Pond Behind Shopping Center

[Mark]

How about a swarm, or pestilence?
Perhaps horde or scourge?


[ATTACH=CONFIG]21465[/ATTACH]

"Hey move over, I need some elbow room!"
"Shut up, dumbass, you don't have any elbows, you're a goldfish!"

Much better! My fish can't read anyway...

[DanMarino]

No bass yet, but every bluegill is as big as my hand.

[Mark]

No bass yet, but every bluegill is as big as my hand.

Excellent Tom.

I'm glad to see the bluegills were active for you.

I plan to catch a few of those and their largemouth sunfish cousins on the fly this coming week at Trap.

If you believe that bass are present in your pond and you want to catch one, upsize your fly. You'll still nail a few hyper-aggressive bluegills that can't control themselves. But usually the bass will ignore the smaller flies and go for something beefier.

P1020741.jpg

[bignose]

giant-goldfish-1.jpg

This is why you don't let "little Goldie" loose in a pond.
Imagine a couple of thousand of these in a small pond. We had that happen around here, in Sewell's Orchard, several years ago.

Bet you could catch them on a wooly worm, though, and they'd put up a pretty good fight.
But you wouldn't want to take them home for dinner.

[DanMarino]

Thanks Mark, I'm working on making some poppers now that might work for some bass.

Stu, that's the coolest goldfish I've ever seen!

[Mark]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]21467[/ATTACH]

This is why you don't let "little Goldie" loose in a pond.
Imagine a couple of thousand of these in a small pond. We had that happen around here, in Sewell's Orchard, several years ago.

Bet you could catch them on a wooly worm, though, and they'd put up a pretty good fight.
But you wouldn't want to take them home for dinner.

Holy cow!

That's a monster.

Don't worry Stu, mine will stay in their tank.

[Mark]

Thanks Mark, I'm working on making some poppers now that might work for some bass.

Stu, that's the coolest goldfish I've ever seen!

Good. You'll catch bass soon enough.

[bunnielab]

That goldfish is amazing. I stalked what I thought was one that big in the spillway under Burnt Mills Dam for about three weeks before it stopped showing up. It might have been a holdover golden trout, but it looked too tall bodied for that.

I have noticed that you guys all seem to use poppers very frequently. Are they the most effective for around here, or are they just more fun to fish? I was thinking about picking up a small tenkara rod for an "always on me" fishing option for hiking days when even a spinning/casting travel kit seems like too much weight or bulk. I know being reel-less I would be limited a ton in the styles of flys that I can use, but I don't want to cripple myself if local conditions call for something specific.

[Mark]

I have noticed that you guys all seem to use poppers very frequently. Are they the most effective for around here, or are they just more fun to fish?

Drew,

Poppers are my "go-to" fly. I started fly fishing with poppers and I'm glad I did because not only are they effective (in warm water) but they require you to learn a good casting stroke. The larger ones can provide significant wind resistance which teaches you to allow the rod to fully load on the back cast before attempting to move the fly forward. If you can fly cast poppers, you can fly cast darned near any fly.

Undoubtedly, I have caught more fish on the fly on poppers than any other fly. They work well for SM bass in our rivers and LM bass in ponds, lakes and reservoirs. I've also caught stripers, white perch, blues and pickerels on poppers in tidal waters. They are especially effective at this time of year in ponds when SAV is prevalent to foul streamers and subsurface lures. I frequently fish poppers in areas where I couldn't possibly pull a lure through the vegetation.

As I mentioned above, they are primarily warm water flies. I don't even try them around here until late April. The water has to be sufficiently warm to activate fish metabolisms to strike. Now is an excellent time for poppers in fresh water as bass are shallow, either bedding or staging or cruising for food. For stripers, and blind casting as opposed to casting to breaking fish, I do better in the late summer and fall.

Lastly, they are indeed enjoyable to fish. Often I'll see a bow wave of an approaching fish before the surface explodes in a splash and my popper disappears. I have seen SM bass come out of the water and hit the popper on the way down. LM bass rarely miss their strikes and sometimes they'll hit a popper as soon as it lands. They must have been following its flight. Pickerels, for as vicious as they look will sometimes hit a popper very subtly. They'll suck it down with hardly a disturbance on the surface. A striper is likely to hit it several times before hooking up so the key with them is to keep the popper moving.

To answer your question, yes, a popper is both effective and fun to fish.

[DanMarino]

Topwater is the most fun for fly fishing. I love the visual of the fish strike. It is addictive.
I'm having a great time learning to tie my own flies and even more fun if those flies catch fish.
A floating pink spider is guaranteed to catch bluegills and some small bass.

[dhawk]

worked with a gentleman at the airport 20 years ago that had a habit of stocking fish in settlement ponds around Anne Arundel County

[bunnielab]

Got you. It sounds more and more like I want a standard fly setup. The dream of a super light and compact kit is going to be hard to let go of though.

[Mark]

Got you. It sounds more and more like I want a standard fly setup. The dream of a super light and compact kit is going to be hard to let go of though.

Graphite fly rods with appropriately sized reels are very light. But then, so is modern conventional tackle today. We've been spoiled in a good way.