Picky Pond Fish

I've seen plenty of finicky trout over the years, but seldom (if ever) have I seen bluegills as finicky as they were yesterday.

Nathaniel had convinced me to join him on the pond because fish were popping all over the top. He was sure we'd catch fish like never before, and I must admit that I sort of thought he was right.

Although fish were rising everywhere and I could even see the bream coming to the top, I didn't see any kind of hatch coming off. Looking more closely at the water, the surface was covered with what appeared to be dead winged ants.

As many fish as there were feeding around us and as aggressive as bluegills and pond bass tend to be, I thought we could throw virtually anything and catch them. Boy was I ever wrong. We started with bass lures - a buzzbait and a Dinger, and then downsized to Road Runners and other panfish lures. We tried other plastics, jigs and topwaters. Even a tiny marabou panfish bait. A few missed strikes from seemingly small fish, but not a single hook-up.

Best I can figure, the bream had adopted a trout mentality. They had so many ants to feed on, there was simply no reason to risk eating anything that didn't "match the hatch."

Having struck out in the middle of the pond, where all the bream were rising, we turned to dependable banks to salvage the afternoon with a few bass. Few bass had been among the rising bream, so we thought they would be in their usual places. Not so. Seemingly they'd gorged themselves already.

I manged one bass that might have been too small to have taken part in the ant feast!