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!