DO NUTHIN'
At last I have another chance to get out and fish a pond. It’s still too wet to get the canoe into any place that requires a drive, which is most of the ponds that I fish. I grab two rods, some flies and head into a pond that it not too far to hike into.
It is early afternoon, warm with some clouds in the sky. Not the best conditions, but I have the time to be out now and that is the best reason to be at the water. The best time to put a line in the water just might be when you have time to do it.
This pond is triangular in shape. It is a ravine that was dammed. It has sloping flats on each side out about 20 feet and then the deep channel runs down the middle of the pond. I would have deep water, shallow water and a break line to fish, which are all the places that fish might be.
I had taken my rod with a full sinking line on it. I wanted to be sure to be able to get some flies deep. I had two other fly rods with me. A Goldie Jr and black boa yarn leech on them. The sinking line had a hares ear type fly on it.
I come into the pond at the shallow end and can fish all around the pond. About ten feet from the end of the pond it is all pasture and easy to walk around where there are no trees to catch my flies.
I cast for a while and have no success with any fish. Not sure why, but that is always the challenge being out. Figuring out what the fish want.
I grab the rod with the sinking line and cast it out. I wait to let it drop and then start to retrieve. The retrieve turned into a hook set, and I had a fish on the line. It was a nice scrappy gill. I cast again and had the same thing happen, when starting the retrieve there was a fish on the line. This happened on over half the casts made in this place.
I put a hares ear fly on one of the other rods and cast it. It is not as much fun to catch fish on the full sinking line. I retrieve the fly all sorts of ways and get no fish. What is the difference?
I go over what I have done with each rod and then it hits me. With the sinking line I am letting the fly drop and with the floating line I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING. Part of the allure of fly fishing is that you are not setting looking at a bobber. So I was moving the fly to be doing something.
On the next cast, there was nothing done after the fly hit the water. I kept track of about how long the fly had dropped, and then the line moved to the side. This little indication told me that there was a fish on the line. I set the hook and had another gill that did not want to come to the shore. The rod tip danced all over the place.
The fishing slowed so I moved about 30 feet down the shoreline and tried again. Every time I let the fly just drop I had a better chance of hooking a fish than doing anything to the fly. This was more of a problem for me to do that I thought it would be. I am too accustomed to giving some action to the fly.
I did not get any fish in the deeper water as I moved around the pond. The fish were again up near the shallower end. I tried the black boa yarn leech and the fish took it when I let it just drop. No horizontal action imparted.
There might have been a little horizontal as the leader swings down from the end of the line, but not anything more was to be added.
I headed home as my water supply was out and I was feeling the need to quench my thirst. I headed off to another pond that needed to be stocked.
Put 45 gills and 9 bass into the pond. That should make it a place to fish in a few years.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick