Pond Praise
In Texas there are no ponds, only stock tanks. Anyone with experience in rural Texas knows that. Pond is used in the title only for the alliteration needed. Anywho, stock tanks can have great fishing. In Borden County there is a tank that on this Saturday morning was awesome. Today was really one of those fishing moments that are outta time, just too much fun and too good to be true. But it really, really did happen and we did catch all those bass.

Stock tanks in Texas are a necessity and a regular feature of our landscape. Cattle and horses have to have water and stock tanks provide it. Tanks can be stand alone or connected with a wind mill. You use Cat to move earth from the bottom of the drainage into a dam and then sit back and wait for rain or wind ?fill ?er up?. The dam end of the tank has the highest bank, deepest water and in West Texas the dam end is covered in mesquite trees. Mesquite is one of the ?fly eating? species of trees native to this part of Texas. A mesquite has the uncanny ability to reach out a limb, really it reachs out, and catch a fly on the back cast of any fly fisherman near the tree. Stock tanks can be great fly fishing sites. Usually the non dam sides are flat and devoid of trees because the stock trample down everything but weeds around these flat sides to get to the water.

Tanks can be stocked or not. Bass, blue gills and catfish are the usual suspects in stocking. Water birds will bring in, on their feet, other types of fish and amphibians. Tanks that are stocked are of course much better fisheries. Every tank has the one or two ?Big Boys? of any of its species that are occasionally hooked, but caught few times. These ?Big Boys? constitute each tanks legend.

Saturday morning at six am, we load up the fly rods, fly gear and some bottled waters and head out. We are going 70 miles or so to a destination in the Bad Land looking topography of Borden County, Texas. Borden Co. has lots of red clay topsoil eroded into many gorges and small valleys. There is a very large ranch in the county with a bunch ?o stock tanks. We head east and drop off the cap rock driving toward Big Spring. At Big Spring we make a big left turn north and go near the town of Vealmoor.

Pretty quick, we are there. We wind through gates in fences and along the two lane track to ?the Bass Tank?. There is also a ?Catfish Tank? but not much fly action at a catfish tank. We are at the ?Bass Tank? cuz we are ?Fly Guys? and we are gonna fly fish. The tank is much lower than last year and certainly only about ? its 2006, the wet year, size. All that is left of the tank this year is one acre or so of liquid that looks like it sloshed outta some Titan?s margarita as he walked by. Pale green water surrounded by red earth pocked with cattle prints and poop everywhere. That?s a tank in Texas.

We unsheath our ?Weapons of Bass Destruction?, string ?em and are ready for the fight. Today should not have been a bunch different than anytime on the tank. Olive wooly buggers and white bunny leeches should have netted some bass. Normally with 10 to 15 LMB?s caught in a couple hours we would be happy campers. Today was different. It was different from the get go.

Today the story is about the baits, or should I say bait, singular. Cuz the bait not only made the day, it made all the difference. The difference it made was startling and not subtle. The results of its use were amazing and outside of anything I believed possible. This bait is so insignificant that it is stocked in a lonely end cap to an obscure aisle in our local Academy store. ?The Trout Magnet? just called my name as I walked by. It did not hurt anything that it was in my favorite bass color. You must know that I will go to my grave believing that you can catch bass in Texas on any color you want, as long as that color is chartreuse! So here is a one half to five eights inch long maybe eighth inch wide piece of chartreuse plastic. It is split about one half way down its length and has kind of bands that encircle it. It is to be fitted to one of two one sixty fourth ounce darter type jig heads provided in the blister pack. A sixty fourth is a lot for a 5 wt but not too awful much. I go to pull a package off the rod that holds it and am hit with this awful question. Is this a ?fly?. I mean it is plastic for goodness sake, can it even be considered a fly. Magically my brain shifts into the self justification mode usually reserved for purchase of new fly rods and shotguns. Of course it is a fly, while plastic aint exactly natural how many bugs are really made out of chenille or wear chicken hackle hats? OK it leaps the fly qualification barrier and I purchase a package.

At the tank, the test awaits this itty bitty morsel of chartreuse plastic. Will anything go for it, or 10 casts later is it at the bottom of the fly bag while a regal Olive Bugger capable of known fishing feats is being tied on. I decide to go with my bass fishing standard of flat or straight leader-tippet combination in 4 lbs Vanish. That is I tie a surgeons loop in about six feet of Vanish and tie the fly to the end, no need for your tapered troutish sophistication in a stock tank, these are big bad bass and the last thing they are is leader shy. I am glad about the sixty fourth weight and its placement. Warm water means to me I have my bait to get down the water column. Most flys without weight will not get down. I really do not like split shot and the resultant of trying to cast a Bolivian bolo. That setup leads me to get lot o? nasty knots and stuff (and the occasional whack in the back of the head). The weight is more than I would use, but not too much. So another plus, I can fish it, if I can cast it, without additional weight. So while my casting will take on the ?Chuck and Duck? form, it should not be too bad.

If not now, when? If not this bait, what? The time is here and now and the first cast is making a big lazy loop (I am sorry Lefty Kreh) toward the pea soupish colored water. Two strips of the line and Bingo! Not a big fight goin? on, thinkin? small LMB. Wow, just Wow! I pull out a six inch SHAD! I wish words could adequately express my feelings. I know that there are fly records for shad, but I have NEVER meet anyone that fished for, or caught a SHAD, too cool. Well, the Trout Magnet turns out to be the Shad Magnet. That won?t ever happen again. Next cast, whaddaya know, same thing, only a slightly smaller shad. What is up with this bait?

Well sir, now we get down to it. The brawl begins in earnest. Next cast is the first LMB. Now this tank is not gunna cough up 5 to 7 pounders. You are gonna get a bunch of feisty three quarter to two pounders and have all the fun you can stand. This first LMB is your fightin? one pounder. Here is where this tale continues to amaze me, even having been there. I just continue to catch fish. Continue to land LMB?s in every size without a lull. I mean this thing is attracting literally hatchlings of this spring and then grown 3 and 4 pounders. Almost every cast has something go for it. And, it hangs in. After all of this action the thing is as bright and shiny as when it was tied on.

The next most amazing thing then happens. I catch a Blue Gill on this baby. No, catching Blue Gill is not in itself amazing. However, catching ?em here is, never caught one here. So now the Trout Magnet has caught three different species of fish from the same VERY small water. I have caught bass on plastic worms and flys and Blue Gills on black gnats and never caught a shad but this thing has caught all three on itself.

My ole pardize has not been as fortunate. Me being the magnums fishing person I am, and exhausted by an hour and one half of catching, encourage him to ?tie one on?. Well, you know how this ends; he also starts getting bite right away.

So how do we end up the morning? The ?Trout Magnet? is for now my most favorite tank fly of all time. I caught way over forty fish, forty. Five shad, one blue gill and truly so many LMB?s that I did stop counting at 35. I am going to the Academy and buy everyone I can find when I get up from the computer. It caught three different species of fish in one tank with one tie on. It attracted bass of all sizes. It made an ordinary day an extra ordinary day of fishing. My advice, get a ?Trout Magnet? in any color as long as it is chartreuse!