Cold Morning at the pond

Fish #1

In a fear that my fishing season of 2011 was quickly ending, and I needed to catch more fish, I left early for work and stopped at the pond Friday morning.

It was cold! I could see my breath, and the water was motionless. The tons of little fish that always congregate by the pipe were nowhere to be seen. There were some weeds, but there was no activity on the pond.

I started casting my mepps black fury #3 (which had been so successful there a few days ago). After 10 minutes without so much as a bump, I wondered if I was at the right pond! Usually the fish here lined up for a chance to be in my Facebook profile pictures, but not today.

I switched to my beloved tube jig, a 3" green one- the same one that landed me the 18" largemouth at burnham a few weeks back.

Again, no takers. Although my phone said the temperature was rising, standing there in the cold, casting to what seemed to be an empty pond, it definitely seemed colder. Every turn of my reel sprayed me with icy cold water from the pond. Normally I don't notice this, but due to it's frigid temperature today I was painfully aware!

I thought back to a similar situation, at the same pond, where the bite was completely off. I wonder if it was the fish responding to a cold front or something. The Internet tells me sometime soon they should be going crazy stuffing themselves for winter, but apparently that wasn't happening today. That previous difficult morning I busted out a Texas rigged plastic worm to land my few bass. Drawing on my very limited experience, I switched out my mepps for a wacky rigged brown worm, I think 6".

On the third cast, I let the worm sink to the bottom, and sit there for a minute. I tried to reel in, but I was hung up on some weeds. Then the weeds started to move, picking up steam as they tried to escape the line.

Fish on!

At this point the fish knew it was attached to something. It was not happy about it.

In this little pond there seem to be two kinds of bass: smaller ones that jump out of the water like circus performers, and big monster bass that fight my rod with pure force, heading for the bottom. This fish was in the latter category,

After a short fight, I landed it, and admired the spunky little bass. Not the smallest to come out of there, but definitely not the biggest. Well whatayaknow I beat the skunk!

Fish #2

I took some pictures of my catch with the lure still attached, the way I've seen some master-angler-types roll. I'm not sure if they do that because they can get a picture sooner, or to show what lure they used to catch the fish.

After returning my little buddy to the ice cold water, I continued casting. Was I figuring out a "fall pattern" for the bass in this pond? I don't really know what that means, but if means figuring out how to catch fish here in the fall, maybe I was.

A few minutes later, I hooked into another nice bass, again on the wacky rigged worm. I was becoming a big fan of that presentation - to use another fancy fishing term. I think I used it right.

I snapped some pictures, again trying out the new-to-me lure-in-mouth pose, and released the fish.

"thanks for playing!" I said. And I meant it! I hope it doesn't hurt fish too much to get hooked in the lip, because I sure like taking their pictures.

And with that it was time for work. I collapsed my collapsible rod, hopped on my bike, and headed toward my train.