| Spring Break 2009 By Rocky Ferraro It was a beautiful spring day out in the hills past Anderson Lake. I took my three kids out for a nice day hike and picnic. I kept telling them this was a low pressure low stress day. The kind of day the birds are singing, the turkeys are gobbling and the fish are jumping. We headed off to Henry Coe Park. There are many ponds and lakes in this park. Some are fairly close but some can take you days to hike to. Since this was an easy day we went to a pond close to the entrance. The hike was quite pleasant as the weather was cool but not cold, the sun was out, the breeze mild and the hike over the rolling hills seemed to take on it’s own pace. Pretty soon we had passed the pond and were headed for the picnic tables to have lunch. Like I said earlier this was a low stress day so we had left around 10 am from San Francisco or there about. After lunch we strolled over to the pond to try our skill at catching some bluegill and largemouth bass. On the way we heard some turkeys gobbling so we decided to use a custom pot call made by Joe LoSchiavo to try and call in some gobblers. They answered back real nice and I was able to show my kids how to call to them using this call. I explained that this is the hen’s call and all that stuff. They really enjoyed the opportunity of having their calls answered. All my kids decided that the thing to do was to try and find these turkeys out. They were able to stalk close enough to get a look at the turkey they heard gobbling from the road when we were close to the pond and watch him respond to their calling. Later one even came down to the water to visit us while we were fishing. I decided I had called enough and wanted to get to the business of fly fishing. I spotted some blue gill and set everyone up to catch them on small flies. I tried my searching pattern which is usually a Clouser minnow. I caught a bluegill with the minnow but the fly is too big and the bluegill could hardly get their mouths around this fly. I changed to a #18 black ant which is tiny but great for small bluegill. As I was catching and releasing these bluegills and having a blast playing the little critters a huge largemouth bass came out of the depths and took my bluegill from me! I was a little irritated to say the least. Those little flies are hard to tie and that poor bluegill was gone. I though for a minute, "What should I do?" My line was disappearing my kids were jumping all over scared that this monster was going to get them next! As my line was going out all I could think was, STRIKE, STRIKE, so I did and man I thought I had a tire on or one hell of a snag! As I played the fish I discovered that it was hooked in the lip with a #18 ant. I was very careful playing him because I didn’t want to loose him. I did not know if he would straighten the hook out since it was so small. I was also afraid that the line would break. I did not have a net with me so I ever so gently beached him. The tension did not leave me until I had him in my grip! I did not have a scale or tape measure but I want to say the bass was close to ten lbs. I did measure it against my fly rod and it is approximately 21 inches long. This is the largest largemouth bass I have ever caught and I have been trying for quite a few years. Always dreaming of catching a big one but I went home many times empty handed. The best part of the whole day was that all my kids were there to watch me. Hopefully they will pass on the story of dad catching a big bass to their kids. |
| Spring Break 2009 |
| Foster City Rod and Gun Club |
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