05-18-2011, 03:51 AM
Holmes Creek Reservoir has also been my "home" water ever since my family moved nearby it in 1992. There were TONS of hand sized blue gills, redears, and bass in it then. Of course the bass were a lot harder for a kid to catch then those feisty gills, but that made catching one a rewarding experience. One summer I fondly remember fishing off an old cottonwood tree that had fallen into the water. All you had to do was put your worm and hook into the water and you'd pull out a 1/2- 1 lb bluegill!
I didn't even realize there were crappie or walleye in there until I became a more experienced angler and began targeting them specifically. And let me tell you what, those stories about the lunkers are all true. I've caught big largemouths, white bass, crappie, perch, bluegills, catfish and walleye from that pond all within the last 4 years. But then SOMETHING CHANGED..... It became a "community pond" and that led to increased popularity and more trash. That is also when they began "stocking" it to accommodate the increased pressure. All of a sudden the fishing began to go down the toilet at Holmes Creek Reservoir. My theory is that when they put thousands of hungry rainbows in there each fall the bows ate the warmwater species out of house and home and would begin starving themselves before spring came. I have several pictures of these emaciated trout and it aint pretty. With this happening over the past several years I'm willing to bet that many of the trophy warmwater fish died of starvation, unable to compete with their cold loving new neighbors: the rainbow trout; their bodies left to decompose in the icy depths. Well, I guess it's like the ol song goes, "They paved paradise to put up a parking lot....YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU GOT TILL IT'S GONE!"
I didn't even realize there were crappie or walleye in there until I became a more experienced angler and began targeting them specifically. And let me tell you what, those stories about the lunkers are all true. I've caught big largemouths, white bass, crappie, perch, bluegills, catfish and walleye from that pond all within the last 4 years. But then SOMETHING CHANGED..... It became a "community pond" and that led to increased popularity and more trash. That is also when they began "stocking" it to accommodate the increased pressure. All of a sudden the fishing began to go down the toilet at Holmes Creek Reservoir. My theory is that when they put thousands of hungry rainbows in there each fall the bows ate the warmwater species out of house and home and would begin starving themselves before spring came. I have several pictures of these emaciated trout and it aint pretty. With this happening over the past several years I'm willing to bet that many of the trophy warmwater fish died of starvation, unable to compete with their cold loving new neighbors: the rainbow trout; their bodies left to decompose in the icy depths. Well, I guess it's like the ol song goes, "They paved paradise to put up a parking lot....YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU GOT TILL IT'S GONE!"