Awesome Afternoon Special Trip!!!

You can't help but smile when you have bowfun!

One of my long term clients wanted to get out and after some toothy critters yesterday and took advantage of my killer "After-School Special".  We got out and within the first 10 minutes of being on the water we started to see some pike. Not just any pike, but some SERIOUS pike... Big mamas in shallow water... the game was on!

We couldn't get any of those bruisers to play so we headed into the shallows for some "bowfun". The amiable Amia calva was more than willing to come out and play. They were all over and smashing flies like it was going out of style. We found some nicely colored up males. Those things just love my Mr. Bow-regard flies! The highlight of the bowfin was a fish I noticed in some weeds by a tree. I told John where to put his fly, to move it a few inches that way, then a few inches back toward him.... then BAM!  The fish hammered the fly. He never saw the fish... He said he didn't even need his eyes open to do it! John suggested I carry a blindfold and have people "blind fish" for bowfin... might have to give it a shot!

After a couple of hours of hunting in the shallows for bowfin (there were a ton of big bass and big panfish too!) we started back looking for some pike. It didn't take too long before John had one on- a really nice one too. We landed that fish got some pics and headed up toward the spot where we saw the larger fish. He picked up another smaller fish that fought and ran really hard. It wasn't long after that that he had a very aggressive take that had some serious weight behind it... then it was gone... The end of the 80lb flouro bite tippet was cut cleanly at a very acute angle. It was one of those big pike and it just severed the flouro like a hot knife through butter.

Who has the bigger smile?

It was getting pretty dark as we got off the water but we saw one more fish, a fish that John (who fishes the lake regularly) called the "biggest fish he has seen in the lake". It was a feeding carp in about 2 feet of water. It was a good sized fish, my guess would be around 20-25 lbs. There are bigger ones out there, much bigger... Want to find out how big? Come out with me sometime this summer and find out for yourself!