Some new catches

[Jeffrey Silvan]

I'm visiting my parents for the holidays. They live right outside Hilton Head and have one of those freshwater lagoons in their backyard, so I obviously brought my fly rod. Turns out, there's one heck of a variety of species in that little pond - including several species I've never caught before. Since it is about 10 steps from the house, I'll usually go out for 20 minutes here, 45 minutes there, and catch a few fish each time. So far, I've got a bunch of spotted bass (never caught them before, or at least realized they were spots), largemouths, a variety of sunfish, a couple black crappie (never got one of them before either), a warmouth (another first, and yes, I realize this falls into the sunfish category), and today I even pulled out a flathead catfish. The bass haven't been anything special so far - my biggest is around 14", but there are some slabs of sunfish in there. I've attached a few pictures. The catfish was probably a good 3 lbs. A white booglebug (Amnesia bug - long thin one) has done very well, along with woolly buggers in black and in olive. Next, I'm trying to get some of the GIANT grass carp in there. These things are all 30" plus at a minimum, but so far, I've scared them all before even starting my cast.

I'm supposedly doing a kayak redfish trip tomorrow, but with wind forecasts of 30 mph, not sure I'll get out or fly fish. I'll report back with anything interesting.