Panfish

IN WEEDS

Rick Zieger - Aug 25, 2014

It was a nice cool day and seems that there was a pond calling my name. It was the second week of August and we were not burning up. I had to help a friend move some stuff to the apartment he was going into. He had everything ready to go so it was just a matter of putting it in the pickup and then taking it to his apartment and putting it in there.

I was home at 9 am and loaded the canoe with the stuff I was taking with me. Then I headed out to the pond. There are two ways to get to the pond. The gate way was not possible as there was still water in the low spots. Experience told me that there was a few feet out mud under that. So I went to the other spot and headed in. This way I needed to drag the canoe about 75 yards to get to the pond. I got all the stuff in the canoe and headed for the pond. When I got to the water I made a few casts before the canoe went into the water.

I caught no fish doing this. Put the canoe in and started fishing down the west shore line. I had a black and white boa yarn flies on the rods. These flies have always worked for me in this pond. I tried two spots and got no fish. I changed to a couple of other flies and tried again. I got two decent bluegills as I moved along the edge. I moved along and ended up at the shallow end of the pond. I made a few casts out in that area and got a couple more decent bluegills.

I made another cast that did not go where I expected. It landed near the branches of a tree that are down in the water. Immediately I got a little crappie to hit the fly. I cast again and got a decent bluegill near the branches.  Then the action stopped.

I moved to the east side of the pond. I was getting ready to change flies when I hear a slurp. I stopped to watch to see if would happen again. In a minute or so it does. That fish was under a tree in the weeds that were about a foot off the shoreline. I wondered if something was dropping out of the trees. It was gime to change to another fly. I put on a grub pattern made from the cuff of a surgical glove.

The last time I gave blood they were using a very nice cream colored glove. I begged the ones that they used on me. I had a couple of other folks that did this also and then gave me the gloves. There is a little rolled edge of the cuff end of these gloves that make a great little grub when palmered on the hook.

I cast this up in the weeds, and managed to hit a little opening. A fish hit the fly and got a hook up. I was amazed when it turned out to be a crappie. But the fish went in the basket. I made another cast about 5 feet from where the last one landed and nothing happened. When I cast to another place about 5 feet farther along I got another crappie on the fly.  I realized that this was in the shade, but the crappie were in a foot of water on the shoreline. Well, if that is where they are that is where the fly will go.

I kept moving down the pond; I would just lift the anchor and let the breeze move me. When I could get a cast to land in the little pockets in the weeds, about every 10 feet there was a willing fish. Most of them turned out to be crappie.

After a while I ran out of the east shore line. I tried along the dam, but had no success so I decided it was time to head home. It was harder to get the canoe to the truck than it was to get the canoe to the pond.

Here are the crappies. The gills were all about 7 inches long. I do not throw crappie back in in the ponds.

Hope you can get out on the water.

Rick

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