ON THE SHORE AGAIN
It is a few days after I had beat the water to a froth on another pond (thinking of musky as I was leaving), but now it was another day and another chance to head out to a pond. I try not to miss the opportunity to go to a pond when the chance presents itself. The conditions might not be great, but it is time to gather the stuff and head out.
It has rained again and I know that the canoe is not an option. It will be another hike into a pond. I decide to take the boo and a 3 wt. As the 5 wts did not work last time it is time to try something different. I also grab my vest and take that with me. I don’t think that I am superstitious, but I want all my fly boxes with me this time. Last time I went through 2 boxes of flies. This time I will have double figures of boxes to try. No poppers and no dry flies last time. This time I will be over prepared.
I decide to head to one of my favorite ponds. The main reason to pick this pond is that I know it so well. I know where the drop-offs, depressions, stumps, trees and other assorted snags are. This knowledge comes from losing flies on them multiple times. On the other side of the coin, that is where the fish are many times.
I get there and hike in to the pond. I am wearing my rubber boots again. I know the road will be muddy getting to the pond. The boots gather a nice accumulation of mud as I headed in. I was able to clean them off on the other side of the creek that comes out of the pond. The rest of the hike is on grass.
I get to the pond and it is full of water. The visibility is about one inch. Not great conditions, but I am there and the lines will get wet along with several flies. I may not always be smart, but I have always showed persistence.
The wind blew out of the west the day before so there are some mats of algae along the east side of the pond. It seems like a good idea to put a few flies in that area and see what might happen.
Great idea, wonderful presentation, and no fish, not even a nibble to show for the effort. So it is time to move after several casts and a few changes of flies. I move about 50 feet to where I know there is a break line.
I go through the same routine of casting several flies with different presentations. Some are along the break line, some at angles and some perpendicular. Different depths, speeds and retrieves all result in no action.
It is time to move again. I move toward the shallow end of the pond to fish a broad flat on the pond. This lat covers about 1/3 of the pond. The water at the edges is about a foot deep and drops to about six feet deep in the center of the pond, about 75 feet out from shore.
I start casting to see what might happen. I do have a dry fly one the one rod and it goes out again to just sit here and see if something might find it. I tied on a size 10 hook with a parachute hackle. I wrapped the hackle around the post about 10 times. I wanted to leave large imprint on the water, hoping this would be more obvious to fish. A great theory that did not pay off.
I headed back down the pond to the dam end. I wanted to fish near the outlet pipe. With the water going out there might be some current here.
With the current there might be few fish in the area.
This time one of my thought processes worked out. I caught two bass in this area. Added together they would not be a foot long, but they were fish!
I caught them on the first few casts and then nothing happened.
I got to thinking about the hike out and the mud I would collect on the boots as I hiked on the road. with the success I had had for the day, it seemed a good time to go home. I had left the fish alone to grow bigger for another day.
Over all it was fun to be out. Not as many fish as I would have liked, but who ever catches as many as they would like? Don’t we all want to catch one more?
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick