A sweet largemouth bass at Riverbend Ponds

July 17, 2012 will go down as one of the best times I've ever had while fishing.

I took off for Riverbend Ponds in eastern Fort Collins at around 1 p.m., when Weather.com said would be the best weather patterns for fishing all day.

It turns out, they were right.

Right when I found a suitable spot on the biggest of all the ponds, free of downed trees where I could see the bottom well, there was a massive bass swimming just feet from the shore.

It got my blood pumpin', that's for sure.

Some 20 minutes later I felt an enormous tug on the line--one of those big largemouth bass hit my yellow Rooster Tail!

He swam hard, then after fighting the fish, it went airborne in an attempt to throw the hook!

What excitement.

I finally pulled it into shore and it turns out it was the biggest bass of my life.

At just over 14", it must have weighed in at over five pounds, though I don't have a scale.

(Note to self next time I'm shopping for fishing gear, buy a scale.)

The fish was big and beautiful, and even as I had it laying in some very shallow water, it fought and got back into the pond, trying its hardest to pull away. Luckily it didn't pull my rod and reel into the pond and I got it back onto shore for a few pictures.

Just holding that massive bass by its mouth was amazing and my adrenaline surged for minutes beyond the catch.

Around a half an hour later, it was a very nice sized bluegill--a much different color scheme than the ones from North Shields Ponds too I might add.

After a few hours passed, I moved over to the smaller pond near Prospect, but caught up in someone else's old line for 10 minutes before rescuing my favorite yellow Rooster Tail, and took off to look at the other ponds.

But when I saw an inlet area, I discovered some 20-30 very big largemouth bass lounging around.

I had to get to that area, but couldn't fish it from the side I was on due to very steep walls and lots of overgrown trees.

So I went all the way around the pond's edge--it could be some 20 feet higher at maximum, though I doubt it ever gets that high--and had to hike for 20 minutes to get to my spot.

It was a sweet adventure though, and well worth the effort in the end.

I fought through thick cattails just by the shore, and cleared a spot to fish from.

The sun beat down in my face and was still blazing, even at 5 p.m.

Seeing the silhouettes of the big bass in the water made me forget--at least for a second--how hot and humid it was and on the fish.

Of course, for whatever reason, I couldn't get another great big one to bit my lures.

The big floating Rapalas I have scared the bass away, and they didn't care about the spinners.

But two smaller bass did, one around 8", the other only a mere 3", bringing my total up to four fish caught on the day.

What an amazing day of fishing it was.

One I'll certainly never forget.

The Good, Bad and Ugly at North Shields Ponds

July 10 and 12, 2012

North Shields Ponds is a great destination for people that want a chance to fish multiple bodies of water in one afternoon/evening.

Just north of Vine on Shields Street, the Ponds' parking lot is on the west side of the road.

Right off the parking lot sits the first pond, though it was no more than 8" deep, so I didn't even throw a line in.

If you follow the trail back a few hundred yards, you'll walk along the Cache La Poudre River and end up at the two other ponds.

One is quite small, the other, much bigger.

I've had luck fishing out of each.

My favorite spot on these days was a small trail between the two ponds, where I could fish each one by simply turning around.

On this evening--I arrived around 4 p.m.--the fishing was fast and furious.

One bluegill jumped on my yellow Rooster Tail within five casts, and came in at around 6".

Many more followed, biting on anything and everything--as bluegills are known to do, especially shiny objects--and I caught six on the day.

Two liked the little baby rainbow trout spinners, another few bit on Kastmasters.

Interestingly, I caught every one of the six fish out of the small pond, and zero out of the larger pond.

The first time I went with Anderson, we caught a combined three bluegills out of the larger pond.

When I went on July 10, I saw a ton of wildlife.

Birds of many variety are there roosting, singing away and lots of fish. But this day there was also a little turtle, that surfaced for some food right by shore, a deer and lots of muskrats in the water. Watch out for them and if you see something visibly swimming along the surface, it's one of them, so don't accidentally hook a muskrat.

There are many rumors floating around that big largemouth and smallmouth bass live in the North Shields Ponds as well, and when I went back two days later, that's what I was fishing for.

This time, I showed up around 6 p.m. and with my brother Alex.

I went to the same spot as before, though I had much less luck overall.

Alex, on the other hand, caught three small bluegills, the first ones he had ever reeled in.

I came up empty handed, and when he left around 8 p.m., I stopped at the Cache La Poudre River and threw a couple casts in. The water was a dark, oily black, and while many fish were surfacing, I again caught nothing.

So, it was one great day--if you enjoy catching bluegills--and one very bad day--including getting my backup reel completely tangled in the near-dark and North Shields Ponds.

Have fun and good luck everyone!

A week of bad luck

Sometimes you got it, sometimes you don't.

On the week of Independence Day, July 4-9, I didn't have it.

The Fourth of July, what better way to celebrate Independence Day than to get outside and enjoy nature?

I went out east, to Prospect Ponds. Originally, the destination was Riverbend Ponds, but I stopped a little short and tried the ones off of Prospect and Sharps Point.

It was my first time there, and the water was incredibly murky, green and seemingly lifeless.

Of course, it was midday--and a hot high-90s day at that--which could have all the fish hiding and resting.

After an hour of throwing my entire tackle box at them, and roasting in the sun, I moved a few hundred feet away to the Cache La Poudre River. At the first spot, there was no luck, though I saw a small bass go for the yellow Rooster Tail on the first cast.

Off to just north of Prospect I went, and found a sandy beach area across from a downed tree. This, I thought, would be where I would catch some fish.

Luckily, I did catch one, a small bass, which salvaged the long day.

A few days later, I went out on Sunday night, after work and before softball, to the McMurry Ponds, on the north end of Fort Collins.

It was my first time at the ponds, and they were small and a quite cloudy on this evening.

I started with spinners, as per usual, switched to Kastmasters, and even tried balls o' fire on the bottom.

No luck, in only an hour and a half.

The next night, it was off to a private lake for a little over an hour, with no fish caught once again.

I guess that's why they call it fishing, and not catching.