Catching up on my blog-writing tonight. Somehow the time just goes by so quickly!
I spent the Fourth of July weekend rather quietly, catching up on my tying for the most part and workingon Striper Strategies (which I hope to have ready fairly soon) until my fingers and eyes got tired. On the Fourthitself–after finishing several tying orders–I thought I’d reward myself with a little fishing–and exploring.
The ocean was rather roiled up after all the rain we’d been having so I headed up Route 1 in the late afternoon to check out two ponds in Saugus (a nearby town) that I had never fished. In fact, I didn’t even know where they were but Mapquest helped me out there and in about half an hour I reached the first pond, Pranker’s Pond, whichI walked into from the road. Pranker’s is a lovely little pond and according to a man I met there quite a good bass pond; what he didn’t tell me was that it was for Saugus residents only (in fact there was a sign on the path that I hadn’t noticed on the way in). Well, so much for Pranker’s Pond. The other pond was Hawkes Pond, justa few miles away. This too turned out to be a really beautiful but much larger pond, very fishy looking. Only trouble was it was part of a reservoir system; No Fishing/No Trespassing signs were everywhere.
It was now closing in on seven o’clock and I still hadn’t wet a line. What to do? I remembered a pond in the town of Lynnfield, only a few miles away, Pillings Pond. I had never fished this before but I had heard good reports and it seemed as good a bet as any in the little time I had left before dark.
I found my way to the pond and parked at a small parking area on Summer Street and launched my belly boat around 7.30 pm. The air temperature was now about 70 degrees, quite a drop from earlier in the day and there was no wind, the surface as calm as could be. The pond had recently been treated with weed-killer and there were lots of dead and dying weed in close to shore but I managed to kick my way through most of it and get out where the water was clearer and where it would be easier to fish a surface fly.
There were several groups of lily pads fairly close to shore and I decided to work these with a black Bass Gurgler, fishing the edges and the water nearby, plopping the fly down hard to attract attention then working it back to me slowly with short pauses. Within the first ten minutes or so I picked up a couple of 1 pound largemouth bass and a few very large bluegills. This was much better than I had hoped (my first impression of this pond was not very encouraging, actually, what with all the weed and murk in the water and the fact that the water was rather warm). Then, after going about fifteen minutes without a hit, a larger fish broke the surface in the middle of a group of lily pads about hundred feet away. I kicked my way over to within casting range and plopped the Gurgler down where I had seen it come up. And it came up again–this time for the Gurgler. I set the hook and off it went, bending my 5wt rod almost in two and tearing out line and backing as it sped off towards the middle of the pond. What the heck could it be? I wondered, thinking that it might be a large carp (I had seen one in the shallows earlier). I had only a 5x leader and was especially careful in playing the fish, maneuvering my belly boat when necessary to reducepressure. When it dived down into the weeds I thought I had lost it but then it was off again, this time with my leader trailing pounds of dead weed. When I finally tired the fish, just as it was getting dark, I reached down and picked off the weeds to see what it was that I had caught. It turned out to be a bass that I estimated at between five and six pounds, a fat and very handsome fish. What a thrill! And adding to this thrill was the fireworks display over on the other side of the pond that began while I was releasing the fish. Talk about timing! Truly a great way to celebrate the Fourth!