MATCHED THE HATCH
It was early Friday morning. I had loaded the canoe and all the other stuff the night before. Temperatures would be in the mid 90’s in the afternoon.
It was in the low 70’s at 6:30 when I hit the pond.
This is a pond that I like, but I don’t get into very often. Three landowners have to agree to let me cross their property to get to it. This was one of the few times that they all agreed.
Stopped and checked the low spot to make sure that it was not too wet to cross. I could not really tell because of the height of the grass. I realized that if I stayed out of the ruts it would not be a problem to get through.
When I got the pond in sight I went crazy. No wind, but the surface was roiling with fish taking something. It took forever to get the canoe off and everything into it. I spent too much time looking at the pond, but I finally forced myself to do one thing at a time, and pond watching was not on the list.
When I got to the edge of the pond I saw that the weeds extended out from 15 to 20 feet so I made no casts and decided to put the canoe in the water. I moved just out beyond the weeds and dropped an anchor since I wanted to see what was in the water.
When I got on the water I was fairly sure that it was a midge hatch. There were large balls of good size midges flying all over and around the pond.
To keep from grabbing I rod I folded my arms and watched the water. It took a minute but then I saw a few larvae coming up. I knew I had matched the hatch. I have run onto this hatch on another pond once before so I had a fly for this situation, golden pheasant tail fibers wrapped on a hook with a small black thread head with no tail on the fly so it was tied like a grub. The larvae looked to be about a size 14 when I held a couple of flies near the water to match sizes.
I did manage to get one tied on the leader, which is hard to do with fish coming to the surface 10 feet away. My first cast was not a thing of beauty, because there was way too much adrenaline and anticipation. I estimate the wave at two feet high when the line hit the water. I chided myself that I needed to calm down and make a decent presentation.
I started to lift the line to do that and had a fish on the line. This gill did not like the idea of being on the line. Dove and cut dido’s before I got it to the canoe. It was a nice fat 8-inch gill. Imagine, I caught this fish on a lousy cast that should have spooked every fish within a mile.
Slowly I took two deep breaths and cast again. The fly was just under the surface when I saw a swirl and had another nice gill on the line. This fish turned sideways and circled the canoe and it took awhile before I got the fish to the canoe. When I netted this fish I saw that it was a huge gill. The spacing between the ferrules on the rod is 11.5 inches, and this fish overlapped on both ends. I put her back in the water because I wanted those genetics in the pond.
I made another cast and missed the fish by trying to set the hook too fast. I cast out again and waited a second before setting the hook. What a surprise. It was a 10-inch crappie. I did not know this pond had any crappie that size in it. Three years ago we dumped 60 foot long bass in this pond. Maybe that helped the size of the crappie.
Fish were still coming up all over the place. The pond is about three acres in size and I bet I could see a thousand fish at a time making rings on the surface. The fish were taking the midge just under the surface. When the natural midge hit the surface it was a launching point. The skin would spit and the insect would take to the wing.
I made another cast and let the fly drop for a short time. The line moved sideways and I had another gill on the line. The fish twisted and turned and danced around. When I got it close I could see two other fish following as the fly was in the corner of the mouth of the hooked fish and it was trying to keep the other fish away. That is the way it appeared to me. It was another nice fat gill.
I continued to make casts and get a strike on almost every cast. I did not get good hook sets on all of them, but the vast majority were good, and it turned out that about every fourth fish I hooked a crappie. I will admit that I did try a few flies to see if I could interest more crappie. Several flies did not do anything. All the fish were keyed in on the midges. On one of the occasions, when I was being of sound mind, I went back to the midge.
I was hooking a fish on almost every a cast. The cast only had to be 10 to 15 feet long to get fish. Why cast farther when you can hook fish up close?
I did notice that a couple of other fishermen were fishing from the bank at the other end of the pond, but I could not see if they were having any luck. I was having too much fun having the rod tip dance all of the time.
I looked at my watch and was very surprised to see that it was a few minutes after 9:00 am. I decided that I move to another place to see if the fish were hitting there as well. I moved about 50 feet and started catching fish. I will tell you that too many times I had fish slip out of my hand as I was starting to put them in the basket. Too much slime on my hand and I could not grip them. Each time it happened I would rinse my hand off in the pond and keep going until I lost another fish. This is just another proof that I am not always the brightest bulb on the block.
Since I had other things to do I decided that I need to leave, even though the fish were still rising. As I got ready to head off the pond I moved the rods to the side so I could put the fish basket in the canoe since it makes it easier to paddle the canoe. The basket was heavy as there were a lot of fish in it.
When I got to shore I left the basket in the water tied to a tree as I loaded everything else on the truck. The other fishermen came down to see how I had done and what I was using. They had not caught anything. I showed them and they were amazed.
They had planned on a fish fry, but said they would have to do something else. I asked how many fish they would need. They had 20 people coming and I took forty fish out and gave the fish to them. There were still a lot of fish in the basket.
Got home and fillet a huge mess of fish. I did 75 gills and 30 crappie along with the 40 fish I gave away, the 30 or so bass returned, the dozen huge gills that were returned and the fish that slipped out of my hand, it was a great day.
I am extremely fortunate to have several very fertile ponds that I can fish.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick