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It is Saturday morning again. Time to head for a pond. We had
some very heavy rain at he end of the week. Many of the ponds
are not approachable. The low spots are full of water and the
rest of the ground is muddy. That makes it hard to get in and
out of them. There always seem to be those uphill places that
must be driven over. When the clayish soil gets wet it is very
slick.
This limited the ponds that I could head to. So I went for the
game preserve in Ringold County. It is rock road right up to the
ponds and the boat launch areas are rocked also. This means I
can drive to the pond and launch the canoe easily. I will not
have to transport it a long distance.
There were two camper trailers parked at the upper pond. I decided
the lower pond might be a better place to fish. I did not want to
be accused of waking anyone up. I got the canoe loaded with everything
and pulled it to the waters edge. It is nice at this pond that they
keep the grass cut for about 12 feet on each side of the boat launch.
This makes it easy to launch the canoe.
I knew that this would be a fairly tough day to catch any fish. I
lost sight of a white boa yarn leech fly after it had dropped about
eight inches in the water. I know that fish see better in water than
we do, but the fly was going to have to be very near the fish before
they would see it. I hope that we will get out of this gully washer
syndrome soon. A nice gentle rain would be nice. It does not wash
as much stuff into the pond.
I apologize for forgetting my camera. This pond has as many stickups
in it as the upper pond does. I hoped that some fish might be around
them. I headed out near the first ones and dropped anchor. There was
enough wind blowing to make this a necessity. In fact, there was
enough wind that both anchors went down to make it easier to cast.
The canoe did not swing around then.
I had four fly rods in the canoe with me. I had the white boa yarn
leech on one, the black legged bug on another, a gilly on the third
and the peacock sword tail nymph variation on the fourth. This time
the fly body was from an emu feather and not the ostrich herl. It
tends to push a little more water this way.
None of them worked as I went around some of the stick-ups. I fished
shallow, deep, close to the wood and away from the wood. All sorts
of retrieves were tried. The fish were not there or they did not
like what was being placed in front of them. It was time to change
tactics.
From fishing this pond before I know that the west shore of this pond
has water about three to four feet deep out about 12 feet, for the two
thirds of the pond away from the dam. It was time to see if the fish
could see the flies in this shallower water.
There are also several places along this shoreline where pondweeds
are growing. From previous weeks I wondered if some fish might not
be tucked up in these weeds, as the water was probably a little
clearer. I am a creature of habit. If something works on one pond
then it is worth trying when I go to other ponds that have the same
sort of conditions present.
I tried the gilly first and it did not produce any fish. The white
boa yarn leech did not produce any fish. I am beginning to think
that I need to use a dark fly and keep it shallow. Maybe the fish
will see this against the sky and go for it. This seems to be
ogical thinking to me, I did it.
The black legged was the next to be tried. This fly resulted in
some bluegills taking it. I used an un-weighted one so it would
not drop as fast and could be moved slower. All of the fish hit
the fly while it was within about six feet of shore. I don't know
why, but that is where the fly stayed most of the time. I did get
several bass on this fly also.
There is one place where a tree hangs out over the pond. I caught
two nice crappie in this area. I think they were in the shade of
the tree and thus were in the shallow water. They did not seem to
be anywhere else. If that was not the reason then they were
thumbing their noses at me.
The wind had been slowly increasing all day. It was getting very
hard to cast and I decided that it was time to leave.
It was a fairly nice day to be out. After cleaning the fish, I got
my garden weeded and some more things mulched. All in all it was a
productive day.
Hope you can get out on the water. ~ Rick
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