FINALLY FISH
The rain had has slowed down enough that I was able to get to one of my favorite ponds. I lost my normal access and now I must haul the canoe about 0.5 miles to get to the pond.
At the bottom of the hill is a shallow pond, no fish, and I needed to cross it to get to the dam where I want to be. The top of the dam has very little grass, so when it rains the mud is very hard to get anything through it. MY canoe carrier has 16-inch wheels on it, but they still sink in the mud when the canoe if full of stuff.
It was finally dry so I head in. I got to the pond and saw that there are patches of algae out in the pond. The weeds were about what is normal for this pond.
I got the anchors on the canoe, and the rods put together. I kept all of this on the floor of the canoe going in as to not catch on any of the vegetation in the fields I had to cross.
I got the canoe in the water and moved out in the pond a little way. I wanted to cast along the weed edge and to some of the deeper water. This is the time to try and find fish.
On the second cast that landed about two inches from the edge of the weeds I had a fish swirl on it. This turned out to be a very nice crappie. I tried a few more times with no more fish there. I cast just past one of the algae patches and as I brought the fly in the rod tip went down before I knew there was a fish on. This was a very big bluegill that went back in. I figured it was a female and I want the genetics in the pond.
I tried another algae patch and got a nice bluegill on the retrieve. I picked up a few more fish when casting to the other algae patches. When the fish stopped biting the canoe got moved about 30 feet. This let me fish water I had not put a fly in. The fish had been fairly shallow in the water column and I did not want to spook them.
I fished the same way as before and got some more fish. The crappie was near the weed edge and the gills near the algae in the middle of the pond for the most part.
Why the crappie were in less than two feet of water at the edge of the weeds along the shore baffles me. But that is where I cast for them. I ended up getting more than double the number of crappies that I had caught all year.
As I moved around the pond I got to the place where there were some larger clumps of algae. I cast around these and got some very nice fish to hit the fly. This was a mix of crappie and gills.
At this point I got to thinking about pulling the canoe back, uphill, to the truck. I thought it might be a good idea to head out.
I went back to the pond the next week and did almost the same thing. Had fillets to eat and fillets to share.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick