Week of Mouse, Day 1

While hunting for pickerel and bass today I had an idea. It happened right as a nice chain pickerel darted out of the bushes and tore my Morrish mouse to shreds. I thought, why shouldn't I do this all the time? Well. I really don't have the patience for that, so how about just a week? That's right, for this week, I am going to use nothing but mice. I'm going to fish for as many species as I can, in as many settings possible, and the only fly I am going to use is a mouse. Not one specific mouse pattern, but a variety of them. Subsurface ones for big bass, small ones for big brook trout on small streams, skimming foam ones for smallmouth, skipping chubby ones for trout and salmon. If this week goes well I'm going to repeat it next week. Wish me luck! And without further adieu, day one of Week of Mouse:

First I fished the lake. I got some absolutely smashing takes from pickerel. I landed one dink, and my pathetic strip strike lost me a true beast. That was some fish. I had thrown my mouse next to a grassy bank and began doing short hops when a wake formed an a a boil occurred behind the fly. I gave a few strips then paused. A few more. Wake, boil. Pause. One strip... two strip... WHAM!!! That fish was all mouth. Probably the biggest pickerel I have seen out of the lake, and the biggest I have caught was 24 inches. A real beast. Of course I didn't mess up when the 7 inch pencil took. I lost another good one at my feet an hour later.

After that I went to the Bell pond and had to exercise restraint, there were some big carp around and mice aren't exactly their favorite food. But it all payed off. Well, not really. You'd be surprised by how small a mouse eating fish can be!

I'm not sure where I'll throw mice tomorrow but it ought to be interesting!