EVEN STEVEN
I got a phone call that I could go in and fish a pond. The only request was that I hike in and not drive. When I got to the field I could tell why. Most of the field is fairly hilly and everything was very dry. My guess was that any rain did not soak in so driving might have caused a grass fire. I knew that this pond is really open. The trees are at least 50 yards from the pond with very few bushes around. It's really hard to snag the big ones here. I took two 3 weights with me. I put on a black fur tailed leech and a yellow boa yarn fly
This pond is just slightly larger than a football field. I can easily fish the whole perimeter. I started with the yellow fly first and on the second cast I had a nice crappie on the line. Several more casts did not get any more fish. I tried the black fly and got two nice gills.
I did notice that all the fish hit when the fly was coming in perpendicular to the shoreline. I got nothing when retrieved along the shoreline. Anything that was about 10 degrees or more off perpendicular did not seem to interest the fish.
So it turned out to be a few casts in each spot, with each rod. I got a few fish in each spot and then time to move on. I have no explanation, but the fish were caught about 10 feet apart. So that is how each move became. Each spot produced a few fish. Some times on the black fly and at times on the yellow one. It did not seems to matter if it was crappie or bluegill. About every fifth fish was a bass.
I worked my way around the pond to where I started. I tried a few of each again and got a few more fish. None of them were very deep in the water column. My guess is hooking a few scattered the rest.
The basket was getting heavy and it seemed like a good time to head home. The hike uphill was harder than the one going downhill to the pond. Even the tail wind did not seem to help much.
I had lots of fillets to share and it turned out that an even number of crappie and gills were caught.
If you can guess the number of each I will send you two of each of the flies.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick