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I was asked to come to a pond and catch a
bunch of the fish. The owner is going to drain
the pond and take out the silt that has come in
over the years. He is also making a couple of
shallow ponds to catch the run off and slow down
the siltation process.
I have never been to this pond before so it was
going to be trial and error to see what would work.
When I got there he was at the pond and asked my to
keep any bass I caught and put them into a stock
tank he had on a trailer. The tank had an aeration
system running off a battery that he said to start
when I put some fish in.
This pond is about 50 feet wide and 80 feet long
so I decided to start at one end of the dam and go
around. Cast out a fly and let it drop for a few
seconds before I started stripping it in. Did this
several times and nothing was happening. Time to
change because the owner had told me that there
were a lot of fish in this pond.
Cast out and started moving the fly right away so
it was just under the surface. Had something slap
at the fly but not take it. Did this a few times
before I started making long slow strip of the fly.
This is when I began to connect with fish. I hooked
a lot of crappie that got off when the fly ripped
out. Slowly worked my way around the pond as I would
get a few bites at each place I stopped but the
disturbance of catching a few fish seemed to turn
the others off, or they were widely scattered.
Got down in the area of the pond where the water
was only a few feet deep. This is where I began to
have small bass hit the fly. I did notice that
there seemed to be a larger fish working the area
around a bunch of algae caught on the surface. I
tied on a black nymph with a foam wing case that
sets in the surface film and cast it out as far
as I could. I then let it drift down toward the
algae bed as this was the direction the light
breeze pushed it.
There was a big swirl around the fly and then the
line tightened. I finally set the hook after waiting
an eternity so I would not jerk it away. I had a
nice tussle on my hands. Took me about 10 minutes
to land this bass. She was 26 inches long and had
a huge belly full of eggs.
I immediately took her to the trailer and started
the aerator. Went back down to where I had been
fishing and kept moving along. Caught several more
fish and lost several more but had a lot of fun. I
found that I was having the best luck using a white
or yellow bugger on a size 10 hook. Tried several
other flies but they did not work any where near
as well.
I had a fish basket full of fish and decided that
it was probably time to stop. I did catch a few
more bass and put them in the tank.
I was starting to break my rods down to head out
when the land owner showed up again. He wanted to
know if I had caught any good bass for him to move.
I told him that he would have to decide how good
they were. I wish I had a picture of the look on
his face when he saw that big bass. He had no idea
there was a fish that large in his pond.
He wants me to come back and get more of the fish
out. He will have someone in his family work on the
pond over the Labor Day weekend. He would like as
many of the fish as can be to be caught out as they
are going to pump the pond dry and then use a drag
line to clean it. He is then going to restock it.
I am going to try to get back out there and
maybe take a couple of kids with me so they
can have fun. I know I had fun.
Have fun on the water. ~ Rick
ziegeria@grm.net
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