Hardy Dam Pond, Sunday 5/7/06

[djkimmel]

Time again today (Sunday May 7, 2006) for the annual spring fishing trip to Hardy Dam Pond ? a little later this year because of the new bass season dates.

I had a feeling it would be an interesting day right off the bat this morning. I had my gear for the day piled on my front porch and was standing just inside the front door waiting for cameraguy to pull up. He makes the long drive early, early to my house from the Detroit area (5:30 AM this morning) and then we zoom up to Hardy to meet Brian Spear, going out in Brian?s boat since he is the wiz on Hardy.

Out of the corner of my eye in the front porch light, I see a ?cat? come trundling across the porch headed right for my pile. I?m not awake yet, but it occurs to me that cats don?t normally trundle. Plus this ?cat? has a big butt and a bushy ringed tail. (I live in Lansing.)

Once the masked bandit eyes wake me up, I realize a 20-pound raccoon is on my porch? and hey, he?s headed right for the bag with my candy bars in it!!! Having seen raccoons with dogs in the woods before, I felt the proper thing to do was to shout ?HEY!? out loud and pound on the door, immediately waking up my sleeping wife (let sleeping wives lie, I think someone once said?)

The raccoon immediately about-faced and headed back across the porch ? not real fast. It then loped down the driveway (I guess it was a lope) and across the street up the neighbors driveway ? we actually have had up to 4 coons in the yard and one of them is a TOAD coon (or whatever they call one the size of a medium dog?).

Good thing I was watching, or I might have been candy bar-less. I swear it looked disappointed. I had the porch light on and the door open, but that didn?t seem to faze this wily coon.

Cameraguy gets there minutes later and off we go. Fairly smooth sailing most of the way with only a suicidal turkey that fired across our ?bow? (windshield) on US-131. Then we run into Brian, coming from SW Michigan at the Exit 104 McD?s. Brian says the turkey?s are flying across his ?bow? too this morning. Probably another good sign.

We get to the ramp and Brian says we are starting on walleye early because momma said bring home some fresh fish! Out come the blade baits as we pull up on one of Brian?s honey holes.

Whap! Whap! Whap! We are spanking the walleye within minutes (really putting on a show for the walleye trollers and dunkers) and have 6 in the livewell less than 10 minutes. I even caught one. We are getting them fairly deep so many of them have their air bladder popping out of their mouth right away. Good thing Brian needs fresh fish, because some of these walleye aren?t going to make it.

We are really getting them on Brian?s homemade blades (I lost at least 4 and landed 2) and shortly after an hour the bite really slows, but we have close to a triple limit in the livewell already ? good eating size. Brian says it?s time to get after the bass, so off we go.

The rest of the day, we cruise cuts and pockets looking for beds. The bass aren?t on big time yet, but we see quite a few beds and many have bass on them. Brian is a great guide and host, so we take a lot of turns ? I still was not on fire, but I did much better than last year. Brian and cameraguy both do real well all day.

Here?s one of cameraguy?s first ones in the morning while still pretty chilly and the breeze just starting to kick up ? a nice keeper (actually Brian caught a really nice one quickly, but I had dropped the digital and couldn?t get it to work at first ? it decided to start working a few minutes later):



After cameraguy caught his, Brian (probably feeling bad for me, nice guy that he is) says, ?Dan, throw back in that nice fish bed and see if there?s a big female too.? This is the one he had caught a few minutes before. It was deep enough we couldn?t see it well. I was trying out my new Zoom Super Hogs ? I pitched a white one in the bed area. A couple seconds of jigging and the same bass Brian caught smashes it. I gave myself only a half point for that one.

We weren?t catching toads, but some solid keepers like this one from cameraguy too:



I was definitely rusty, losing a couple (along with 2 biteoffs). We found one solid bass in a cut and cameraguy pulled the old loop over the branch trick. It almost worked because the bigger of the two bass swam up and bit his tube (we threw a wide variety of soft baits), but the branch broke on his hookset and he didn?t get the bass.

We moved along getting a bite or two, but we circled back and all took turns at the bigger bass. Brian finally got the bass? and we found out why it was more shy ? it was a not so common on Hardy ? but really nice largemouth bass ? pictured here:



We came across this one fairly cooperative and nice smally on one bed that we each had on multiple times and never got. It earned its peace and quiet, so we left looking for me. Brian landed probably the best one of the day off a corner ? nice bass pictured here:



We kept finding bass right up to time to leave. They even let me catch one more decent one ( actually I had plenty of chances with them. Like I say, I was rusty.

I don?t know how many the three of us caught altogether, but it was very respectable, and WAY more fun than last year on a gorgeous day. Thanks cameraguy for driving me up and back, and thanks a bunch Brian for putting us on them. Hardy has a lot of nice fish in it. Another fun trip. Hopefully on the calendar again for next spring.

[spinninbug]

Very nice story Dan,  we are going over there for the weekend next weekend.  Nice to know they aren't totally on beds yet.  We are taking some people that have never fished smallies before.  Looking forward to showing them how to do some bed fishing.  Also some walleye fishing.  So your story was perfect timing for us.