Pond Appreciation

Eli (5) paddling big brother Nathaniel (16) on the upper pond.

Pond outings get discussed fairly frequently on this blog, so it seems maybe I should tell a bit more about the ponds we most often fish. I speak of going to "the ponds" almost as if they are ours, but only because the property owners are gracious enough to let us treat them that way. They allow us free access to the ponds and the canoes on them at any time, and Nathaniel often keeps his johnboat by one of the ponds. I'm very grateful for that privilege.

The property, which is only about 4 miles from my house, has three ponds on it, all fairly small. Two are man-made. One is a natural beaver pond. Each has a unique personality.

We spend the most time on the upper pond, which has good access to from the bank or from a boat. It has three houses on it and a small beach area, where my family also swims during the summer. It has plentiful bluegills with a good mix of sizes and big numbers of mostly small bass with a few big fish in the mix.

The middle pond is the smallest and just downhill from the upper pond. No boat lives there and it's a bit of a walk with a canoe, so we mostly fish it from the bank. It gets more grass (and this year dollar pads) than the others and has some flooded timber on the far side. We often scoot down to it for a while if the upper pond bite is slow and we usually can wrangle in at least a couple of bass.

The beaver pond is our favorite because it is natural and has a wilder feel, despite being on the same property and really not being that far from the other ponds. It's shallow and full of stumps and produces good fishing for bass and bream. However, it has been very low for several months now -- almost too low to get around and fish -- so we're concerned the dynamic could have changed and that it could be reverting to a swamp. Hopefully. Mr. & Mrs. Beaver will want more water again soon and will do some engineering work.

Unplanned Swim

I still don't know how it happened. I've spent hundreds of hours in canoes, and the only two other times I ever flipped were in rivers: one caused by a strainer, the other by a high rock in a rapid. Yesterday I was on the pond and had just gotten in. I'd walked through the center of the boat to the back seat and sat down with no issues. The canoe wasn't partly grounded, and I wasn't standing or leaning for anything. Somehow my weight just shifted and everything went all at once. Next thing I knew it, I was standing next to an upside-down canoe, shoulder deep, and soaked from head down, still wearing my hat and glasses.

The good news is that I had taken out my phone and the little button gizmo for my keys (admittedly because I was bringing my 9-year-old out with me). Also, it's July, so neither the pond nor the air was cold, and Asher hadn't even gotten in yet, so two of us didn't get soaked. I'm also thankful that the only cameras I had with me were my waterproof point-and-shoot and a couple of GoPros, in their cases. (Too bad the GoPro wasn't mounted on the side of the canoe and running.)

The bad news is that I snapped two rods (including one I was particularly fond of) right in the center. I had to fish them out of the lake, so my best guess is that I stepped on them when I first found solid footing.

I did get back on the horse, so to speak. I found another rod I could use, and we still made one lap around the pond. We only caught one fish, but one is better than none. For Asher, I'm guessing it will be one of his most memorable pond outings, even with only one fish having been caught!

Captain Asher

Yesterday's pond trip with Asher and Nathaniel was fairly short, both because it was fairly cold and because the fish weren't biting.  Asher minded neither the cold nor the lack of bites, though, because he got to play captain, paddling the canoe that he and I were in and picking the spots where we would fish.

 

In the past,when Nathaniel, Asher and I have fished together from the canoe, Nathaniel has taken the back seat and paddle, I've fished in the front and Asher has sat on the floor in the middle of the boat. Asher's really getting too big for the floor of a canoe, though, so Nathaniel grabbed his own boat and Asher and I took out the other.

 

Asher did a fine job of keeping us well positioned in the part of the pond where we normally have the best success on winter days, and he didn't mind at all that he had to spend at least as much time controlling the boat as he did actually fishing.