Before and After

We got snow again, and I'm glad for it. Snow seems to trickle slowly into the ground and aquifer, making it's way into the streams at a steadier pace than rain. Before the snow the fishing was good. Not excellent, not great, not spectacular, not epic. Just plain ol' good. On Tuesday I put in some time on local ponds to see exactly what the deal was. I've already been carping a few times, and caught one, but that was hideously boring. I had the worst carp fight I've ever had in my life, just no effort whatsoever on the part of the fish. It, and a few other recent outing were just not whole-post worthy. 

Tuesday was much more entertaining because I got to play chess with big, brainy fish again. They weren't really in the right mood for that the last three times I had been. Fishing to 15-30lb, brainy, spooky fish on a sprawling mudflat is just so incredibly engaging. Anyone that can drop an accurate cast to the exact right spot in front of a carp that's feeding heavily 60 feet away and be able to tell exactly when that fish has taken the fly has my respect. As does anyone who has the patience to wait for the exact right moment. There's no room for impatience, you have to let the fish dictate when you act, just like sight fishing to an 8lb wild brown trout in a clear freestone stream.
I got the cold shoulder. I was patient, I think I made the right casts, but sometimes these fish just know. In this pond they don't just ignore the fly. If they see it, didn't feel it hit the water, and don't notice me or my line, they either eat the fly or run away. I've never seen this elsewhere. These fish very clearly see the fly, take interest in it, then decide not just to refuse it but to vacate the premises. I think it is very likely that they remember being hooked or even pricked, and if a food item is at all odd looking to them they run hell. And today, every fish that I didn't spook with an over aggressive presentation spooked after briefly examining the fly.

After bothering every single carp in the pond I got a very similar cold shoulder from the 15 or so largemouth between 1 and 8lbs I put my fly in front of. If  you wouldn't think that a size 8 unweighted black leach no a 12ft leader presented delicately 10 feet ahead of a slowly cruising 8lb bass would spook it, you'd be wrong. At least in this case.
When both the carp and bass say "no thanks" it is panfish time. A couple weeks after ice out in this pond bluegills start relating to any woody debris coming off the banks, regardless how deep the adjacent water is. They are very, very skittish. Stepping on a stick, the fly landing too hard, long casting strokes... all will scare the fish away temporarily. Bow and arrow casts, light wetflies, and midge dry flies are employed to trick these tricky bluegills.

This is why I fish midges for bass and bluegills.

I visited another pond to see if the crappie were getting up into the shallows there. They were, but marauding hordes of small bluegills kept me entertained for a little while.

On to white perch city... the migration into the backwaters has been on for a while and as usual the fish are packed in there like cord wood. Unfortunately I no longer have access to the dock I used to fish from so I had to wade. That made it hard to get to the biggest fish that sit furthest out into the lake. A few dozen small white perch and my hands got cold enough I had to call it quits.

And yesterday, it snowed. It was a wet, heavy snow that coated everything, broke limbs, pulled down trees and wires, and wrecked havoc. Limb fell on a wire down the stream early last night, causing a shower of blue sparks that lasted 30 seconds. The show was repeated a short time later. Today we lost power for a few hours as well.

After this snow the melt-off will doubtlessly slow the fishing around here down again, but it's March and this is perfectly normal. I'm sick of people complaining about winter. This is New England. We're supposed to be capable of handling this. Stop your whining, let's go fishing! < That is the more appropriate of the two sentence choices I came up with. The other one rhymed.