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I went to a new pond that I had been told had some great
fishing. The land owner had given me permission to fish it.
He also told me where to find the key to get through the gate.
I went to the pond and found that it was much larger than
I had been lead to believe. This thing was just under 20
acres in size. That is four to six times larger that most of
the places that I fish. But it was supposed to have good
fishing. I was willing to try.
The water was fairly clear so I went with a flashy fly and
one with a little more bulk to see what might happen. I put
the flies all over that lake and at many different depths. The
fish must not have liked what they saw.
I decided to put on a small leech pattern and a hares ear
type fly and fish under some of the bushes and tress that
were along the shore on the south side. I hoped there might
be a few gills in this area. The flies were getting hit, but nothing
was being hooked. I had been using a size 10 Goldie Jr and a
size 12 hares ear type fly.
I put on a size 16 PTN and a size 20 midge. The midge
was black woolly nylon with some very fine silver wire as
a rib. Neither was elaborate, but might be small enough to
catch something.
I would cast the fly near the vegetation on the bank and
let the fly drop.
I did pick up a few fairly good bluegills doing this. I found
the longer I let the fly drop the better chance I had of getting
a decent fish. Neither fly was weighted so it took a long time
to drop to where the fish might take it. I started casting out
both flies about a minute apart and letting them both drop
slowly. This is legal in Iowa, so check you local regulations.
With that much time between the two flies hitting the water
one of them was always deeper than the other. If a fish hit
the first one I had it landed before the second got to the
depth where a fish might take it. This did not happen very
often, but enough to keep it fairly interesting.
I moved on around the pond looking for more fish. When
I got to the dam end the trees ended.
I changed to some other flies and started fishing a little
deeper to see what I might find. It turned out to not be
much of anything.
I tried other flies and even fished a few bigger flies to see
if that might tempt the fish. I was about half way around
the pond when another boat came to fish it. This was the
land owner.
He came by to check and see what I might be catching.
I showed him what I had and told him that I had not
connected with any crappie.
He told me the pond had bluegill, bass and channel cat.
None of his ponds had crappie in them.
He was trying this lake for the first time to see how it
would fish. He has owned the land for less than six months.
He knew the previous owner had let some other people
come in and fish.
He also told me that he had been informed by a few
other people that some folks came in and used a seine
net to drag the pond and took huge numbers of fish out.
That is why the gate was locked.
I fished a little longer and then headed home.
Hope you can get out on the water. ~ Rick Zieger
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