The pond is back

The pond, an hour before sunset

As soon as I stepped off the Metra into the warm breeze, I knew I had to go fishing.

Turns out, I planned on it and had my gear in the car all ready to go. When I got to the pond I could almost feel the energy. The past few weeks it's been asleep, barely any movement or activity, not too many fish moving around.

first fish of the day

Today was different- every few minutes the surface erupted with what I can only imagine was bass chasing smaller fish. I had a black texas-rigged chigger craw tied on from yesterday, so I threw that out. Almost immediately I was getting hits- similar to yesterday, but harder. Pretty soon, I had a fish on.

Pretty much the next cast, I had another one! This one was bigger than the last. These fish were on their game today- they fought like champs, splashing water everywhere. I bounced and dragged the crayfish look-alike along the bottom, and when I paused it for a moment, that's when they attacked. They were so aggressive at one point I noticed a fish bit off one of the little legs!

I moved around the pond, trying different spots, and got hits in all of them. I found fish all over the place; close to shore, in the middle, at the surface, and at the bottom. Dragonflies were everywhere, I saw many of them getting it on. I watched them hovering just above the water, hoping a bass would come up and demolish them... but no luck. The frogs- the frogs that are apparently new residents at the pond - were close to deafening.

Oh, it's ON fishies

Looking across the pond, I could see dark shapes in the water near weeds... I wondered if they were fish. When I cast to the areas I saw these shapes, I could make out multiple bass dispersing. Crazy!! I wondered if the whole pond was shallow, and if they were just making their spawning beds everywhere.

I fished for about two hours, and hooked into 6-8 fish. I managed to land a total of 4, which is a much better number than I've been getting lately. The other fish were able to throw the hook, but that's ok... It was fun to tangle with them.

This little trip gave me a taste of the warm weather fishing season about to happen... I am giddy just thinking about it, after fishing through the cold months lucky to get a single bite per outing. With the forecast, it looks like things will stay nice; maybe this means the pond is on. I'll find out soon enough.

the biggest (full of eggs?)