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I went out on Thursday and Friday at
noon to fish the lake over my lunch
hour. Thursday the wind was out of
the south and Friday out of the north.
Thursday I decided to fish the north
end of the settling pond. I figured
any warm water would have been pushed
there. I tried several flies and
nothing was working. I decided to put
on a PTN that I have been laying
with. I have dyed pheasant tails 6 colors
and also have a golden pheasant tail to
use. This gives me 8 colors to use on a
fly. Here is a picture of it.
I tied this fly on, thinking that the
fish might be looking for more realistic
types of flies than most of the attractor
type flies that I had been showing them.
I let the fly drop and slowly started to
bring it in. I had moved the fly about
four feet when I saw the end of the fly
line stop.
I set the hook and had a nice gill on
the line. I continued to do this
and would get a gill every few minutes.
I tied a regular PTN on the other line
and cast it. I did not get a single
fish on this. I ran out of time before
I ran out of fish and had to head
back to the office to work.
On Friday I went back to this pond. The
wind was out of the north so I decided
to fish the south side of the pond. I went
with the colored PTN again. The first fish
I caught was a small bass, about 12 inches
long. I then picked up a few gills by fishing
the fly very slowly. I would move the fly
about an inch every 8 to 10 seconds. I was
using an unweighted fly so that helps.
I made several casts with no success. As
I was retrieving the fly on the last cast,
I had the line slowly start to go down in
the water column. I figured that I had caught
some algae off the bottom. As I continued to move
the fly the line went deeper. I set the hook,
figuring that there might be a fish on the line.
There was a good size bass on the line and
did not like the idea of being hooked. I also
realized that I had 6X tippet on this rod so
there was no way to horse the fish. I began
to play this fish very carefully. The fish
helped by heading out for deeper water and
I moved down the bank to match the fish. We
played some tug-of-war for a fair amount of
time before I could exert some control over
this fish. I would get her in close and then
she would go back out again.
I finally got her into a place where I could
slip her up on the shore. She measured 21
inches long. I removed the hook and returned
her to the pond to fight another day.
I did try a few more casts but I think there
had been too much commotion and the fish were
not interested.
It was interesting that the fish seemed to
follow the warmer water more than they did
structure. The north shore has a small flat
with a drop off. The drop is about 2 feet
and then a gentle slope out. The south bank
is a gentle slope from the edge of the pond
out. On both days I did try the opposite side
of the pond with no success.
I am going to play with these colored PTN
to see if they out fish the regular PTN over
this summer.
Hope you can get out on the water. ~ Rick ziegeria@grm.net
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