Those little local ponds

dc410

dc410

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Lancaster, PA
I hit a small local pond this morning which I had scouted earlier in the year and located a few nice size carp in it. This pond is literally only 2 miles from my home and I haven't fished it since I was in high school (nearly 35 years ago). The carp were extremely cagey and every one that I attempted a shot at busted me (sometimes that's how it goes with carpin').

As I was coming around the pond I saw the shadow of a fish which I assumed was a carp. I casted in front of it with my swimming nymph pattern and the fish moved directly toward the fly. My line twitched and I set the hook. I immediately realized that this was not a carp. The fish came out of the water three times during the battle and I landed my first 20" Smallmouth that I have ever caught on a fly rod in my life. I was pretty pumped! I also caught a nice chunky 14" SMB a little later. I never knew that this pond even had Smallmouth in it. I remember catching crappies on the fly rod out of it the last time I fished it many years ago but I never even remember seeing a SMB. So, don't overlook those little local ponds that you drive past almost every day and never have the time to fish. Take the time to explore them, some of them just might surprise you!
 

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That is a nice fish. I have only caught a handful of 20" SMB in my life in Pa and none on a fly rod. In fact I went out this morning and caught 2 SMB that didn't measure 20" together.
 
if you were where i think u were, that pond is loaded with hard to catch monster bass
 
Wow - it's not common to see SMBs in small ponds, much less fish of this size.

I've long felt that nymphs are underrated as bass catchers, especially LMBs in lakes and ponds. They really seem to like dragonfly and other nymphs when cruising weeds.
 
When I was doing my MS research on LMB at Kahle Lake, Clarion/Venango Co, it was a brand new impoundment. LMB up to 10.5 inches were almost exclusively consuming dragonfly nymphs at the time of year when I checked. That may have been because there were limited alternatives in a new impoundment, but it does suggest that the nymphs can be an important part of the LMB diet at certain times in their life histories. As an aside, when we later did an examination of muskellunge fingerlings (2-4 inches) in a rearing pond where they were feeding only on natural organisms (were not being fed artificially), the diet was largely mayfly nymphs.
 
Many years ago my father had a duck pond built in a place that no one had access to ,no one stocked and there were no fish in the very short little spring that fed it.Within a couple of years it had bass,catfish and sunfish.Wading birds bringing in eggs was the only way that could have happened.
 
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