Happy “Sunnie” Labor Day

By Jill Toler

Due to a host of things; such as an infection, a tree on my house, storms, and heat indices that hovered somewhere near “pit of hell”, it has been a while since I have been on my W700. That was all remedied today with a trip to Upper Broad Creek with my other fishing buddy, Marla. Marla knew that I had been kayak fishing and thought she might want to get in on the action so, one day she purchased a kayak from a friend. She needed a maiden voyage and now that Hermine had finally left town, today was the day.

We got launched and Marla was looking comfortable so I pulled out my fly rod and tossed a popper towards a little stump. The water was very high and the wind had kicked up pretty good but, it only took a few seconds before I had a strike. And a miss. Okay, let’s try this again. Get in position, sling about 40 feet of string to the right of the stump, and SWIRL! Another miss. Really!!! Nothing to do but change the popper. I chose a smaller popper in the same chartreuse color and tossed it at the very edge of the reed grass since I figured the high water would have the fish up in the grass. SWIRL, STRIKE, and TIGHT! Hot diggity dog, I caught a fish. A very cute little pumkinseed.

I checked on Marla then started working a stretch of bank that had reed grass, stumps, and some downed timber; in other words, sunnie paradise. Toss, strip, FISH! That happened a whole bunch of times and I was very happy. Most of them were very photogenic and agreed to pose for a quick pic. I fished a little cut out of the wind and landed one of the biggest sunnies I ever caught. She was nice and chunky and pulled like a souped up John Deere. Just fantastic.

Marla and I had a great afternoon of kayak fishing and more than once she said how awesome my W700 looked and how much she liked it. Next time I might ley her try it out. When she does there just might be a two owner, green, sit-in kayak for sale here in Eastern North Carolina.

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