ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 13, 1996 TAG: 9610150020
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-10 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: OUTDOORS
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
I've always held the philosophy that the next best thing to owning your own fishing pond is having a friend who owns one.
My friend John, who lives around the mountain from me, has a little body of water he calls ``the duck pond.'' He had been telling me about the bluegills in it, so I finally got around to calling him and asking about coming over to fish the next afternoon.
``Don't mind if I bring somebody with me, do you?'' I asked.
``No. Come on. I won't be here, but just park down at the pond and fish,'' he said.
My companion and I loaded our fly rods the next day, and just to be certain, we stopped by my garden and turned up a couple of spades of worms.
Then we drove to John's place. I'd been to his house before, but never to his pond. On the way, we passed a small pond near his neighbors' house. It hardly was more than a puddle, round as pocket watch and cluttered with ducks of mixed breeding. Just beyond it was a large rectangular pond with a dock and plenty of shoreline cover, perfect for bluegills.
The grass around the big pond had been freshly mowed, and when we parked I commented to my companion, ``That's just like old John. He came down here after I talked to him yesterday and mowed the place for us.''
We began fishing the boat dock, an obvious place for bluegills, since they could hang around the pilings and stick to the shade of the structure. When our casts went unrewarded, we worked the clumps of grass along the shoreline, my companion going one way and I the other.
``Any strikes,'' I called from the other side of the pond.
``No.''
I generally use a sponge-rubber spider on my fly rod for bluegills. It floats in a soggy fashion, its rubber-band legs twitching seductively.
I like the long rod, the flowing line, the fly twitching across the surface and its sudden disappearance into the aggressive, dime-size mouth of a bluegill.
But the magic wasn't working this time.
``Come on, bluegills aren't this hard,'' I said.
Then my limp leader twitched and darted sideways and I struck, watching the rod bow.
``Found them!'' I said with smug satisfaction.
But it was a small, spunky bass. Bass are nice, when they are your target fish, but we were after bluegills.
``Where are the worms?'' I asked.
We threaded worms on a hook and cast them around the dock pilings with our spinning outfits. We landed one small bluegill, light in color and so thin you probably could read a newspaper through it.
``There's got to be more than one,'' I said.
When you find a colony of bluegills, you've got yourself some nonstop fun. It is easy street. Old faithful. A sure thing. In the bag. Nothing to it. Tall cotton.
But this bluegill wasn't the vanguard of a colony. No school this time. It was a dropout.
We finally worked the worms in a cove and began getting strike after strike. Small catfish, not bluegills.
The next Sunday at church, John's wife asked me how we'd done on the bluegills.
``Didn't catch but a single tiny one,'' I said. ``Things got so bad we almost tried that small pond with the ducks on it at your neighbor's place, but we didn't have permission.''
``That's it,'' she said. ``That's our pond. The duck pond. You were fishing a neighbor's pond. I don't think they have any bluegills in it.''
Later, John implied we'd gotten off easy. His neighbor doesn't take well to uninvited strangers showing up to fish the pond.
LENGTH: Medium: 72 linesby CNB