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I had an enjoyable outing with friends on an Eastern Shore pond yesterday. The weather was beautiful, especially when compared to what mother nature has presented to us today. Such a pretty scene:
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The pond had residual growth of spatterdock:
P1060464 (2).jpg
It’s starting to yellow but it’s still thick and it still held fish. I know that because I dragged a weedless paddletail through it to see if it caught the attention of a pickerel or bass. It did. I saw the leaves moving as fish took an interest in my lure and I had a couple of splashes but I failed to hookup. That was fine. I would come back to the spatterdock. I had other plans.
I wanted to cast flies so I started by finding shaded shorelines clear of excessive vegetation on the water that would snag my fly and line. I tossed a foam flyrod popper and it worked for two fish. Here’s one of the two pickerels I caught with it:
P1060468 (2).jpg
However, the topwater bite was fleeting. I decided to go subsurface with streamers. I had made these two crystal buggers for the outing:
Crystal Buggers (2).jpg
The top one is articulated. The bottom one is a standard crystal bugger. The large eyes are plastic beads I salvaged from an old costume jewelry necklace that my wife donated to the cause. The flies worked for numerous pickerels and this one small bass:
P1060486 (2).jpg P1060496 (2).jpg
Here is what the articulated fly looks like in the water (looking down) as I paddled to my next target area:
P1060484 (2).jpg
I wish I could show you how it looks on the retrieve. My standard approach is to strip, strip line for a few inches on each pull and pause. It’s during the pause that the fly comes to life. The fly is unweighted. It suspends momentarily in the water column. Because I secure it to the tippet with a perfection loop, it turns randomly to the right or left by the head as I pause. The back end also makes a turn to the right or left. At the same time the marabou tail pulsates. Even though the fly is gaudy and looks like no living creature, the allusion to predatory fish is that it is something to eat. Or maybe in a pickerel's aggressive mind it's something in its space that needs to be eliminated.
For me, the fun of fishing at this time of year is that our pond waters and tidal creeks are clearing as they cool. I can see the fly in action several feet under the surface. I can also see the flash of a pickerel as it slashes at the fly, always from behind or the side. Never head-on. The waters are not so clear that I can sight cast to pickerels yet. That will come in winter. But for now, I find it exciting to see such a bust of speed under the surface and to suddenly feel the weight of a fish on the line in my left hand as I set the hook with a strip-strike and begin the process of pulling my catch in.
I tossed the articulated fly on a 7-weight 9-foot rod with intermediate line and a mono 30-pound leader four feet long. I cast the regular crystal bugger with another 7-weight, 9-foot rod with floating line and a graduated 8-foot leader and 30-pound bite tippet.
I can’t say the fishing was fast and furious, but the pickerels kept me busy to the point that I never touched my spinning rod after my initial few casts with it. I got 16 picks in the net and the lone bass. And I lost a good number on long distance releases. Most that I boated were small at 16 to 18 inches. One reached 20 inches and one was 19 inches. All of them went airborne after I hooked them. Unfortunately, that’s also when they are most likely to come unbuttoned. I don’t count them as catches but I enjoy them just the same.
Early in the day, the fish were tight to shore in shaded areas. Later they move off of the shoreline to slightly deeper. I targeted water that was not rippled on the surface by wind. Occasionally I would see fish breaking the surface crashing through minnows. When I saw that I would cast the fly in their direction just like casting a lure into breaking stripers. It yielded a few hookups.
Back to the spatterdock. I mentioned earlier that I knew fish were hiding in it. When I cast flies, I work the edges of surface plants and I look for gaps in them to target with casts. Here’s a good example – a nice gap in the heart of the vegetation that yielded a catch:
P1060499 (2).jpg
I discovered that my ugly bead-headed streamers served a dual purpose. I could circle a field of spatterdock and cast the flies parallel and tight to the edges, sometimes going inside just 6 inches or a foot. The large beads on the head of the fly helped to deflect the spatterdock leaves from the hook-point. I don’t attest that the flies are weedless. I did snag leaves sometimes. But they were close enough to being weedless for my purposes.
So, that was my day on a pond. I really enjoy fishing these waters.
P1060471 (3).jpg
The pond had residual growth of spatterdock:
P1060464 (2).jpg
It’s starting to yellow but it’s still thick and it still held fish. I know that because I dragged a weedless paddletail through it to see if it caught the attention of a pickerel or bass. It did. I saw the leaves moving as fish took an interest in my lure and I had a couple of splashes but I failed to hookup. That was fine. I would come back to the spatterdock. I had other plans.
I wanted to cast flies so I started by finding shaded shorelines clear of excessive vegetation on the water that would snag my fly and line. I tossed a foam flyrod popper and it worked for two fish. Here’s one of the two pickerels I caught with it:
P1060468 (2).jpg
However, the topwater bite was fleeting. I decided to go subsurface with streamers. I had made these two crystal buggers for the outing:
Crystal Buggers (2).jpg
The top one is articulated. The bottom one is a standard crystal bugger. The large eyes are plastic beads I salvaged from an old costume jewelry necklace that my wife donated to the cause. The flies worked for numerous pickerels and this one small bass:
P1060486 (2).jpg P1060496 (2).jpg
Here is what the articulated fly looks like in the water (looking down) as I paddled to my next target area:
P1060484 (2).jpg
I wish I could show you how it looks on the retrieve. My standard approach is to strip, strip line for a few inches on each pull and pause. It’s during the pause that the fly comes to life. The fly is unweighted. It suspends momentarily in the water column. Because I secure it to the tippet with a perfection loop, it turns randomly to the right or left by the head as I pause. The back end also makes a turn to the right or left. At the same time the marabou tail pulsates. Even though the fly is gaudy and looks like no living creature, the allusion to predatory fish is that it is something to eat. Or maybe in a pickerel's aggressive mind it's something in its space that needs to be eliminated.
For me, the fun of fishing at this time of year is that our pond waters and tidal creeks are clearing as they cool. I can see the fly in action several feet under the surface. I can also see the flash of a pickerel as it slashes at the fly, always from behind or the side. Never head-on. The waters are not so clear that I can sight cast to pickerels yet. That will come in winter. But for now, I find it exciting to see such a bust of speed under the surface and to suddenly feel the weight of a fish on the line in my left hand as I set the hook with a strip-strike and begin the process of pulling my catch in.
I tossed the articulated fly on a 7-weight 9-foot rod with intermediate line and a mono 30-pound leader four feet long. I cast the regular crystal bugger with another 7-weight, 9-foot rod with floating line and a graduated 8-foot leader and 30-pound bite tippet.
I can’t say the fishing was fast and furious, but the pickerels kept me busy to the point that I never touched my spinning rod after my initial few casts with it. I got 16 picks in the net and the lone bass. And I lost a good number on long distance releases. Most that I boated were small at 16 to 18 inches. One reached 20 inches and one was 19 inches. All of them went airborne after I hooked them. Unfortunately, that’s also when they are most likely to come unbuttoned. I don’t count them as catches but I enjoy them just the same.
Early in the day, the fish were tight to shore in shaded areas. Later they move off of the shoreline to slightly deeper. I targeted water that was not rippled on the surface by wind. Occasionally I would see fish breaking the surface crashing through minnows. When I saw that I would cast the fly in their direction just like casting a lure into breaking stripers. It yielded a few hookups.
Back to the spatterdock. I mentioned earlier that I knew fish were hiding in it. When I cast flies, I work the edges of surface plants and I look for gaps in them to target with casts. Here’s a good example – a nice gap in the heart of the vegetation that yielded a catch:
P1060499 (2).jpg
I discovered that my ugly bead-headed streamers served a dual purpose. I could circle a field of spatterdock and cast the flies parallel and tight to the edges, sometimes going inside just 6 inches or a foot. The large beads on the head of the fly helped to deflect the spatterdock leaves from the hook-point. I don’t attest that the flies are weedless. I did snag leaves sometimes. But they were close enough to being weedless for my purposes.
So, that was my day on a pond. I really enjoy fishing these waters.
Winners have their names engraved on a plaque on the clubhouse wall. 
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