Back to Standards
It was a glorious day. No rain for days and the sun was shining, I had the day off and the fish were calling me to come and play. At least that is what I heard in my head.
I got the canoe loaded, and the second thing in was the paddle. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. This is an old Chinese proverb but can be applied to many things. I got everything else in the truck and headed off. My better half said that she would see me when I got back.
I immediately headed for one of my very favorite ponds. This would be the first time I had been on this pond with the canoe this season. With the trees on the east side this opens up a lot more water to fish.
I had two 3 weights and two 5 weights with me. The rods that I had picked out had different flies on them. I had a purple, a green, and orange and a gold fly on the rods. These are flies that I had ended up using when fishing on some other ponds. Since I don’t enjoy tying flies on my leader these were the first to hit the water.
Several casts with each fly did not produce any results. It was time to tie on some other flies and see what might happen. Like most anglers I went back to some of my standards. A black furled tailed mohair leech, a white boa yarn fly, a Goldie Jr. and the popper-midge dropper combination. All of these have produced well for me previously and deserved the opportunity to be in the water.
I cast the popper-midge combination out first. This sets until something may happen. The white boa yarn fly was on the next rod I grabbed. I am very scientific in the way the rods are chosen, grab and cast.
I dropped the fly near a weed edge and let it drop. The fly had not dropped very far when the line went sideways, which was a subtle indication to set the hook. At first I thought bass from the way it fought, but that did not prove to be true. It was a nice crappie that came to hand.
I checked the popper and it was moving around so I grabbed that rod and had a energetic gill on the line. This fish even pulled the popper (¼ inch diameter foam) under water a few times. The rod tip danced a lot on this fish. When I got it to hand I cast the combination out again.
I cast the white boa yarn fly near the weeds again and had another crappie take it. When I landed this fish and got in the fish basket I looked at the moving popper and had another gill on that line. This happened three more times at this spot.
When the white boa yarn fly did not work I grabbed the black furl tailed leech and cast in the same area. This fly had dropped a little farther and had a crappie take it. I saw the flash of the fish as it rolled on the fly. When I got this fish in I tried again and picked up two more crappie on this fly.
Being a very curious person, at times, I decided to put the Goldie Jr in this area. I got two more crappie on the next dozen or so casts. I tried the white boa yarn fly and the black leech, but they did not work in this area the second time. So I moved about 30 feet and tried this again. This time I got fish on each fly that I tried.
Each time the fishing stopped or slowed down on one fly I would get a few more on each of the other two flies. The popper-midge combination continued to pick up fish. I even cast the other flies out away from the weed edge and got some fish.
I decide that I am going to spend some more time fishing with a second, different color fly, in areas where I have caught fish. I have not changed the depth where I am fishing and the retrieves on the second and third fly as much as I should have.
The black mohair leech had to be deeper than the white boa yarn fly. The Goldie Jr had to be moving laterally to be taken. Each fly was consistent in how it had to be retrieved, but the three flies needed different retrieves.
I had great fun on this day. When I finally decided to look at the fish basket I decided to head home as I would be filleting for a long time. I would be able to deliver fish early enough in the day for folks to use them for dinner. When I got home and unloaded everything I had to spend about 90 minutes filleting fish. This means that I had lots of fish to share with lots of people.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick