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It was a wild weekend for activities. I
had way too many things to do. It turned
out that Saturday afternoon was the only
chance to get out fishing. The only trouble
was the 30 to 35 mph wind that was blowing.
Faced with the option of fishing for staying
away from the water, I was gone. My wife had
already gone shopping with her sister.
I went out to a pond that I know faces east
and west and has a forested area on the north
side. I hoped the trees would slow down the
wind a little. I think they took it down to
25 mph. It may help more when the leaves get
a little bigger, but it was the best of the
four ponds I looked at.
I got everything into the canoe and headed
out on the pond. I went to the west end
where the dam is and anchored the canoe.
I had to drop both anchors to make it stay
in one spot. I decided my only chance was
to cast with the wind. I could not get much
distance against the wind.
I tried several patterns with no luck. What
I noticed is that the wave action was strong
enough that the unweighted flies were being
kept up near the surface. The resistance of
the fly on the end of the line seemed to be
enough that they would not drop in the water
column.
I started going through the flies with bead
heads and bead chain eyes. The ones with the
bigger bead heads and bead chain eyes stayed
down better but the fish were not interested
in them. I kept on changing flies. I finally
put on a black leech I had tied with crow
feathers that I got from Charlie Bonner. I
used a body feather, after I stripped the
barbs off of one side. I palmered this up a
size 8 hook. I had tied large bead chain eyes
on this hook. By loosely palmering the feather
up the hook with the barbs pointed backwards
the feather pulsed nicely as the fly was twitched.
The feather went about 3/4 of an inch behind
the bend when wrapped this way.
I cast the fly out and let it drop for a few
seconds. At this point the fly line started to
go under the water. I decided that maybe there
was a fish on and I set the hook. I was into a
very nice bull bluegill that turned sideways
and did everything he could to not come in. I
cast out into the same general area and let the
fly drop again. The fly had barely hit the
water when the line was moving to the side.
This time I was into a bass that did not like
the sting of the hook at all. This fish kept
trying to get to the bottom of the pond where
there are several tree limbs and large chunks
of concrete slab. Great cover for fish, but
also great places to lose fish. This bass was
a female, full of eggs and went back into the
pond.
I cast a few more times into that area and got
nothing. I cast about 10 feet to the side and
when the fly had dropped for about three seconds
was into another gill. It was another fat bull
gill. I continued to fan cast around the canoe.
I found that casting about 10 feet from where
the last cast went gave a better chance of
getting a fish.
I worked the first area a couple of times like
that just to see if the fish would be active in
the area where I had hooked a fish previously.
That was not the case.
I moved the canoe about 30 feet down the pond.
I made a cast of about 15 feet and let the fly
drop. Another nice gill hit the fly. I got another
fish on almost every cast and I fan cast about
10 feet to the side each time. When I got back
to the starting spot, I made a little longer
cast to see what would happen. I tied into a
small bass this time, but I caught
several more gills as I cast around the canoe.
I moved the canoe several more times and continued
to have fish strike as I let the fly drop. I did
try retrieving the fly a few times, but the fish
were just not interested. I could get two or three
circuits of casting at each spot before I needed
to move.
When I got about 3/4 of the way down the pond
the water got too shallow and the fish were just
not there, as far as I could tell. I moved back
up the pond and went a little farther out into
the pond. I did catch a few crappie out at this
point but the wind was making it hard to cast
and moving the canoe too much. I called it quits
and headed home.
I had a nice mess of gills and three crappie.
I had returned a few huge gills and returned
all the bass I had hooked. Great fun for a
few hours.
Hope you can get out on the water. ~ Rick ziegeria@grm.net
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