Panfish

THE FISH WON

Rick Zieger - Mar 25, 2013

I headed out to a pond to go fishing. I had been there earlier in the year and the pond is down about four feet. The lily pads had exploded around the edge of the pond. I got everything in the canoe and headed out into the pond. The surface water was very warm.

I had three rods with me, a yellow boa yarn leech on one, and a Goldie Jr. on another. The last had a black furl tailed leech on it. All of those were tied with brass bead heads to get them down in the water column.

Since it was early morning I had been able to grab a couple of grasshoppers. I tossed them out in the middle of the pond and nothing came up to take them. This was a surprise to me. I thought the bass or green sunfish would take them.

The water was very clear and I can see down about 8 feet. I tried the yellow boa yarn fly first. It has worked well for me on this pond before. I made several casts and got nothing. I made a cast that dropped between two lily pads and got a fish to take it. It was a nice fat crappie, but it was the only one out of that area.

I moved about 30 feet and tried again. The sun was getting up high enough that I could see better, and I could see the flash of fish feeding back in the lily pads. I tried casting to them, but I was only catching lily pads. There was not much room between the pads.

I decided to move closer and tried to almost dap them. It was a great theory, but the fish scattered when I was 15 feet from the pads. I think this was the curse of clear water. They could see me coming.

I moved to the dam end of the pond and tried casting along the break line there. I let the flies drop a long way and moved them very slowly. I try each of the flies in this area, and I picked up a few more fish.

I moved to the far side of the pond and made several casts in this area and found the bass. I got several bass in the foot long range in this area. I moved to look for their cousins.

I was out in the middle of the pond and caught a few more fish. I still had not found a pattern to where the fish were or what they were doing, unless the pattern was in the lily pads where I could not cast.

I had a lot more casting practice so I finally decided that I need to head home. As I was nearing the shore I could see a lot of fish flashing in the pads. There was a midge hatch going on. I could see them m coming off in the pads. However, the fish scattered as I moved the canoe into the pads. By the time I got the canoe loaded and all the stuff in the truck the fish were back. Next time I get to this pond I will also have the 20 foot telescoping cane pole I have and I will try to do a "Tenkara" type thing with it.

I had fish for supper and a few to share.

Hope you can get out on the water, and have better success than I did.

Rick

Comment on this article

Archive of Panfish


[ HOME ]

[ Search ] [ Contact FAOL ] [ Media Kit ]

FlyAnglersOnline.com © Notice