Pond Popping

Pond Popping

A couple of weeks ago a fellow worker asked me if I wanted to join him and his son to fish a private pond full of bass. He said they have been catching the bass on top water lures. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. We met at a local gas station around 6:30 pm, after work, and I followed him to the private pond.
 Once there he and his son got their spinning rods and headed down to the pond while I pieced together my 7wt 9’6” fly rod. I figured if there were big bass, like he said, I didn’t want to be ill prepared. I put on my straw hat, pocketed a couple of Macanudo Robust cigars and my fanny pack filled with my poppers and bass gear.
 It was if the setting sun was sitting atop the forested tree tops as it shown down on the glassy looking waters. The pond wasn’t very big but it looked deep in areas and very inviting to fishermen, no doubt. Geese congregated at one end near a grassy island. They frolicked in the glassy water, honking and carrying on. New comers flew in while others winged their way off the water leaving riffles along the undisturbed water surface. The near side of the pond was laden with clumps of loose pond weed strung out on the water surface.
 Scott’s son had already hooked into a bass on a top water lure by the time I reached the dock Scott was fishing off of. After a few casts with a yellow slider I got snagged up on some of the pond weed as did Scott. He decided to walk to the other side of the pond and join his son while I decided to work the banks and slowly walk the pond edges.
 I missed a couple of takes but I was pretty sure they were blue gill before I hooked into my first largemouth with a gurgling frog popper. He took it on the strip in and the aggressive fight was on. The smaller bass was no match for the 7wt. rod or 3x tapered leader as I led him in and up on the bank. I was thinking about going back for a lighter rod but didn’t want to waste time piecing together another rod with only a couple of hours of daylight left.
 Casting out into the pond area I would let the frog settle upon the surface until the small swirls disappeared from the initial plop. I would then strip in two or three quick strips getting the frog to pop and gurgle. I’ll wait a second or two before swimming it towards me with long slow even strips mabe stopping once or twice.
 Nearer the bank I’ll drop the popper a few feet out from shore. Most of the time I’ll start stripping it in with swimming strips skirting it along the bank. If I miss a first strike I’ll quickly strip the popper with short hard strokes as if it were trying to get away.
 Though I didn’t catch any huge bass I did catch some fat blue gills. All in all it was a fun evening popping homemade poppers to fish in the private pond.
_______doubletaper