YELLOW ONLY
I got a call from a landowner and he wanted me to come and fish two ponds. He was having to water cattle out of them and was afraid that the ponds will winter kill out. Since I had a day off it was a good time to go out and see what the ponds might have to offer.
I got to the pond and found that it was down about three feet. He had not watered out of this pond yet, so it probably would drop a lot when he does.
I got the canoe ready and moved it toward the pond. I made a couple of casts before I got to the edge, and in the process I picked up one nice crappie. I was not sure why a crappie was this shallow, but the fish always seem to do this to confuse me.
I got in the canoe and moved out into the pond. There was no wind so I did not need to use the anchors. I had four rods with me, and I had a Goldie Jr., black mohair fur tailed leech on one, and a popper- dropper and a yellow boa yarn fly on the other one. These flies that were on the rods from the last fishing trip so it seemed like a good place to start. I cast with the fur tailed leech first, but after several casts the fish showed no interest. I decided to go with the Goldie Jr. but I made several casts wit this fly with no interest shown by the fish. The popper dropper rig did not interest any fish though I usually get some fish on this, but not on this day.
I tried the yellow boa yarn fly. On the first cast the fly had just hit the water and there was a swirl around the fly. I set the hook and had a nice crappie come to the canoe. Since I only had one crappie I chickened out and netted the fish.
I made another cast on the other side of the canoe, and when he fly had dropped a little way the line started moving sideways. I set the hook and had a fish on for a few seconds. I retrieved the fly a few feet and had a repeat of this. I pulled the fly close and saw a crappie roll on the fly. I set the hook and saw the fly in the side of the mouth of the crappie. In a few seconds it was gone.
I cast this fly again, the fish were hitting it, and I kept trying to get a fish to the canoe. This turned out to be much harder than I thought. I was getting about 10% of the fish that hit. The fish would be on for a few seconds and then be gone. My guess, from what I saw, was that the crappies were rolling on the fly and the hook did not hit anything solid.
I tried a few other flies that had yellow in them, but they did not work as well. So I continued to put the yellow boa yarn fly in front of them. Every once in a while I would get a fish to the canoe. Most of the time I got four or five hits as the fly came in, but the hook stayed empty.
I ran out of water and it was getting warm, so I headed home. I had 22 nice fish, and the opportunity to share fillets with several folks.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick