A Predator Trifecta

There are a few species that I often catch a lot of each year that I have just not caught nearly enough of this year. Pickerel, rudd, and any catfish species are the main ones I can think of. Considering the number of cats I accidentally caught this year I was actually somewhat offended that I hadn't caught any so far in 2016. I've caught some pickerel but not really anything large and no good numbers days. And only a few tiny rudd. Today I fixed two of those; or perhaps mildly improved is a better way to put it....
Yesterday I thought I would go brook trout fishing today. Then today it was well past noon and where was I? Home. Once I had finished doing some chores and just being lazy I decided to just put a few hours in at the Bell Pond. When I hit it in the afternoon or evening for meat eating fish I like to start out with big flies, I'd say usually 5-8 inches. Today I tied on a gnarly triple articulated pattern I haven't come up with a name for yet. It got eaten pretty much immediately.

After about a half hour of screwing around with that fly it became clear that was the only fish that wanted to eat it so I downsized to a little fly I call a "minnow bugger". After one bluegill I began catching a whole pile of crappies. Every now and then a big bass would come up and start harassing a crappie I was bringing in. One big bass that must have been about six pounds actually managed to swallow a whole 8 inch crappie. I should have let it eat it so I could catch the bass but I felt bad for the crappie and pulled it away. 

Finally after that crap load of crappies I finally got a grab from a more powerful fish. It's amazing how much stronger a pickerel that is barely touching the 20 inch mark than pretty much any other fish I regularly target. They don't have that much weight to throw around so it seems like they just throw around someone else's weight. Freaky strong toothy beasties.

After some more crappies, a fly change and some sunnies I got a take that felt characteristic of a kitty cat... YES! Brown bullhead. It took most of the year to kill that skunk but much like last year I did it, and I did it completely by accident.