SHORE AGAIN
Wow, two straight nights of rain with two inches of rain or more each night. I watched the weather channel and listened to the weather radio to see if we needed to bail out of the house and head to the church. We have no basement in our house. We had rain and a lot of wind, but no rotation within five miles, but it makes for a short night.
I had been invited to fish another pond, but all of that water meant that driving into a pond was out of the question. This comes from one of the times that I reported cattle out of the flied and helped get them back in. I was told that I could fish in the pond. The pond owner called and said that he had a friend that was going to fish the pond and would I go there and keep an eye on him. The guy coming has some health problems, and his wife likes to have someone around when he is away from here.
I hiked into the pond and looked at it for a long time. The weeds were growing out about 4 to 6 feet all around the pond. This means that fish would need to be head up before they got to the weeds. If not, then the fish would get lost in the weeds. I also wanted to try to get an idea of the topography of the pond. A few minutes of observation on a new piece of water can help a great deal.
Since I came in at the dam end, I could see where the deepest water probably was. I also had an idea of how the channel ran through the pond from where it entered the pond. It might not be real straight, but that is what the fishing well tell. It is a starting place to the have the break line that fish tend to relate to. I had two rods with me, and they had white and black boa yarn flies on them. It was a good place to start, a light and a dark fly., and I cast the white boa yarn fly first. No real reason, other than it was on the rod that I did not lay down. I let the fly drop a few seconds and started a slow retrieve. The fly had moved about three feet when the line felt heavy. I set the hook and had a nice crappie on the line. I made another cast and got another nice crappie. No real strike, but the line did not feel the same. That was the time to set the hook.
At this point I heard the tractor coming. When the tractor stopped a gentleman got off and got his rod from the trailer behind it and started fishing the pond. I guessed this was the guy that I was to keep an eye on. I continued to cast and got a fish on about every fifth cast. Not real fast fishing but fast enough to be fun. After about 15 minutes I had company.
I discovered his name was Bill and he asked me what I was using. I showed him the fly. He showed me the tube jig he was using. It was a white tube with a yellow skirt. I looked at his rod and asked where he got it. He said his grandson made it for him. It looked like a 7 foot fly rod blank with spinning hardware on it.
He told me that he did not catch many fish. I told him to cast out and to bring the tube in slowly. I saw his tip twitch and yelled at him to set the hook. He jumped when I yelled, but had a fish. He wanted to know how I knew the fish was on. I told him to make another cast and watch the rod tip. He got another fish when I yelled. He told me to cast his rod and he would just watch and try to see the rod tip move. I caught a fish and he said he saw the movement. He had been waiting for a smashing hard hit.
He continued to fish in the area and got several more fish. I picked up some more nice crappie and a few big gills. The fish were still biting when I heard the first rumble of thunder. It was time for me to leave. That is not a good time to be waving a graphite stick in the air. Bill decided to leave also, and he was nice and gave me a ride out to the truck. This made his trip about half a mile longer. Told me he owed me that for being able to catch some fish.
The storm never did develop, but better safe than sorry, and I had some nice fillets to share.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick