February 23, 2011. Fished a small farm pond last night. Air temperature was around 35 degrees and the water was very cold…not a very scientific temperature reading, but I didn’t have along my fish finder and could only venture a guess. I know that any fish is going to be near or on the bottom and that this pond is only about 10 feet deep at its deepest so I went with a 5 weight outfit and a full sinking type 3 fly line.
I started off with a black bitch creek nymph on a red hook that I tie in a size 8…no weight and I was allowing the line to sink for about 5 seconds. I had no hits on the nymph and thus switched to a small, silver fly rod spoon that was getting down deeper, quicker. I was basically trolling the spoon and had a couple hits and then caught one 16 inch bass that didn’t have a lot of fight in him.
As my feet started to numb I switched one more time to a weighted fly that I tie that resembles a crayfish/sculpin pattern and works well in fast water or deep in ponds and lakes. Once again I was making long cast and retrieving short, slow strips of about 6 inches per strip. I fished the crayfish pattern about 10 minutes with no hits and will start there the next time I fish this pond.
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