SENSITIVITY NEEDED
I was going to the second pond that the landowner had told me about. He has been watering out of this pond. This pond is down about four feet. I had a little trouble getting the canoe into the pond because there was a lot of mud around the edge.
Don't ask me why, but I only had two rods with me. One bamboo with a white boa yarn leech on it and a graphite with an experimental fly on it. I decided to use the white boa yarn fly first. I want to go with a fly that I know first to see if the fish are biting.
I made several casts and did not have any hits that I was aware of. Then I made another cast and as I was retrieving the fly back to the canoe I decided to move the fly by the canoe. I wondered if the fly was doing something weird or if the fish were just not interested. When the fly was about five feet from the canoe I could see a fish swimming with it. I had not felt anything on the line or seen the line do anything, but there was a fish with the fly in its mouth. I set the hook and had the first fish of the day. A nice crappie came to hand.
I cast on the other side of the canoe and decided to concentrate more on the line. If the fish were being subtle, I would need to watch more carefully. This did not appear to be one of those "lets annihilate the fly" days. The fly had moved about four feet and I thought I saw a slight twitch of the line. Real or imagined, I did a hook set and had a small crappie on the line.
I made another cast and watched the line. I thought I saw another twitch and set the hook. I had a fish for a few seconds and then nothing. I continued to slowly move the fly and when the fly was almost to the canoe I saw the fish spit out the fly. I would have bet money that the line did not twitch at all.
I made another cast and moved the fly for a few feet, and then did a blind hook set. I had a fish on for a few seconds. I kept retrieving the fly and I had this happen many times. In a rare circumstance I would get a fish in, but most of them were lost after a few seconds.
I changed the white boa fly to one that was more silver colored. I wondered if this might make a difference. I don't know if it mattered to the fish, but for the fisherman it did not make any difference. I lost many more fish than I landed. But I had a fly that the fish would hit.
I tried some other light colored flies, but they did not work for me. I was losing a lot of fish, but still getting some into the canoe. Wish the landed-lost ratio was the opposite of what it was, but fish were in the canoe and the fish were hitting the fly.
I headed home to get some other things done, but I will return to this pond again. There are a lot of nice fish that need to be caught. With the number of fish that hit the fly, there will be a bad winter kill if we get a lot of snow.
It was a fun day to fish. Nice cool weather and the fish demanded being attentive. I think that the days that are more of a challenge are more fun. I will not skip those days when the fish smash the fly, but I also enjoy the days that I have to work harder.
I still caught a nice mess of fish and had fillets to share.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick