In between the rain…

I have been in school so opportunities to get out and fish have been few and far between.  When I get a chance to fish, I have to find a way to take advantage of it as they are at a premium.  I had just one of those chances on Friday afternoon.  I had an appointment in Willoughby about 10 minutes drive from one of my favorite parks to fish the river.  I went down to the park and found the water to be off color.  There was some limited visibility, about 12”, but conditions were not good.  It had rained a lot a couple of days before and the river had not really dropped into shape yet.  I began by swinging through two good riffle, run, pool, sections that usually produce for me.  Nothing!  I decided to change flies and tactics.  I tied on a small crayfish pattern and a minnow dropper.  I drifted through the same areas I had just swung through making it back to the head of the riffle I began at and again, nothing.  At this point I only had about a half hour left to fish.  I decided to work the drop off just under the riffle really hard.  I was working the inside current break and my fly stopped, I knew it was either a fish or a snag.  I gave it a yank to set the hook Justin case it was a fish.  One of two things was going to happen I was going to hook a fish or set the hook deep into a snag.  Just as I set the hook, a monster smallmouth shot out of the water about 3’ in front of me!  It was a huge fish!!  It jumped again, ran down river, then it charged straight at me.  I was unable to pick up line fast enough and when the line had slack in it, the fish threw the hook.  It was sad to lose that fish, but I would say that was the largest small mouth I had ever had on the line.  It was huge and worked my 5 weight rod.  That was a fish I would have preferred to have on a 7 weight.  I was worried it was going to break the tippet or maybe even the rod.  Even though I lost that fish I still felt like I had accomplished something.  On the way back to the car I fished a slow run near the access and was rewarded with a good sized resident fish.  I managed to pull the skunk out on the way back to the car.  

It rained again Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday morning.  I had planed to get up early Sunday morning and fish a pond because the rain had blown out the rivers.  I had home work to do Sunday and that morning was going to be the last chance to fish for the next week or so.

It was poring rain on Sunday morning when I got up at 6:00am to go fishing.  It wasn’t going to happen.  I went to do some home work and the sun came out at about 3:00, I packed it up and headed for the pond to see if I could get into some largemouth bass fishing some still water.  I had only fished still water with a fly rod 1 time before with no luck.  When I was in Hammondsport last October I fished Keuka Lake from the pier with a sink tip.  It was worthless.  Needless to say I had low expectations for this outing.  I began fishing in an area that looked promising; the problem was brush.  I did not have any room to cast.  I moved to a spot on the pond that had an opening for a back cast that was near an inlet that was flowing at a good rate.  I thought this inlet was a good place to start.  On the second or third cast, I caught the smallest largemouth bass I have ever caught.  It was literally about 3.5”; unimpressive to say the least.  It was smaller than the small resident smallmouth bass I catch in the river; those are at least 6-8”.  I thought to my self “it’s going to be one of those days”.  Grrreeeaaat…  I continued around the pond and talked to a guy throwing hardware.  He said it was the worst day you could fish, the day after a storm.  He wasn’t catching anything.  I walked over to a down fall and began probing the edges; nobody was home.  I walked to the other side of the down fall and found another down tree that extended out about 14’ or so to the deeper water.  I cast my fly to the end of the tree and worked it in parallel to the tree, about half way back on the first cast I had a jolting strike!  I set the hook, I really whacked this fish.  I dove for the wood pile and I had to work it away from there.  I could feel a good pull, nut I hadn’t been able to get a look at the fish yet.  I finally worked it to the surface where it started tail dancing and thrashing as I brought it to hand.  It was a pretty good largemouth for this pond.  It fought a good fight on the 5 weight rod.  I continued to fish around the pond, changed flies to a nymph pattern and cast at some blue gills that were in plain sight.  The blue gills were on nests and were not interested in my offering.  I changed flies again and put on a popper with a rubber legged nymph dropper.  I worked a bunch of water making my way around to where I started with nothing else.  There is a second pond that is partially accessible from the park; the rest of it is posted.  I worked the part of other pond I could reach from park grounds with no sign of fish.  I was near the inlet where I caught the tiny largemouth when I first arrived.  I decided to tie a clouser on again and give the inlet another shot. This time I cast under the tree limbs stretched out over the water from the edge of the pond on the far side of the inlet.  These trees shaded the water and there was a lot of wood in the water over there; good bass structure.  I cast to a tree stump near a submerged log and began working the fly back to me, bam, fish on!  It was another largemouth.  This one was bigger than the first, but smaller than the second fish.  I got a couple of pictures and released the fish.  It was time to pack it in and head to Mom and Dad’s for Sunday dinner.  It was a pretty good afternoon at the pond.  I out-fished two guys fishing bait and a guy throwing hard baits.  The two guys fishing bait were right near me when I caught the second fish (the biggest bass I caught today).  They were very interested to see what I caught the bass on.  You could tell they were surprised to see a clouser minnow as they don’t look very effective to the angler, but fish love them!  Getting out on the pond was just the ticket to get some good bass action on the fly rod even though the rivers are all blown.  It was a happy afternoon for me since I thought my prospects for fishing today were drowned by this morning’s rain.