Hopping Ponds and Loosing Giants

Early spring is an exciting time in the Northeast for fisherman who enjoy variety. Winter holds very little of that... if you want something different from December through mid March in the northeast you are probably going to have to drive a while for it. But as waters warm in April everything starts to eat and any given day there are too many choices... one can't be 10 places at once. But Noah and I sometimes try. Pond hopping is one of those joys of the early season that just doesn't get old. On April 15th (yes, I am just about exactly two months behind), the weather was perfect for hopping spot to spot and we went out seeking panfish to kill and bass and pickerel to release. Our target area was a vicinity I'd spent quite a bit of time in a few years back but hadn't fished that much since. A couple of the ponds aren't that out of the ordinary that I've been missing much but a few are very special.
The first has a miraculous tendency to produce bluegills on dry flies any day it isn't frozen over. I even got a couple on top one day when there was still some ice on the shaded southeast corner.

bluegill x pumpkinseed hybrid

It wasn't in finest form this day but it knocked the skunk of quickly and thoroughly. A morale boost, if you will, though we didn't really need one. The next pond is the one that interests me most as I'd seen and hooked  number of truly large bass in it. Pickerel had also always been abundant there, though of diminutive size. And unlike the first pond it wasn't restricted to catch and release so we'd be assured to leave with some meat.

As we walked the trail around the pond to one of the open areas, I hear Noah exclaim "snake!" from behind me. I dropped my rod and ran back. It was a common species, the most common species frankly, but it was a lovely Eastern garter and posed wonderfully for me, allowing me to get one of my favorite photos I've ever taken of the species.

Garter photographed and sent on his way, we began plying the waters. Bluegills and small pickerel were, predictably, the first fish we caught. They're the predominant species in this pond, closely followed by the ubiquitous and popular Micropterus salmoides. 

It wasn't long before the old green meanie decided to make an appearance. This was not the big one that I was casting at at the time though, she was at least three pounds. But I'd have to be satisfied with the little one though.

Noah, down the bank a ways, managed a near trophy caliber fish. I had never caught or seen a crappie in this pond and here was this beautiful foot long specimen with wonderful iridescent colors.

We decided to eat that fish.

We decided to head back to the van, fill a cooler with water, and then head out on kayaks to try to fill that cooler a little more thoroughly. One crappie does not a meal make. 

It ended up being a small pickerel slam fest, though I was catching bluegills consistently enough to start filling that cooler. I'd started the day with a white woolly bugger, and wasn't feeling any need to change that fly. It was catching fish. 

With the sheer number of pickerel I was catching, I started to wonder if my 6lb tippet would become a potential liability. I didn't expect to lose any large pickerel because of it because I didn't expect to find any large pickerel in this pond, but I didn't want to loose a fly to one of these little hammer handle sized fish.

After I got the release photo above and put my camera away, I picked up my rod to far more weight than should have been there. Thinking I may have forgotten to unhook that fish I'd just released I lifted the rod and looked down into the clear water... and saw a giant. Things suddenly got frantic. My white woolly bugger, dangling in the water while the kayak was drifting and I was busy dealing with a small pickerel, had been eaten by a 25-26 inch monster chain pickerel, a fish the likes of which Id not hooked in years, and I was now virtually guaranteed disappointment. There was no way that 6lb tippet would hold. The fish was fighting hard but staying close enough that I could see it, and eventually I could tell it was hooked in such away that the tippet wasn't in its teeth. Maybe I was in with a shot? No. That pickerel broke my tippet so damn easily on one long hard run. Had I had a net I'd have gotten her. She was up top and close to the kayak for a while. I was gutted. A pickerel of that size is equivalent to a 45 inch pike in my book. They are hard to come by, especially on the fly.

We made a few more drifts there with nothing special happening before moving to another area. We found very little life in a good crappie spot I'd fished before but managed to find some action at a pond I'd seen but never fished. There was a bit of flow coming down from the next pond up the system and some bass and panfish were gathered near that. I rounded out our take with another crappie, this one very dark and spawn-ready.

This was a pretty typical April day, the sort of fishing that was fly fishing for me for a long time. These are my roots, these freshwater ponds in the Northeast, and I won't ever outgrow them because I clearly still haven't figured everything out. I learned so much this one day. If I can't apply what I learned in the future, that's a failure on my part. That's what separates a fisherman from somebody that fishes sometimes. I don't ever want to fall into the latter. Always learn, always grow.
Until next time,

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

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