New water, no fish

This morning I got up slightly early so I could check out a body of water near my house I haven't been to yet. It happens to be near the metra station, so it's almost on the way... Almost!

Rode there on the bike (Claire's bike), pulled my 5 piece collapsable fishing rod and reel combo out of my backpack, and got a white spinner in the water. I was probably too late for the early bite, and I probably should have varied up my lures... But I only fished for about an hour, so I stuck with my trusty white spinnerbait.

bike fishing!

I saw lots what I think were carp very near the surface; they almost looked like a pack of sharks the way their dorsal fins were breaking the surface. I've never seen carp that active; I don't know much about carp, but most of the time they seem pretty chill. Then again, who knows if it was even a bunch of carp... I'm notoriously bad at fish identification! A couple of months ago I ran into some jumping carp, and id'ed them as walleye.

I moved around quite a bit, doing what I think is called "fan casting"- systematically casting in such a way you cover a lot of water in a short time. I didn't really think I was going to catch any fish, but I'd rather be fishing than not fishing.

Apparently there are a ton of birds at this body of water, and I saw the biggest heron I've ever seen! I took a bunch of pictures, but only one of them turned out, and you can't really tell how big it is... But I would estimate a wingspan of 5'. (Keep in mind my length estimations are also completely bogus. No sense of what a 12" actually is... )

big heron

I don't feel too bad not catching anything there this morning, as I haven't studied the contour maps too much, and didn't really hit that many spots.... And only used one lure! I know there are some 15' holes within 30' of shore, combined with a very quick drop from the shallow water- I will be locating those next time. 

It's a very pretty body of water, filled to the brim with a variety of wildlife. That's one of my favorite things about fishing: even if you don't get a single bite, there's always plenty of cool stuff to see.