Lessons from the pond

Many of us started this crazed "libation" on a humble farm pond. My question: just what lessons did you bring from the pond? Environmentally? Ethically? Angling-wise? How have you used or enhanced these lessons as you've moved on through life?

As for fishing, my biggest shock came from a neighbor's young kid, maybe 7ish, who was playing with a June bug he'd harnessed to a string and was letting it fly around. I was probably 15 or so at the time and was zinging a flyrod Hula Popper to the middle of the pond, for that was "where the big ones are." I was watching the kid and enjoying his antics, when the June bug flew quite close to the surface of the pond -- maybe a foot from the very edge of the pond. A humugus bass exploded from the deep and I swear the kid left a mess he's had therapy on ever since. And I learned to fish the edge. Just the general observation of nature, too, especially in small ecologies. Everything started there for me, right on the banks of our farm ponds. JGW

My Father had a pond dug in 1968 when the DNR was trying to reestablish wetlands. I think people don't realize what a high maintenance project something like a pond is.
Most profound example was the year a friend of mine emptied his live well after a winter freeze out.Within two years one could almost walk across the surface because of milfoil.
It was interesting to watch the eb and flow of species. In drought years we would get every toad, snapping turtle, and frog make their home. Muskrats created a mess,Geese would muddy the water and the pier, never saw a wood duck until last year, Swallows came to drink at dusk, and mosquito's would chase us out shortly thereafter.
I learned to throw a popper to bass and bluegills and remember the Christmas when my parents gave me a fiberglass fly rod with a wind up automatic reel, I still have the rod but remember the length of the spring when I tried to see how it worked.
I still use the pond when I teach the BSA flyfishing merit badge. Maybe what goes around comes around and the legacy my father gave me I can pass on.

my dad took me to a small pond on the outskirts of my small hometown for a short lesson with a storebought white popper and "cheap fly outfit" i must have been 7 or 8, the bluegill were willing and it has been downhill ever since. he took me many more times afterwards. we would supposedly take turns sculling the jon boat while the other fly fished but i can't ever seem to remember him taking a turn fishing. some wonderful memories of a great man

I am still leanring from the ponds.

Each one has somethingnew to teach me.

Rick

I often fished in two farm ponds, puddles really, on a relative's land when I was a kid. I discovered that in a small pond, a cow's tracks in the mud (muddy bottome of the pond) constitute "structure". I learned that under the leaning, willow tree is a great place to fish. I learned that just because you don't see the snapper, doesn't mean that he isn't in there. I learned that brim will save the day on most any summer morning. I learned that farm ducks will be your friend if you throw them tiny bluegills. I learned that fish from tiny, muddy, "cow infested" ponds aren't good to eat. Ponds are fun, but I am still a creek rat first and foremost.
Ed

[This message has been edited by EdD (edited 10 February 2006).]