EFFORT REQUIRED
It is another day and I want to hit a pond to see if the fish will cooperate. I still have not had the canoe in the water so I hike to a pond to see if the fishing is any good. This pond is one of the cookie cutter ponds in this area; about a football field in size. It sets in the middle of the pasture and there are no trees. This makes it much easier to cast than at those ponds where there are fly eating trees.
I have grabbed a couple of 3 wt to head to this pond. There is a furled tail mohair leech and a Prince nymph on the two rods. Those seemed to be good choices when I headed for the pond and they did not get changed.
When you get into the pond you come in at the dam end. I headed to the other end to fish back to the dam. The reason is if I get any fish I am not carrying them as far. I had not gone too far when I changed my mind. I was seeing fish swirl just under the surface. The challenged to catch them was accepted. Why walk passed fish that are feeding? I made several casts with each fly and had not interest shown in them. It was time to stop and look at what might be happening in the water.
After a closer examination it looked like some midges were coming off. I put on a midge pattern and cast it out. I did hook a little gill on this. As I was bringing it in I had several fish hit the red shrink wrap I had put on the line to help make a loop. I may not be the brightest bulb on the block, but I wanted a red fly in the water.
I had a red hares ear type fly and a red furled tail mohair leech that I could put on the lines. The leech went first as it was the second fly I put on. The fly hit and went just under the surface and I started the retrieve. A fish swirled on it right away. This was a nice gill and a few more were trying to take the fly away from it.
Cast it out again and had another fish smash the fly. Another fat gill was on the line. I love the way the rod tip dances with an aggravated gill on the line. I kept track and landed 50 gills on 55 casts. A few of the other casts hit algae which stopped the action and a few times I think I was moving the fly to fast.
I decided to try the red hares ear and see if it would work. The fish liked this fly just as much as the other one. It would drop it just under the surface and then a fish would take it. I caught several fish on this fly. I changed and put a red ant pattern on and cast it out. It was tied with a parachute hackle, but the fish were not interested in it. I thought it would be fun to have them take it off the surface. Not a single take on this. Out of curiosity I pulled the fly under water and started to retrieve it. It did not move very far when a fish smashed the fly again. I tried this several more times and had to have the fly under water each time to get a fish to hit it.
The basket was getting heavy and I decided to head home. Also the thirst meter was saying it was time to get out the water in the truck. I had lots and lots of filets to share.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick