I'm kind of in a dead zone for fishing,
we've got pan fishing in the creeks which I got bored with then switched to catching them on fly's and a light rod, tired of that too. Sauger fishing in the Ohio, but you'd be nuts to chance eating any of them.
About 8 years ago a few of us discovered gigantic carp, 20+ lb.s, in a series of 6 interlocking abandoned gravel quarries, my first week I had one break one of my favorite fly rods. Unbelievably muscular fish, which you can't eat either, but we ran into some Indiana guys at my favorite fly tying shop who had discovered the same thing in their home state and were referring to them as fresh water bone fish for the huge fight in them and I mean huge. A neighboring village peopled by a bunch of hoi polloi annexed the quarries and turned them private for the residents, we tried sneaking in thru' back roads but the assholes had rangers in atv's patrolling the woods around the lakes keeping the peasants off the king's lands. That and things in life have kind of curtailed my fishing, but your Big Lake adventures brought back some good memories.
re: the fly shop, one of the owners there knew that carp loved mulberries, so he made up a fly for when the mulberry season ended, that was fun,
My days for big game (fish) hunting are over, but I'd love access to some scenic spots to drown a fly. One that it's not too hard to get to, but that no one else knows about...right? lol
