STOCKING AGAIN
It is another opportunity to get out and spend some time putting a line in the water. Not that I really need an excuse to do that. I had promised another person that I would get some fish and put in their pond. The pond had winter killed off. He had pumped the water out of the pond and cleaned the bottom out. There was about six feet of dirt in the bottom that had washed in. Rain has filled the pond again and there is a need for fish to go into it.
I head out to a pond that is close to the road. I want to be able to get the fish from one pond to another in a hurry. I know this pond has bluegill, crappie and bass in it. I want to put gills and bass in the other pond.
I take two 3 wt rods with me. There is plenty of room to cast around most of this pond so there is no need to worry about the trees eating my flies. This pond is a little smaller than a football field. The dam end is as wide as the football field, but it slowly decreases in width until it is about 30 feet wide at the shallow end. A big gully was dammed to for this pond. The channel is about 3 feet deep at the shallow end and almost 20 feet deep at the dam. A definite break line to fish.
The rods have a black and a white boa yarn leech on them, which seems to be a good place to start. I cast with the black fly first, as it was on the rod that I did not put down. No scientific reason, just have to start with one of them.
I am at the shallow end of the pond. I cast the fly so it will come along the break line. The thought is that the fish will be along the break line, and this turns out to be the case. The fly has not moved far when the first gill hits it.
The fish did not like the idea of being on the end of the line. The rod tip danced a lot before the fish came to hand. A nice fat gill that was about 7 inches long. Good size to stock a pond with.
The next cast produces another gill that is almost an exact copy. The rod tip dance some more. The fisherman is having a great time. I grab the other rod. It is the 10.5 foot 3 wt. I cast it with the white boa yarn fly and the fish like it just as much. It is great fun to catch fish on this rod. Almost any fish will cause it to really bend. It is almost a wet noodle, but great fun to fight fish with. It takes a fair amount of line to load this rod so short cast are not made with this rod.
After a few fish the spot slows down so it is time to move. I move about 20 feet up the bank so I can fish water that I have not disturbed. I start with the shorter rod to make the shorter cast and pick up some more fish. The switch to the longer rod happens when the cast at about 30 feet long. It takes that much line to load the longer rod.
At each spot from 6 to 10 fish come to hand. Most are bluegills, but there are a few bass mixed in. The bass are from 6 inches to about 13 inches long, which is a good mix to put into the other pond.
I have worked my way around the pond and am back near the shallow end. I decide to cast across the pond and let the fly drop down the break line on the other side of the pond. Curiosity about what might happen causes a great many things to happen.
I use the longer rod so the there is more leader to let the fly drop. This is where the crappie were, and I caught 12 of them on 15 casts. I keep these to fillet as they were all about 14 inches long. The other pond is too small to have crappie in it.
I head out from the pond and get to the truck. I have a tub of water in the truck to be able to keep the fish in better shape heading to the other pond.
I pull the crappie out of the basket and put them in a bucket with water. I head off to the pond to be stocked. When I get there I am a little curious about how many fish are going in. I have a long necked fish basket that is made of nylon and has a zipper near the bulb at the bottom.I unzip that and put the fish in one at a time. I stopped counting at 50 gills and 14 bass. That was about 60 percent of the fish in the basket. Many of the bass and gills had not spawned yet.
I stocked a pond and had a few fish or fillets. I told the landowner that his grandkids could probably catch some of the fish, but they should return them for a few years.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick