On Golden Pond....Revisited

Today Lynn and I invited our son and his wife to go fishing with us to the pond Eric and I fished on my Birthday. Our intention was to add some more bluegills to the ones we had and have a big fish-fry on the 4th of July. We had an enjoyable time catching many small to medium sized bluegill but the large ones just weren’t biting today. Then the bullheads decided to join the fun. Lynn caught many because she was the only one using worms and Eric landed a very large albino one.
Bullheads usually run in the 8-10 inch range but this guy was very fat and about 12 inches long and bit on a spinning lure. Albino fish are rare as they stick out so much they are usually eaten by other fish before they reach maturity. The only other albino fish I have seen was the 15 inch pike I caught and released as a young teen off the Cass River Bridge on Cemetery Road, and a large carp caught by a co-worker in the Saginaw River next to the grain elevator I worked at in Carrollton. I also saw an albino channel catfish that a crewman caught on one of the ships we loaded there.
Eric had seen this fish on our last visit as it followed his lure, but I dismissed it as possibly being the inside of a pike’s mouth as it was attempting to inhale his lure. But today he spotted a white fish swimming on the far side of the pond. After several tries he finally caught it. His wife Andrea flipped out over his catch and wanted to take it home and add it in their 50 gallon aquarium. We told her it would eat the rest of her fish and she regretfully changed her mind.
As we were getting ready to leave, Andrea had a change of heart and wanted to release the pretty fish. Sadly we had no camera, so we named it “Walter” (after the fish in the movie “On Golden Pond”) and tossed him back.
So after 3 hours of fun in the sun we brought home 36 bluegill and 14 bullheads. Not a bad days catch. So the fish-fry is on.
Reminder to self; from now on put a camera in the tackle box before going fishing.