Farm Pond Fun

Farm ponds are where I first learned to fish, before I knew anything about fly fishing or trout, and I still enjoy getting to fish places like this. They are small enough that I feel like I can learn a few of their secrets, but big enough that I can't ever get too confident. I've had some wonderful days on ponds, and then I've had other days when it seemed like there were no fish anywhere. It seems like more and more I'm drawn to moving water, whether its a trout stream or a smallmouth river, but I've never lost my love of farm ponds.

After trout fishing last Tuesday, I decided to change things up on Wednesday after I got an invitation to do some fishing at a farm pond with a friend of mine. It seems like I'm fly fishing for everything more and more these days, from trout to smallmouth, but on this trip I went back to my roots and grabbed the ultralight spinning rod. We were both fishing for whatever wanted to bite, with the hope of catching some crappie along the way.

Largemouth Bass

We took my friend's john boat and a couple of paddles and made our way back to the pond. I started off fishing a small inline spinner, but with the cool weather the fish didn't seem aggressive enough to be interested. Knowing that there were some nice crappie in the pond, I switched to a 1/16th oz jig with a curly tail grub in the hopes of getting a few crappie to bite. It turned out that this was the lure the fish wanted, and we both fished these the rest of the day. I'm no expert, and don't claim to be, but it seemed like the largemouth bass in the pond were possibly in a prespawn pattern. The bass were schooled up, and several that we caught had the look of carrying eggs. I was surprised at how many bass we caught on these small jigs, since in the past I've caught an occasional bass on these lures but the majority of the fish have been crappie and bluegill. Whatever the reason, the bass in this particular pond seemed to really like them!

Bluegill

We fished our way around the pond, alternating between paddling and casting. We did finally find what we were looking for, which were some of the nice crappie that we knew lived here. They seemed to be schooling around brush and trees along the edge of the pond, possibly also getting ready to spawn. Between the two of us, we caught several nice crappie, a bunch of bass, and some nice bluegill. It was one of those days that I dream about as a fisherman, where everything just seemed to fall into place. We were both talking as we fished about how days like this were few and far between, and the best thing to do was just enjoy the moment.

Crappie

It was a nice change of pace from trout fishing, and to be honest I had forgotten just how much fun a bass on ultralight tackle could be. We didn't catch any huge fish, although I did have one break my line that felt bigger than any others that I caught. It's always the same story though, the ones that get away are always bigger than the ones that get caught. It was a great day to be on the water, and I'm looking forward to doing some more pond fishing soon.

Thanks for stopping by!

- Joseph