Panies on the fly

[Scudly]

I had given Eagan ponds a try here and there. I fish Holland Lake and Fish Lake. Nothing but small sunnies and small bass. I thought I'd try another in the area. Turns out it was a dandy. Nine keepers on the fly rod. The BH orange scud was the big ticket. No pinch on palsa, that spooked them. Also caught them on BH flasback hare's ear. I just threw my fly rod (already rigged like all my rods) in the trunk, grabbed a fanny pack with my fly fishing stuff and hit the bricks. Only thing I forgot was my polarized sunglasses. That would have helped and it was all sight fishing. Got my heart racing. Those biggies would smash it and they would spit it out if you did not set the hook right away.

Gonna fry up all nine of them tonight. Interesting fish with scales ARE way more work. I bet they taste great. Cannot remember the last time I fried up some nice sized sunnies.

Fish were sitting shallow and under the dock. My idea is they are spawning as are any crappies. Sunfish appeared aggressive and territorial.

[itchmesir]

Did ya get a lot of funny looks? I know I do when I have my fly rod on the lake

[mainbutter]

Exactly what I did today! I took a friend out fishing (who hadn't been since she was 10). The northerns weren't biting so we switched to pannies. We fished worms under a bobber and used my fly rod. We ended up keeping 6 decent ones between 6-8'' and let the biggest ones go. We got back late this evening and fried up the fish, baked some asparagus in olive oil and lemon pepper, and had some pasta from kowalskis. Great late night snack after spending all day fishing with a friend who I haven't seen in a few months.

Also I'm pretty proud I was able to dice up our fish nicely. All I had to work with was a steak knife, but it did the job just fine. I'd never filleted panfish before. Scaled, filleted, threw em skin side down in some olive oil in the frying pan, put a bit of salt and pepper on the top of the fillets, and a few minutes later they're good to go. "Fish chips", since they really are just thick potato chips.

@itchmesir, I often get looks, if not 'funny looks', and a couple comments along the line of "Taking the fly rod out for spin, eh?"