Stripers, Turkeys, Crappie, Largemouths, ... Thanks Easter Bunny!

[Gr8ful Fish]

On Good Friday, I was out with Adam & his friend, Matthew, on Raritan Bay for an early morning striper clamming trip. The boys did fantastic clamming 9 stripers & 1 tog.
STRIPERS? ... CHECK!

Fri. night, I trucked our family up to the Williamsport, PA area for the Easter weekend. Sat. morning was PA youth Spring Gobbler season, so in the pre-dawn darkeness, I took my 15-yr old nephew from OH on my parents' 70-acre farm for his 1st ever hunt. Sadly, the soaking rain made it uncomfortable, and 4 brazen trespassers made our hunt a bust by walking along our horse pasture at first light! After kicking off the trespassers, we headed back to the house wet & dejected.

Around 08:00, the rain subsided; so we headed back out. Within an hour of set-up, I called 2 gobblers from all the way over on a neighbor's farm to within 10 yards of us. My nephew bagged the smaller bird as he was more comfortable with the shot it presented. I was proud that he opted to settle for a clean shot on respectable jake w/ a 3" beard rather than try to make a shot through the brush to try for the bigger Tom.
TURKEY? ... CHECK!

After demonstrating how to properly clean the bird, Adam and I grabbed his fishing gear, and we headed down to Mimi & Pap's pond. He opted to bring his Pirates of the Caribbean closed-face combo spooled with 6 lbs. test monofilament.

After 1st chucking and winding spinners and a small crank bait unsuccessfully, Adam switched over to tossing out unweighted worms. The worms were the ticket after the hard rain; in only a short 1-hour window, he landed & released :
4 decent LM bass
1 SM bass
2 pumpkinseeds
4 bluegills
1 very nice white crappie
Adam was ecstatic, because he caught a black crappie earlier this year, and for the past few weeks, he must have asked me 15 times where he could catch a white one.
CRAPPIE? ... CHECK!

Easter Sunday, Adam wanted to head back down to the pond to try again, so we went right to the unweighted worms, and once again, he caught & released a buttload of panfish, LM bass, and SM bass. As it started to rain harder, I tried to convince him to give it up and go back to the house. However, Adam was determined to stay, because last year, he caught the fish he nicknamed "King Bass" in almost identical rainy conditions.

Sure enough after about another 1/2 dozen panfish/bass and a single yellow perch, Adam set the hook on a fish that made the drag in his Pirates of the Caribbean combo make that awful plasticy ratcheting sound. I was so proud as he expertly fought the fish to keep it out of a large bed of cattails that it kept trying to escape into.

Amazingly, the line didn't break, and when he finally wrestled the monster to shore I quickly lipped her. We didn't have scale with us, but I am pretty sure this fish was 6 lbs. or better. This was the 6th time that Adam caught this bass in the past 2 years from the exact same area of the pond. Once again, my son impressed me with his dedication, persistence, and patience even more than his catch.
LARGEMOUTHS? ... CHECK!

What a fantastic weekend of seeing kids enjoying our wonderful outdoors. I couldn't have asked for anything better for my Easter ... Thanks Easter Bunny!

- Gr8ful

[hartattack]

Nice holiday adventure. Looks like King Bass smiled for the camera too !!

[AndyS]

All I can say is WOW !!!!