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One of the wooden thwarts on my canoe broke and I
was not able to contact the manufacturer to see if
I could order a new one. After two days of trying I
found someone locally that said that he could make
them for me. I guess I should have checked at home
in the first place. At any rate it was Sunday
afternoon before I got out. It rained on Saturday
morning. When there is lightening in the sky I am
not out with a graphite rod in my hand.
I did not take the canoe, as I did not have the two
thwarts and I was not sure how stable it would be
without those. So I was back to the old days of
fishing from the shore. This is something that I do
not do very often. I might not use the canoe when I
have it with me because of weather, but I rarely
leave the canoe at home.
It was wet enough at the pond that I went to that I
left the pickup parked on the road and hiked into
the pond. It is about a quarter of a mile back to
the pond and I would have never made it in the truck.
I could see that the level of the pond was up a few
inches. That meant that we are finally getting some
run off from the rains. Before this all of the rain,
went straight into the cracks in the ground.
This pond is darn near the size of a football field
and has a few little bays off of it. The deepest
water is about 12 feet deep and that is on the southeast
corner of the pond. There are several trees around this
area that make shore casting very difficult. I decided
to take it easy and went to the east side of the pond.
The water is about three feet deep out for about six
feet and then drops off to about six to seven feet.
There are several old stumps along this area. Some
are just under the water and others you find by losing
flies on them. At least that is how I did it.
My thought was that if I could drop the flies by the
stumps there might be some fish relating to them or
to the break line that is not far from the stumps.
I do like it when two things that fish like to use
are near each other. With the trees being fairly
close behind me, I was casting parallel to the shore
and then flipping the line out toward the stumps.
There just is not room to cast straight out. I was
starting at the west end of this area and heading
east so that I could cast out over the water.
I had a red and yellow boa yarn leech on. This fly
does have a bead head on it to help it drop a little
faster. The bead was for a size 16-18 hook and it was
on a size 10 hook. I also have the flies tied without
beads.
I let the fly drop about a foot away from the first
stump that I cast to. It had dropped for a count of
seven when I saw the line twitch. I set the hook and
had the first fish of the day on. It was a nice sized
crappie. This was a little bit of a surprise, for the
middle of the afternoon, but it may be the competition
for food in the pond.
In any case it was a nice fish to go into the basket.
I cast out again near these same stumps and let the
fly drop again. This cast was about a foot longer
than the previous cast, about the middle of the stump
and a foot to the west side. Again at about the seven
count the line twitched and this turned out to be a
pugnacious bluegill. This fish just did not want to
come in. I almost lost the fish twice in the weeds
along the side of the pond. More by luck than skill,
I got this fish in. This was a large female, just
short of a foot long. She went back into the pond.
I did pick up three more fish on this stump.
I picked up a few fish on each of the stumps as I
fished them. I would cast short of the stump first
and then to the stump, and then beyond it a little.
This was done on both the shore and water side of
the stump. It went between two and five fish to the
stump. It was almost evenly divided between crappie
and bluegills. There were also a few bass tossed in.
I heard a vehicle coming toward the pond. That made
me decide that I should move until I could see who
was coming. I do not like to show very many folks
where I am catching fish in a pond.
I am like some other folks that do not give up their
favorite places.
By the time the pickup got to the pond I was casting
at the dam. I did get a few fish there, but they were
not nearly as concentrated as around the stumps. Just
after the other folks launched their boat, I hooked
another fish. The next thing I knew they were parked
right on top of where I had hooked the fish.
I landed this crappie and picked up all my stuff and
left. It had been a great day. A lot of fun, and I
just did not want to put up with any rude folks. I
would have left in a short time any way.
I did end up with a nice mess of fish and I was able
to share some fillets with several folks. I was just
back home from taking the fish out, when I got a phone
call. The land owner asked me not to go to the pond
again for the rest of this year. The folks with the
boat got stuck on the way out and he had to take his
tractor to get them out of the mud. He has the road
blocked and is going to put a gate on it. These folks
were not supposed to be there. He is going to make
it more difficult to get to the pond.
He said that I would get a key when he got the gate up.
Hope you can get out on the water. ~
Rick
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