I shot right out of bed at the first alarm note this morning. I arrived at the reservoir nice and early but was faced with a questionable start. The usual area which i started from had produced not a single bite, the water was calm and not many rises were spotted. I decided to remain optimistic and proceeded on to the other side.
After several switches i clipped on a Duo Pocopoco and started popping about. I noticed a pair of faint shadows in the water about 60ft out which seemed like Giant Gourami of sort. I started to aim my cast towards the fish and on the second cast the lure which landed about 5ft behind the pale shadow was engulfed in a gigantic splash, the take was immediate as the lure touched down catching me off guard. However dramatic the take was, the fish was not hooked up, leaving both me and the lurer by my side staring in disbelief. It was probably a giant snakehead lurking about.
After the excitement died down i decided to proceed further up after making several more casts. The entire ending portion of the fishing area was covered with weeds and there was no takes or significant rises. As i proceeded down the stretch, I met another lurer and took position a slight distance beside him. It wasn't long before i hooked up the first fish of the day which was a juvenile Giant Snakehead.
After releasing the fish i continued casting and moving along the entire stretch. I missed a good take near the edge of a weed clump but eventually hooked up the first peacock bass for the day.
As i approached deeper waters where the amount of weeds drastically declined, i decided to clip on my trusty Zipbaits Rigge jerkbait and tossed it out. After a little more moving and casting i hooked up 2 more peacocks from a single spot.
Such beautiful spawning color and finnage
After landing these 2 beautiful peacocks i was now nearing the start of the stretch and had decided to proceed back to the ending area for a few more casts before heading for breakfast. The first lurer which i met at the start of the day, too, walked to the starting area and began casting his lure. The area was still pretty dead with no bites, rises or any signs of chases at all. As i walked near the exit, i noticed a rise under the highway bridge and decided to go under the bridge to take a few parting casts.
I always enjoyed fishing under the bridge as it was a small tight space with not much of headroom and the width of the tunnel was probably about 8-10m wide. I always enjoyed fishing structures like this way more than open waters, however the chances of larger fishes swimming up the tunnel was pretty low, though i did have several catches in this area. As i walked into the tunnel, my footsteps disturbed a group of small garfishes hanging near the edge of the embankment and their leaping about on the water surface attracted a nearby predator strike, i immediately took a cast and felt the take. However it turned out to just a juvenile peacock no more than 12cm in length.
It only took several more paces to reach the end of the tunnel, a cast along the end attracted a pair of mating peacocks to charge ferociously towards the bank crashing into the edge however missing the lure. As they retreated into deeper water, I cranked up the lure at max speed and fired out a cast into the direction which the pair U-turned towards and was duly rewarded with a solid hookup.
The peacock was swiftly unhooked and allowed to return to the sides of his mate, thus marking the end of the trip.
As i was walking back to the car i wondered to myself about the recent catches. The catch rate has been pretty consistent and the fishes landed were all pretty similar in terms of size and weight. However their sizes recently have been a lot smaller compared to the peacocks we were consistently landing in the past. The peacocks landed recently are all in the 1lbs size range while it was normal to land several 2 pounders and above in the past. It had me wondering if the smaller fish size was due to the wrong fishing season or due to my switch to bait finesse gear. However in my defense for BFS fishing, i was happily landing decent sized fishes back than when i was fly fishing and these flies were usually no larger than the lures i'm using recently. Food for thoughts.
6 pounder on a fly smaller than my pinkie landed in 2010. Took me into the backing on the first blistering run.
