species it is likely to yield. Likely catches include black and white crappie, walleyes, bluegills and smallmouth bass. However, largemouths, channel cats and various sunfish are just some of the other species that could end up at the end of my line.

Keep and eye on the blog and my Jeff Samsel Fishing facebook page. I have high hopes of posting good photos and having fun stories to tell, with plenty of nice variety in the mix.

Marvelous Minnesota

Even when it's 5 degrees, the wind is blowing 20 miles per hour and the fish are doing a lot of pondering before deciding to bite, I love fishing in Minnesota. The very basic reason is because the fishing is so good and so diverse.  Beyond that, though, northern Minnesota especially has so much of a fishing culture. You can go just about anywhere and someone will want to talk with you about where you're headed or have been, and most will also tell you a fish story or two. Lakes dot the northwoods landscape and many have fishing resorts on their shores. But even mom and pop motels and chain hotels are often decorated like fish camps.

I also love catching jumbo bluegills, so when I get to combine those appeals like I did today, it doesn't much matter to me if the wind chill is way below zero!

Birthday Bluegill Outing

Birthdays often are fishing days in Samsel-land, and today was no exception. Time didn't allow for a very long outing, but in truth a short fishing trip works best for a 4-year-old birthday boy. A short men's outing just before dark also gave the girls just enough time to decorate the dining room with streamers and balloons and to put out the cake and presents for when we returned. Eli caught one bluegill with just a teeny bit of help from his brothers.

Summertime

Summer has been slow to fully set in this year, and we've enjoyed quite a bit of surprisingly spring-like weather for this late in June. The past couple have days have gotten pretty warm, though, and the 10-day forecast shows all highs in the upper 80s, with only slight rain chances. That might not sound hot, depending on where you call home, but in our part of North Georgia, that is a genuine summer forecast.

Recent pond trips also suggest that summer has truly arrived. The past few laps Nathaniel has taken around the edges of the pond have yielded only a few fish, although a friend did catch a very nice bluegill from Nathaniel's boat earlier this week. It's probably time to try some vertical stuff like we did during the winter. I believe the fish in the ponds that we most often fish largely abandon the banks and seek thermal refuge in a little deeper water this time of year. Strange as it sounds, it might be time to pull out the ice spoons!