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I went out on my normal Saturday morning jaunt in mid October. The mornings
are getting crisp and the leaves are turning. But as long as the ice is not
on the pond then I am going to be out there sometime during the day. I got
to the pond about 7:00 am in the morning, just as it is getting light out.
This was my first trip to this pond this year. The field had been harvested
and I could drive across the field. The road along the side the field is
just too rough to drive over. This road is a very rough washboard. The
owner does not fix it as it keeps folks out of the property all summer. It
keeps me out also until the crops are out of the ground.
The pond is rectangular in shape. It is about 200 feet long and 80 feet
wide, with the dam at the east end. The north side of the pond slopes down
very gently to the edge of the pond. The south side of the pond is right at
the edge of the hills that border it. The west end of the pond is very
shallow and filled with lily pads. The pond is about 14 feet deep at its
deepest point which is about 40 feet out from the dam. The dam end of the
pond has about 4 feet of water out for about 12 feet. At the time the pond
was built, the cat made this cut along the dam. The water then drops off
fairly quickly to about 8 feet and the slopes out to the deepest part.
This pond has bass, crappie and green sunfish in it. The owner does not
want any bluegill put into it. I can't get a good reason out of him, but it
is his pond and I go with the flow on this.
I got everything into the canoe and got out through the lily pads at the
west end of the pond. This seems to be the best spot to put the canoe in. I
had a black boa yarn leech on the 3 wt and a Marabou Miss on the 5 wt. My
quarry was the crappie in the pond.
There was no wind so I did not put an anchor down. I cast with the Marabou
Miss so that it was about a foot outside the lily pads. I let it drop a few
seconds and then started a slow retrieve. It had not moved far when it got
hit hard. No need to set the hook, but I did, and then fought the fish. It
turned out to be a bass about 8" long. I returned this fish with
instructions to send his cousins out to eat.
I cast out again and repeated this. Every time I got the fly in the water
one of those darn pesky little bass would hit it. I tried the other rod
with the leech and the same thing happened. I switched flies and that did
not make a difference. I moved east along the north edge of the pond to try
other places. Maybe deeper water would help. It did not matter, wherever I
tossed a fly, one of those pesky little bass was there. This even happened
when I cast to the center of the pond.
I decided that my only chance of getting any other fish would to be to go
down near the dam. I could fish the drop off along the dam and maybe have
some other fish take the fly. I did try this and managed to get one crappie
and two green sunfish for my efforts. I did get several more of those pesky
little bass.
I tried flies that had huge bead heads on them. I wanted to see if getting
the fly deeper, quicker might help. Those darn little bass just kept hitting
the fly.
I ran out of time as I had volunteered to help move some folks from a house
into an apartment in town. It just proves that you never can know what is
going to happen when you head out to a pond. I will return to this pond
again sometime, hopefully this fall and try again.
My wife did ask me what was wrong with me when I came home with three fish.
I told her that is why it is called fishing and not catching. There must
be a way to get past those pesky little bass.
Hope you can get out on the water. ~ Rick
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