# Pond fishing in Kansas.....



## DocEsox (May 12, 2008)

No&#8230;.rumors of my being abducted by aliens is simply untrue&#8230;..my body is so messed up they wouldn't learn a thing. But it is true I have left my beloved Alaska and relocated to Boise, Idaho. My wife had dibs on where to live after our last kid graduated so here I am. Yet&#8230;..I still work in Alaska&#8230;&#8230;hehehe.

Due to my very rapidly deteriorating left shoulder&#8230;.the humeral head has avascular necrosis and is virtually flat&#8230;.somehow trying to work a flat peg in a round socket doesn't work very well. Have been putting surgery off due to the move but have not been able to fish much the last 2 years&#8230;that needs to change or I'm going to put myself out of my misery.

Did have a chance to fish a few days while in Kansas to help celebrate my mother and father-in-laws 70th and 69th birthdays.



Of course the temperature was about 8,000 degrees with 2,000% humidity (rough approximations on my part)&#8230;.who needs a sauna when you have Kansas in August?? Got out my new little spinning rod (made from a 4 wt Winston flyrod blank) and started probing the deepest part of the pond for the few monster crappies that live down there. All I could find were the stunted midget models of crappie about 4-5 inches long. After a bunch of these little critters I was smacked by something much bigger but way to strong for a crappie&#8230;. started taking line and ran me up and down the pond a few times&#8230;.finally managed to get a hold of this nice kitty fish:



Notice my nephew helping out and his 6 month old Rottweiler in the background really helped a lot (NOT!!!!). That gave my miserable shoulders a solid workout. About an hour later I'm onto another very nice channel cat&#8230;..with the light rod and line&#8230;. these are just a hoot to catch&#8230;.



Always love having the nieces and nephews around&#8230;.gives me a chance to lie&#8230;..uh, I mean "teach" them a bit about the fish. Neighbor's dog kept trying to bite it.



The next day produced some sweltering thundershowers (for how hot it was I thought the rain would boil off before it hit the ground) and I didn't fish much as my shoulder was rearing its ugly head (actually "humeral" head)&#8230;..very ouchy. Fished a bit right before dinner and managed to catch the only decent crappie of the trip&#8230;..hit about 15 inches&#8230;..



Filleted this fish out and right onto the grill for dinner&#8230;&#8230;.very scrumptious. Not sure what happened with this pic but I look like one of the walking dead&#8230;.



The day after that I spent most of the day icing my nasty shoulder but come evening it was fishing with the kids time. I just hung up my rod and ran around making sure the kids caught some fish. Little Karmen caught this big hybrid sunfish but said it was "too pokey" to hold. Look at the impish grin on that child&#8230;&#8230;



Next up was Heston who I had fortunately rigged up with one of my rods as his "Snoopy" rod probably wouldn't have made it with this big cat. Several times during the fight I thought he was going to lose the rod or hand it off to me&#8230;he was having a tough time keeping a bend in the rod but he persevered and we wrestled this fish up&#8230;



He tried to hold it up but it was too heavy for him. By this time Karmen, his sister, was the official Keeper of the Nitecrawlers. She even put them all in a bucket of water and "washed" them so they were clean&#8230;hehe.

My youngest daughter Elyssa had one nice catfish up and it popped the hook at the bank but she got into another one so she could get the coveted pic for her social media pages&#8230;..



After this last catfish they clammed up and were done&#8230;&#8230;they get spooked in that pond pretty darn quick. As we were eating dinner that night my father-in-law mentioned he would love to get a batch of those small crappie into another pond of his which was fishless.

So the next day I put on the full court press, fished like a Wildman and transplanted 47 small crappie and 55 hybrid sunfish into the upper pond&#8230;..carrying the bucket back and forth was way too much fun in the heat. Most of these fish were caught on the flyrod using a sunken dry fly&#8230;..it just worked better that way. The crappie were done biting but I decided to see if I could catch 100+ sunfish before dinner. Managed to finish with 102 sunnies on the day. Right before dinner I was about ready to hang up the rod but switched back to the spinning rod to fish the deep part for another big crappie. Didn't happen but I bumped into this really nice kitty fish which ran me all over the place before landing it, getting a pic and putting him back&#8230;.



Final day I fished for an hour or so in the morning catching a bunch of sunfish, a few small crappie and a couple of smaller channels&#8230;







When I downloaded my pics this was an inadvertent selfie I took&#8230;..kind of scary&#8230;



Got back home to Boise and started my new hobby of trying to get a decent picture of a hummingbird&#8230;&#8230;got at least one&#8230;.



Good fishing everyone&#8230;&#8230;I gotta go ice my shoulder now&#8230;.

Brian


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## Narient (Jan 9, 2011)

Having been raised in Kansas, I wanna say thanks for the pictures reminding me of what catfishing was like growing up.


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## neverdrawn (Jan 3, 2009)

You never disappoint Doc. Great pics and story again. Hope things go well when you do have surgery so we can peruse more of your fishing pics and stories.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Ouch, let's hope that shoulder is fixed soon!

(BTW - Hehe, T-rex.:mrgreen


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