04-17-2006, 10:45 PM
So, I headed to Burraston Ponds Friday morning to save a spot for the scout group. As advertised by some of the posters here, there were quite a few people there for the Holiday weekend so good thing I went early--thanks for the heads-up. I set up camp on the North end of the southern-most pond on the west side. It was a pretty good camping spot. It was probably only available because there was so much freakin' trash all over the place. I went ahead and sacrificed my solitary fishing time and spent 2 hours and 2 large black garbage bags cleaning up some of the most God-awful garbage ever (you know, diapers, used toilet paper, about 50 Natural Light bottles [interesting in that there are about 50 signs all over the place prohibiting alcohol--not that I have a problem with people drinking alcohol, but if you are going to break the rule, at least throw away your damn bottles!!]). Anyway, about two hours before the scouts were to arrive I started fishing. around 1:45 there was some kind of hatch going on so I tied on a BWO dry fly and quickly caught 2 small planter rainbows. I tried a Lil' Jake's but nothing wanted it, then used a 3/16 oz. Fish Catcher that I got up at the ISE this year. I can't really say enough good things about that little lure. Caught 4 more bows in the next hour, two of which were pretty good sized (15 inches or so) and fat and healthy. I threw them all back.
Once the scouts got there--just as you would imagine--nothing wanted to bite at all. Mostly the scouts used rainbow powerbait and night crawlers but with zero success. It did not help that the temperature dropped about 20 degrees between 5:00 and 6:00 when we were doing the majority of the fishing. Later, I moved down the lake and used a mosquito, broke one off and lost another. Went back to the 3/16 oz brass fish catcher, caught two more.
It started raining at about 9:00 and did not stop until about 8:00 the next morning. Kids were miserable--I was prepared so I was fine.
Did a little fishing in the morning, but all the complaining probably scored most of the fish away. Caught 1 small rainbow, then made the mistake of letting one of the scouts use my Fish Catcher and he promptly broke it off. Tried hard not to make him dive in after it, them we called it a day. None of the got so much as a bite and were very frustrated with the shallow, weedy pond.
Saw another group of teenagers who seemed to be catching a few carp and that looked pretty fun, I need to look into figuring out how to catch them.
The camping spot got extremely muddy with all the rain but we still managed to comb it over and pick up another full bag of trash so there is at least one campsite there that is reasonably clean for someone else to use. If nothing else, that part of the trip was a success.
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Once the scouts got there--just as you would imagine--nothing wanted to bite at all. Mostly the scouts used rainbow powerbait and night crawlers but with zero success. It did not help that the temperature dropped about 20 degrees between 5:00 and 6:00 when we were doing the majority of the fishing. Later, I moved down the lake and used a mosquito, broke one off and lost another. Went back to the 3/16 oz brass fish catcher, caught two more.
It started raining at about 9:00 and did not stop until about 8:00 the next morning. Kids were miserable--I was prepared so I was fine.
Did a little fishing in the morning, but all the complaining probably scored most of the fish away. Caught 1 small rainbow, then made the mistake of letting one of the scouts use my Fish Catcher and he promptly broke it off. Tried hard not to make him dive in after it, them we called it a day. None of the got so much as a bite and were very frustrated with the shallow, weedy pond.
Saw another group of teenagers who seemed to be catching a few carp and that looked pretty fun, I need to look into figuring out how to catch them.
The camping spot got extremely muddy with all the rain but we still managed to comb it over and pick up another full bag of trash so there is at least one campsite there that is reasonably clean for someone else to use. If nothing else, that part of the trip was a success.
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s that these out of towners have to trash this area.There should be more of a police prseence but they are to busy with the 50,000 plus that go to the dunes on easter weekend.That weather should teach the scouts that they should be prepared for anything.Glad you caught some i would have stopped by but i was to busy moving out of my home.