AMAZING DAY
We had some warm weather for a few days, and the itch to be out was great. I headed to one of my favorite ponds. I did not take the canoe since I was not sure that I could drive all the way in. Probably best that I did not try as the chances of getting stuck were too great.
I got to the pond and headed down the west shore to the far end away from the dam. This way I could fish back toward the dam and the vehicle. I had a black mohair leech on one rod and a yellow boa yarn fly with red eyes on the other one. The yellow boa fly went in first. I cast it out and let the fly drop a little and then brought it in. On the third cast I felt some resistance on the line and set the hook. It turned out to be a bass that was about a foot long. I got a few more bass in this area so I decided to move to try to find some crappie or gills. This was a great theory, but the bass seemed to be everywhere. The bass were about 12 inches, 18 inches or around 22 inches long. The percentages of each were about 40%, 40 and 20% respectively. The largest bass took a long time to bring in. I was using 4 pound test line for the leader and that does not allow much room for error. There did not seem to be any crappie or gills around where those bass were.
After while I was fishing along the dam, and I hoped there might be some fish along the break line that is off the dam. Finally I did find a few crappies along there. There were hit and miss; one here or there, but never two from one spot.
I kept moving along the dam getting a fish here and there. I finally got to the east end of the dam. On the east side of this pond a forest has been planted. The trees are about 5 feet back from the shore. This allows plenty of room to walk but it makes it tough to cast. I decided that I wanted to try this area, just to see what might happen. I could flip out about 6 feet of fly line. There is a 5 foot furled leader on this rod with about two feet of tippet. The furled leader made it easier to cast.
The fly had just hit the water and a crappie nailed it. I set the hook, raised the rod tip and landed the fish. I was pleasantly surprise to have found a crappie there. Habit is a hard thing to break and I made another cast into this area. I immediately had another crappie hit the fly just after it hit the water. This happened three more times. At that point no more fish hit the fly.
I wondered if the fly went out farther if there would be more fish. I made a couple of roll casts. It was great fun to have the fly hit the water and have a crappie take it. It was almost like fishing with poppers. I picked up several more fish doing this. For some dumb reason I looked at my watch and saw that more time had passed than I thought. I figured it was a good time to head home.
The fish basket got pretty heavy on the hike out from the pond. I have to do this more to get used to it.
It was a good day to be out. I released 69 bass and took home 38 crappie and one bluegill. I had a good meal of fish and shared fillets with several folks.
It may spoil me for the year breaking the century mark this early in the year. Naw, I will still go out to have fun.
Hope you can get on the water.
Rick