UNEXPECTED LOCATION
I had received permission to go to pond that is not available a lot, and since the fishing urge was strong I packed up my gear for a day of fishing. Previously it has not been possible to drive in so I decided to hike in with two rods. I took a 1 weight and a bamboo rod and three boxes of flies with me. Hiking in about 400 yard helps to prune what is taken to the pond. It was a nice day with overcast skies and a slight breeze. When I got to the pond I can see the bottom out about six feet. I was slightly surprised to find so much weed growth around the edge of the pond. It extended out from the shore line to about four feet.
This pond lies east-west with the dam at the west end. I headed to the east end on the south side. The north side has too many trees to close to the water to be able to cast. It's a great area to fish in the canoe, but it's nearly impossible to cast from the shore.
This pond has a nice population of good fish. Lots of gills in the 10-11 inch range. Crappie can go to 15 inches long, and the bass range up to about six pounds. I was looking to tie into some nice crappie.
The two rods have a hare's ear type fly and gold Goldie Jr on them. This seemed to be a good place to start. I cast with the hare's ear first, for no reason and got nothing on the first few casts. The next cast the fly dropped for a long time before I started to retrieve. This was the ticket as a nice bluegill made the rod tip dance. This fish did not want to come to shore. Over the next several casts, with both rods, several more nice bluegills were brought to hand, but not any action from any crappie although I had caught them in this area before. I change the Goldie Jr to a yellow boa yarn fly and picked up a few more bluegills.
I moved about 50 feet up the shoreline toward the dam. I had to go this far to get past a couple of trees that love to eat flies. I also knew the water is a couple of feet deeper there and maybe the crappie were in this deeper water. Several more bluegills came to hand. I changed the hare's ear to a white rubber legged dragon. In the past I have caught crappie on this fly, but not today. Several more bluegill came on this fly.
The fish basket had a good mess of bluegill in it so I decided to head for the dam and see if the crappie were staging just off the break line in the deepest water of the pond. I tried both of the flies there and got some more nice bluegills. One of the bluegill inhaled the fly and I needed forceps to get it out. To get ready for the next cast I dropped the fly just past the weeds and put the bluegill in the fish basket. When I got ready to cast I had a fish on the line. It was the first crappie of the day.
Since it worked once the next cast was just over the edge of the weeds and I let the fly drop. This resulted in another crappie. I continued this, getting a crappie about every five feet across the dam. Not sure if there was just one fish there or if the others got spooked and I was also not sure why the fish were that close to shore.
As I got near the end of the dam I saw another fisherman come in and start fishing. I was about done as I knew I had to carry everything out and I was not sure I wanted any more weight in the fish basket.
The other guy asked me how I had done and I showed him the fish basket. He said he had fished a couple places on the pond and had got a few. He wanted to do a fish fry, but was afraid he would not catch enough. I volunteered to help catch enough for that. I picked up several bluegill for him and a couple of crappie that were near the weeds.
He told me that he had enough and we each went our ways. He later called to thank me for the fish I gave him. I told him I was glad to do it and had just finished taking care of the ones I had brought home.
Had lots of fillets to eat and share.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick