I Hate Construction (2/18)

[Latimeria]

No matter if I'm on the freeway, at work or now even my little puddles that I fish, construction is just making life difficult.

I drove by seeing no one fishing the puddles on the way home from work so gathered my trout gear and headed on down.  What I failed to see was they had the entire west side closed to traffic even though they were just working on one small area.  This forced the few people who were fishing in my only other areas.  I was still going to fish next to them, but then I saw them try to cast..  Ut-Uhhhhh... not fishing next to these kooks.

I literally pulled into a spot that wasn't really far from where I could set up the rods and hoped for the best.

Not long and I see the strike indicator go down and went running dowm (almost tumbling along the way).  A bass guy sounded pretty excited to see the strike indicator drop then launch off the line!    I grab the rod and nothing.  I actually am pretty sure I felt him pluck the bait off the line.  0/1

I attach a sweet "pinched crawler" and on my next cast, send it flying off my hook.  Grrrr... Going to be one of those days...

Finally get everything out and don't see much of anything.  Not long after a pair of ducks go flying at my line and I see the duck swerve and the SI go flying off the line.  Ugh, I ran down to fix it when i noticed that line was peeling off the really loose drag.  Fish on!

Well, I got it to shore and it was the smallest trout I have ever caught here.  Probably big for Jennings, but it was probably only a foot long and about a pound.  Oh well, skunks off at least.

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Now I felt a little confidence but was still wanting my Lightning Trout.  As I was just staring off at the SI's, I see some giant brownish thing come up and surface.  My brain said "Manatee!" even though I knew it wasn't.  It was literally like a foot wide!  I texted Steve and he just laughed "Manatee"....

I recast to where I saw it and it came up again... HOLY Smokes!  The biggest carp I've seen here by far.  Probably in the 30-pound range.  Then I noticed my ultra-light dance a little and go SCREAMING OUT!  I only got a quick glimpse, but I'm certain it was the carp.  Unfortunately, I tightened the drag as tight as it could go without breaking the line and the little size 14 treble bent out straight.  I knew I wasn't getting that one, but still 1/3 at this point.

Then the "community cleanup" crew were going around picking up loose fishing line and other stuff.  They kept picking up stuff right at my rod holders which was getting annoying.  There was plenty of shoreline to clean, but they all felt the urge to clean up where I set up for some reason and I didn't even see anything when I set up.

Then with 15 minutes left to go, I'm checking out my phone and texting Squatch when I look up and see the little ultra-light doubled ovr and screaming line.  Here we go again...

This time it hit the surface and I think I saw a big yellowish tail like a Lightning Trout!  I wasn't sure but played it all the way in to see a big Channel Cat at the end of the line.  Everyone around loved seeing it butI had to explain why I didn't look as thrilled as all of them seeing a big cat.  lol

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That was it.  I packed it in and headed home.  I really didn't like fishing on the East side of the lakes, but I made the most of it, especially when the guys drove by fishing in the spot I wanted to fish and said "There aren't any fish in these ponds"....  Oh boy....  lol

Thanks for reading and I'll get pics up later.

[Tim524]

Construction and guys that cant cast.......there's a good combination for disaster  

Maybe you should bring the Bat Gear for Mr. Carp

Carp Fight 2026