Pond Fishin'

This pond is conveniently located directly across the street from my house. We're friends with the people who own the property and they let me fish there any time I want. The pond's been there for a long time, and there's a lot of sediment. I never had the water tested, but talked to a few people and it seems like the quality of the water prevents anything but sunfish to thrive there. There are no predators, so the sunfish go nuts. There are times when I've practically caught one on every cast! Of course many of them are about the size and thickness of a business card, but there are some very large sunfish in there too.

I wanted to go smallmouth fishing today but the river is a raging torrent of chocolate milk. So although it's a little early in the season (my best sunfish days have been in the heat of the summer), I decided it was too nice out to not fish, and I only had a couple hours of sunlight left. But, like smallie fishing, the advantages are the small amount of tackle involved. The only thing I brought not shown in this picture is a pair of hemostats and additional beers.

I've tried bass poppers, small ones, but there are two kinds of flies that these sunfish typically like more than anything else: Damsel flies, and any kind of hopper looking thing with rubbery legs. The more and the rubberier the better. I use my 3 weight, and when a big sunnie's on the line, it's a lot of fun. But small fish are fun too, of course, and I love that I have a place to do some kind of fishing that's a one minute walk from my front door.

This monster is the only little guy I caught today. But in a few more weeks I think the water will warm up and, especially on a warm evening, I'll be able to see them feeding off the surface from my kitchen window, and I'll have that 3-weight handy!