Mixed bag from Willard

[AtticaFish]

All on custom poured and painted jig heads, just not all tied jigs tho...........

Got all my chores done for ta day so headed East about 8-10 miles to a big upground reservoir. Willard reservoir to be exact. Storms were popping to the West (actually rained at my house) but not a sprinkle on the water i was fishin. Bluegill were high in the water for this deep reservoir for some reason. Could have been the spring bug hatch possibly? There were muffleheads crawling on every inch of my body when i finally left. :dodgy: They were swimming around with their back out of the water! Seen this happen a time or three at this reservoir and never really figured out why they do it. Never on ANY other of the surrounding reservoirs? Anyhoo......

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Fished for a couple hours and ended up with 8 bluegill from 7" to 8.5"...... 3 good sized red eyed rockies....... and a 17" walleye. All the rockbass and the walleye came on just plain old 1/24 pink head jig with a 4" hunk of crawler. Custom poured UltraPoint Mustads. Cast it out and let it sink to bottom then super slow retrieve with the occasional twitch. The gills mostly came on the same 1/24 head/hook combo but orange painted and orange kip tail with a waxworm tip. Actually fished the jig with a dropper of a tiny little #12 fly because of the hatch that was going on.......... but the gills went for the jig instead of the fly. Match the hatch doesn't always work and sometime the bright and gaudy jigs wins. Fished around the pump house structure to start and got a few gills but moved out on the boat ramp (waded out on the graduated steps) to catch the majority. Beautiful evening with crazy warm temps for this time of year in the mid 80's. Take it while i can!

 

[Fatman]

Nice catch!!!!!! I know a bunch of folks who don't like rockies!! That's all the better for me!!

 

[plateboater]

Good report out and looks like a good time fishing

 

[Hawnjigs]

Multi-species, especially from a healthy ecosystem, are funner. That walleye looks thick for a 17". Don't think I've caught a rock bass yet, but if I do, will consider them edible.

Some might consider you were bait fishin'...

 

[Jig Man]

:icon14::icon14:

 

[StumpHunter]

Good report, enjoyed reading it. Nice mixed bag

 

[AllenOK]

...with a dropper of a tiny little #12 fly because of the hatch that was going on..........

What brand/model size 12 hook????

Most of my size 12 hooks I do not consider "tiny"

 

[AtticaFish]

Hawnjigs - The bluegill were high enough and water clear enough to sight fish and they would come up to investigate the jig/fly on almost every cast...... but refused it if it didn't have the wax worm. I tried for a while with a couple different jigs, but nothing with out bait. Rock bass are not quite as mild flavored as bluegill or perch, but they taste pretty darn good!

AllenOK - There was a big hatch of muffleheads going on and hoped it might be close to the right size. The fly was a leggy little bug with dubbed body and tungsten bead head on a scud hook. #12 is as small as i go and end up digging those out of deep hooked fish too often. Especially when it is a dropper under a jig..... the fish can grab it on the fall and chew on it for a while before i ever know they are there.

 

[papaperch]

Rock bass are edible and for their size are hard fighters. Biggest Rock bass come from lake erie that I have seen. We used to fish the breakwalls for them when nothing else was biting on any given day. Long light rods and small reels made for many a fun day near Conneaut and Ashatabula two port towns on shores of lake erie.

Only thing I got against them is their bone structure. In that the rib bones rise high and tight on the fillet sides. When you fillet and clean them you are rewarded with a small ( in comparison ) chunk of meat.

The current state record is 14-3/4 inch. I have caught many ( from Erie ) that threatened the 14 inch size. But never quite made it. This record has stood since 1932. If I remember right 13 3/4 was my absolute biggest. A group of four of us determined top break that record one summer. Figuring it would be easy to break.

As a wise man once said. " not so fast Scooter "

 

[AtticaFish]

.....When you fillet and clean them you are rewarded with a small ( in comparison ) chunk of meat......

I almost said the same thing in my reply above. You get a strip of shoulder meat and the thin tail meat. Almost impossible to get any meat from the ribs.

 

[AtticaFish]

Pulled another toothy critter last night! 20" fish caught on a jig with 5" Kalins grub. Took me a while though and can't even guess how many different jigs i tried along with different stick cranks.......... finally caught it at 11:00 and had been fishing for about 2 hours. Only took about 10 more casts and packed up. It was a beautiful night to be out.

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