Pepe Le Pew

channeling Penelope Pussycat, i finally gave Pepe Le Pew the finger, and caught my first fish of the year.  the skunk is gone.  i have been after the white perch in this local, brackish pond, and they have gotten the best of me in my first four outings.  i was rank with the stank of self disgust and failure...but no more!

per usual, i went to the pond around sundown the day before yesterday to get in an hour of fishing.  the fish were swirling less than 20 feet away and i was struggling to get a take.  switching flies, i tied on a What's Up Doc? fly by Daren Selznick of Ole Florida Fly Shop.  then bam!  i got my first bite...and then wham! i lost it.  then shazaam, i got another bite!  my first fish of the year was landed.

the best part of it all, was that i learned from it.  i knew the white perch were feeding off of tiny minnows, and i had a general idea how small they needed to be.

armed with that knowledge, i went to the pond again yesterday evening.  for some reason, the What's Up Doc just wasn't producing and i was left saying, "what the #$%* is up, fish?" 

as luck would have it, i ended up snagging a minnow that gave me an indication of the size of bait they were chasing.  anyone have any idea what kind of minnow this is?  pretty cool looking.

then i tied on a size 8 clouser minnow in chartreuse and white.  within 30 minutes, i had 5 bites, and landed two of them.  i also caught a small striper which was pure icing on the cake.

i'm sure i can think of some life lessons learned from all this, but ehhh, that just wouldn't be me.

stay salty,

XXA