That’s funny.
Old guys know a lot……if they can remember.

 

Mac, I'm glad that you said something. Thanks for that. I forgot what I actually replied to and went back to look, and I quoted the wrong post. I fixed it. It was Bob's reference to what golf is. Even though it's 2 years old, it's still funny. But, the post you saw had no context and made no sense, so I get it. Now it does though.

That’s funny.
Old guys know a lot……if they can remember.

As I sit here typing, it's pushing 90*.  It was very a different scene 8 short weeks ago.

For the April opener and the following 2 weeks or so, the only real game in town was small water native brookies.  Toward the coast, it was a decent bite, with little or no snowpack and the coltsfoot blooming early on.

















At the same time, it was an endurance test to hike in the thigh deep snow along brooks an hour or so inland from the coast.  Just a few brookies came out to play as winter hung on.











After mid-April, ice out started at the coast and worked its way inland.  For the past 5 years or so, I have enjoyed success wading and casting the lakeshores in spring and fall.  The target is trout and salmon.  While fall is most reliable, spring has had its moments.  Spring 2023 was pretty lackluster for casting the lakeshores for trout and salmon.  Even dark days and a salmon chop did little to help.  I did pick up a few splake.









On the other hand, light gear and cold water were a more active combo for a good number of quality bass starting right after ice out.











The playing field changed in late April when the dash on my 177,000 mile Subaru lit up like a Christmas tree.  Sorting out the P0700 code with my code reader and discussions with folks in the know, led me to shorten my driving radius and make moves to bring in a new fish wagon.  As I wait for it to get here,  I've dug deeper into local trout options and also my multi-species roots with flyrod only.  Perhaps having my wings clipped was a blessing in disguise

I visited some nearby flowing water that hasn't fished this well in years.  The browns are stocked some distance away, but move into this "brook trout setting" fairly quickly if conditions are right.  There are a few native brookies in the mix.  Working the pocket water with a dry (para adams or EHC)  and a trailing emerger on a 2-weight is a blast.  The emergers led the way in hook-ups.













I took advantage of a pretty fair white perch run and other warm water species options with the light flyrod.  Non-stop action and variety is a nice mix.











The most memorable fishing of the month came toward the end.  I made 3 trips to the same lake trib  This is a spot that could probably kick out 10 different species if fished often enough, but usually trout are at the back of the pack in the mix.  On trip 1 of 3, I caught the typical mixed bag, but threw in a decent holdover brookie on a streamer.  Late in the outing, regular rises that I could I.D. as trout started up.  All I had on hand was sub-surface stuff and I left without any further action.  Trip 2 of 3 had me "prepared" with dries and emergers, but low water and unexpected bluebird skies made for a pretty much dead day.  Trip 3 of 3 was paydirt....higher flows and somewhat overcast. Upon arrival, I watched and took inventory of 4 or 5 steady risers over 100 yards of stream.  I got into position and fished carefully over individual fish and landed 4 holdovers.  All took a Partridge & Brown trailer.  Mission accomplished ahead the month-ending heat















Most waters have now warmed and dropped quickly.  Rain is needed.  We'll see what mother nature can do.

That's probably why Maryland has a limit, 15 sunfish in aggregate per day, 30 possession per person. There are some lakes where I wish people could keep more where the fish are stunted. Do you know anything about the causes of stunted sunnies and crappie? I know that most people think it's all overpopulation, lack of predators and lack of bait, but do you know any studies about this or other causes?  I guess it's all of the above, but I was wondering if it might also be due to things like inbred genetics... Thoughts?

My understanding is stunting and mostly small panfish can actually be two different things. So it's important to know the difference. Stunting is typically when the the body of water has reached its carrying capacity and growth slows down considerably leaving a lot of slow growing panfish. You typically see this when the panfish population doesn't have enough different size predator fish to keep the panfish under control from fry up to juveniles. Exasperating the situation is the predator fish such as largemouth bass have a hard time keeping their own numbers up because lot of hungry stunted fish decimate their fry. Adding more predator fish such as largemouth bass rarely fixes the problem as the fecundity of the sunfish is so high (spawn up to 4 X per year), and you would really need different size bass to address each age class. And lots of them.

Once a body of water stunts I'm not sure anglers can make a big difference even with no limit. And no I am not contradicting myself as bodies of water that are in balance or close to balance are different than stunted waters.


On the other hand lots of smaller panfish available with few large ones can be an angler produced problem. I think we all know waters where there are lots of fish available just under the size limit. We are our own worst enemies if we want larger fish available if we keep harvesting those larger panfish. Illinois Natural History has studies showing that removing large bluegills from the beds will reduce the average size of the bluegills, not only from overharvest, but smaller fish that were not spawning yet take their place which reduces their growth rate. When a fish reaches sexual maturity their growth rate slows down.

I do think an infusion of new genes is a good idea in smaller bodies of water like ponds, but think the above causes are the major reasons for issues. 

Like a wise friend once said to a lot of questions: "It depends." I think this is a lot more complicated than it appears on the surface.

Beautiful coloration on that male! Beautiful coloration on those filets! Kinda makin' me hungry 

What do you think of your new fish mix? Is it spicy?

It's not spicy. It is good but seems to be missing something. Maybe add salt? I used to dip in egg and dredge in Italian breadcrumbs and may go back to that.