Shopping.

With the perch accessible from shore now, you can bet thats where I'll be setting my sights. At least for the short term.

I had my mother with me tonight. She has been itching to catch some fish lately. She's also been bugging me to bring home more fish............so this killed two birds with one stone. My initial choice to start the night was devoid of perch. I did find chub, and a small bass. But that wasn't on the menu for the evening. We were looking to take care of the menu for tomorrows dinner.

Our second stop on the lake was the ticket. I set mom up on a point that allowed her a free backcast. The fish pool up there frequently. She spent the rest of the night catching perch at a steady pace, and bagged us enough for a nice feast tomorrow. One of the perch she landed was likely the biggest we have caught to date.

My night saw a lot less perch. I was content to let my mother have the prime spots. I kind of just hovered around. I did hit a second bass. Bigger than the first, but still small by the lakes standards. However, the bass were incidental catches as they weren't our prime quarry.

All in all, not bad for two hours of fishing. Dinner is taken care of for tomorrow, the first perch fry of the season. Looking forward to that. Its likely that I'll be looking for more perch tomorrow as well.

For beginners, there are 2 parts of the video you might want to take notes on. The first is the 'figure 8' retreive. I use this method............alot. If you keep your rod tip low to the water ( if not in ), you will be in constant contact with your fly. If fish are taken flies subtly, this will help detect hits. Its slow, steady pace is often a better choice to mimic the movement patterns of insects than a strip. Its definitely something to put on your list of things to learn. The second comes with the second bass. As I as am picking up the slack line to the reel, I am also backing up physically. These helps keep tension on the fish. Fish can be lost easily if tension is not kept, and this can easily happen when your trying to get a fish on the reel. In this case, the fish was coming straight towards me.

Fish never cease to surprise me. Surprise of the night was that Black and Olive Wooly Buggers were of very little interest to the perch. The little olive jig flies my buddy had sent were received with much more enthusiasm.