ONE SMALL AREA
It was a day off and it was raining. That is not the combination I was looking for. The canoe will stay at home and I will hike into a pond. Way too slick to try to drive into any of the ponds. Hunting season has started so the game preserve is not a good place to be.
I head out with two rods with me. I have two six wts that I have not fished much this year, and I need to fish them if I am going to keep them around. I carry my rubber boots with me and head for the pond. Put the boots on and hiked into the pond. Boots worked out fairly nice as my pants did not get soaked at that time.
This pond sets back across a couple of deep ravines, and the field is too full of cattle to drive into, so the hike in is the only way to go. The hope is that the fish will be hungry as the pond has not been fished this year, to the best of my knowledge. That gate has been locked all year, and not many folks are dumb enough to hike in. To cross the first ravine you have to go up to the top where it starts to be able to cross since the edges are too steep everywhere else. After crossing this ravine you head back down to the pond to cross the second ravine, because the only place to cross is near the pond where it broadens out. The pond is about 500 yards off the road, but you hike about 3/4 of a mile to get to it. I might not be very bright, but I wanted to fish in this pond.
When I arrived at the pond and started casting. I had a yellow boa yarn leech and a black furled tail leech on the two rods. I had two hook boxes of flies with me. Since it was a fair hike into the pond I did not want to wear my vest.
I did not find any fish in the first place that I tried, which was a little surprising, but that is fishing. Moving up the shore a ways and tried again, and I got two small bass in this area; one on each rod, so that was no help in deciding what to use.
I moved onto where the dam starts because I know that this area has some deep water about 15 feet off the shore that comes up to a flat that is about five feet deep. There are some scattered lily pads across this flat, and I hope that some fish might be around the pads looking for food. I try the flies I have on before changing to a natural so see if that works better.
I am bringing the fly back by one of the pads when the line feels funny and I set the hook. There is a very nice crappie that does not like the idea of being hooked. The fish fights more like a bass than a crappie, but it is great fun to land. The rain does not seem to be as bothersome at this time.
I make a few more casts in the area in front of me, and then I decided to try the spot where I hooked the crappie to see if another one might be there. The fly was almost the same place when the same thing happened. I had another nice crappie. Since this was the only place I had caught a crappie I went back to the well with another cast. Immediately I hooked another nice crappie that did not like the idea of being hooked.
Once I started catching fish the rain did not seem to come down as hard
and I was even feeling that I was on the warmer side of cool. Before that
the wind was starting to get a little cool.
Every few minutes I would catch another fish out of this area. The fly
had to come straight in from farther out in the pond. If I cast off at
an angle, the fish did not take the fly.
The fly was coming in again when the rod was almost taken out of my hand. I was not sure what I had on but it was something big. All of my fly line went out and I was into the backing. I can’t remember if this has ever happened on a farm pond. I have done it on a few carp at the lake when I was fishing over my lunch hour.
A significant amount of time went by before any line began to come in. It did not come fast, but it was coming in. It took about 20 minutes before the fly line got back to the reel. I wanted to land this fish! I was sure I did not want to keep it, but I wanted to have it in my hand. It then became a tug-of-war. Gain some line and then lose it. After another 20 minutes I was more in control of what was happening than the fish was.
I was keeping pressure on the fish and the fish was swimming around out in front of me. The fish finally came up to the surface and I saw that I had a large channel cat. I knew that I was in trouble. When this fish got into shallow water the water was going to fly all over and I would get wet. The other option was to break or cut the line when the fish got shallow. At that time, that was not really an option, because I wanted to land the fish and all else was not too important.
I got the fish up and into the shallow water, and just like I suspected, the fish started thrashing and water went everywhere. A significant amount landed on me. The water did not seem to be cold. I got the fish turned and led it to where I could grab it by the lip and bring it in. I think there was more water in the air than in the pond.
Laying this fish down by the fly rod, it appeared to be about 26 inches long. I removed the fly and put the fish back into the water. The fly was in the corner of the mouth of this catfish. This is probably why the line did not break. I like catfish, but not when they are that big.
At that point the water on me got cold. The wind was blowing about 12 mph. It was still raining and the air temperature was about 48 degrees. It was time to head home. By the time I got to the truck my body was cold. I could get my rubber boots off, but I could not tie the laces on my tennis shoes. I started the truck and let the warm air start to come through.
I warmed up enough to get home and get the fish filleted. Then I took a shower that really helped.
Shared some of the fillets and had a good meal. It was a good day to be out, even if I froze my fanny.
I caught a big fish!
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick