11 th Hour Panfish

Well, I'm waiting on Hurricane Sandy to wallop the Mid Atlantic here in the next 24 hours. Hopefully, she won't be near as bad as predicted. When things settle down by the end of the week, we should get back on the fish...mainly bluegills and crappies from the Mason Dixon area lakes and ponds. Here are some recent catches...

Decent crappies for the skillet!

Nice gills and pumpkinseeds on worms.

Solid 9.5 inch bluegill on a hair jig.

Best crappie so far this fall went 13 inches.

Chubber gill on tipped 1/80th oz jighead.

The crappie really went for this 1/32 oz hairjig I tied!

I always look forward to the late fall period when the panfish really turn on. It's a great time of year to put a bunch of fillets in the freezer, if you're not out hunting! Also, it is a great time to catch some of the biggest fish of the year, or a lifetime, during the colder days. But take advantage of those occasional warm spells, too. I recently had a great catch of a trophy hybrid sunfish at a local pond on a balmy 70 degree day. Check out the pics of this magnificent fish...

Personal best hybrid sunfish!

Twelve inches long and not a scale missing...wow!

Incredible fish...caught on 2 pound test and a small garden worm I scrounged for when I ran out of bait at the pond site. Used a 'drop-shot' rig and cast way out to the middle of the pond...massive strike and a long, powerful fight on the ultra light. When I saw the size of this fish, I started saying little prayers to the Lord about how I had been a good boy lately and please... PLEASE...let me land this fish! The bluegill/ green sunfish cross measured a full 12 inches long and is now the largest of any sunfish specie I have ever caught in Maryland waters. Yaahoo! Oh yeah, got this one, too...

Normally, fish of the day would be this 10.5 inch hybrid.

Just last week, I was hoping for enough for a meal, and was rewarded with exactly that...four crappies big enough to fillet, including a fine 13 incher...

Just enough for a meal.

I was reminded once again of how grateful we should all be when we are blessed with not just a trophy fish, that we can release for someone else to enjoy, but for enough fish for our 'daily bread'. As Agur said in Proverbs 30:8   'give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread'.

It doesn't take much to satisfy what we truely need.

                                                        BE THANKFUL!

OCTOBER GIANTS

It comes as no surprise to me that my friend Bob and I are catching some of our biggest carp of the year as the weather cools and the thermals come out from the dresser. Bob has graciously allowed me to fish with him, as he is a serious carp angler who has banked over 270 fish this year. Our results from this year and last fall/early winter bear this out. Big fish in cold weather...nothing new.

Nice looking thick carp took tutti-frutti corn.

Bob and I have been chumming a particular area that is a little tough to get to...hence...not much fishing pressure there either. Bob's best effort is 19 carp in one 4 hour session, with fish topping out at 21 pounds.

Bob hangs on as the rain sets in.

Bob likes to use lighter line than most carpers...10 pound test in most cases, and as a result, I have scaled back as well to 12 pound test to capture the spooky carp. You just have to be patient and play fish out on the lighter gear.

Our fish are running bigger now!

Most guys are scaling back, while we hope to ramp it up in the carp department. November was a 'big fish' month last year. Check some of these guys out...

Back-to-back 35 inchers! Cool!

My PR from last October at 37.5 inches...about 25 lbs.

Twenty plus...

And another on right behind it.

This one could eat a golf ball...easily!

Bob's 22 pounder in the cold.

Modest sized carp on method feeder and corn.

Carp fishing actually held up well all last fall until the water temps got down to the mid to low fortys. Then, it was maybe 1 or 2 runs in a 4-5 hour session. On a nice day that's doable, but if snow and rain come, we might sit home and watch sports. It's still worth a shot at a big fish while most everybody else is sitting home getting fat. Bob catches a lot of carp because he works at it, and puts in the time to chum, scout new spots and make adjustments when the fish don't seem to cooperate. For the time he is on the water, he catches a tremendous amount of fish. It's his reward.

In much the same sense, our reward from God, if we accept His free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, is to spend an eternity with the King. But unlike carp fishing, or anything else, we do not have to, and cannot, work for it to 'deserve it'. Our debt is already paid in full from the moment we turn our lives over to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Grace, forgiveness and love are the strongholds of Christ. No one ever has, or ever will, 'earn' an eternity in heaven...it is a gift!

John 3:16 says this...'For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, so that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish, but have life everlasting."
                                         
NOT THAT IS A GIFT!