It is the first of two days in a row that I have off. No rain for a few days
and the urge to go to a pond is too great to miss by staying home. I head
off to a pond that I have not gone to this year.
I discover that there are too many places to cross that hold water and would
cause me to get stuck if I tried to drive through them.
The field is looking good until I get near the pond. The field has been mowed,
but the grass and other plants are about five feet high around the edge of
the pond. The band of pond weed is also about forty feet wide. This will not
be fun to pull the canoe through, but fishing on the pond is too irresistible
to head anywhere else. Every once in a while I have some stubbornness show
up in my behavior.
No attempt is made to try a few casts from the edge of the pond before the
canoe goes into the water. Very sure that the flies would get caught in the
weeds around the pond and then the line would get tangled in the other weeds;
too much time would be spent on untangling these also.
The water is down about a foot around the pond. That much of the bank is showing
in places where the water is usually up to when the pond is full. Later, I
find out that some water was pumped out to water the cattle in the next field
over. Their pond washed out in one of the storms.
The water is fairly clear and the possibilities of a fun day are looking much
better. I know this pond has some good size bluegills and some fairly nice
bass. The pond is rectangular, about half again as wide and long as a football
field.
I have four rods with me. I have 4 of my favorite flies at ready; a Goldie
Jr, a black boa yarn leech, a Gilly and a popper-midge combo. The combo goes
out first, just to see what might be happening. The Goldie Jr is grabbed next,
just because it is bright and shows up a long way away.
After several casts and no success it is time to reevaluate. I try the black
boa yarn leech next.
Maybe the bright is scaring them away. The long and short of it is that the
interest is not any greater in this fly. I move out so that I am over deeper
water and repeat the process.
As I move all over the pond there is no success with any fly that I use. I
go through several flies and the fish show no interest in my efforts.
Things are so desperate that the weird colored flies are going on. I have
orange, purple and a bright pink fly on the three rods. There is a little
desperation, because I know this pond, and several nice fish have come from
this pond.
The salvation of the day comes when two bluegill are taken with the orange
fly. The fly (size 12 Mustad 3399) is darn near bigger than the fish. But
I still claim that I caught a few fish!
So the day was almost a wash, but it was still fun to be out on the water.
Not sure where the fish were or what they wanted. They will be there again
on another day, maybe, but my brain might be bigger than theirs on that day.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick
Originally published August 24, 2009 on Fly Anglers Online by Rick Zieger, Iowa.