I love catching these things on a light fly rod.

[Trout Slayer]

Nice fish. One of my all time favorite fly rod species.
What brand tippet are you using? Try Trout Hunter fluorocarbon in 5x and 6x. I've landed 24" trout in fast water on 6x trout hunter tippet on a 3 wt rod.

 

[Cartman]

Looks like striper bait to me.

 

[Bear44]

Hung up my 8' rod with an automatic Johnson years back. Caught many blue gills and sun perch on that thing, try landing a small bass if you REALLY want to have some fun!!!!!!!!!!

I landed four pound bass with this rig once. Yep, FUN!!! I'm just not much of a bass fisherman anymore. To much work for to little return. I jump from lots of action with bluegills to stripers to salt water.

 

[Bear44]

Looks like striper bait to me.

There's a great story about that. Do you remember the GON fishing contest they used to have? One year I caught and entered a 43lb striper in the contest. They even had a photographer come out and do a one page story on the fish. A guy fishing for catfish caught the new state record redbreast that same week and beat me. I have since said that the second place fish should not be able to EAT the first place fish. I even had the striper mounted with a big bluegill painted like a red breast in front of her, so it looks like she is about to eat it. LOL!



BTW, the guy that caught the red breast was out of the final competition on his FIRST THREE CASTS. Missed every one of them. I, on the other hand, spent many years wade fishing warm rivers, where you HAVE to be good at making long accurate casts to be able to catch anything. If I had won the week, I would have had a real chance at winning a $20,000 bass boat.

Oh yeah, just to add insult to injury, two years later I caught an 8lb largemouth and didn't even enter it because I thought there was no chance of winning the week. That week was won by a 6.25lb largemouth.

 

[Fatal_Bert]

Good eating too. I like to cook them on a george foreman.

 

[Bear44]

Good eating too. I like to cook them on a george foreman.

I keep a few sometimes, but never the really big ones. That one in the OP was back in the water about ten seconds after the pic was taken.

 

[57tr6]

I keep a few sometimes, but never the really big ones. That one in the OP was back in the water about ten seconds after the pic was taken.

That's the way I am with bass. When one really gives me a fight and just won't give up ....I usually end up putting him back to fight another day

 

[BIGLEW]

Those suckers do put up a good fight, love catching them also. Been too long since I have fished though, and I do not count taking the kids fishing as "fishing" but they sure do enjoy it.

 

[Bear44]

Those suckers do put up a good fight, love catching them also. Been too long since I have fished though, and I do not count taking the kids fishing as "fishing" but they sure do enjoy it.

It's that time of year. Get back out there!

 

[RdKill]

If blue gills got to 10 pounds, they would drag us in the water and make us their b****es. It always amazes me how small they turn out to be after the fight they put up.