I returned to the Carlsbad pond this morning as the sky darkened and raindrops dimpled the water. Not knowing much about largemouth bass and this pond in particular, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Judging from the many books on trout I’ve been reading, overcast days tend to be best for fishing. Well, bass aren’t trout, though they too can be picky. The bite was slow, and I only had one at hand after an hour and a half. It was a particularly aggressive 10-incher that trashed wildly as soon as it felt the sting of the hook. I caught it from the small bridge, which I had to climb in order to reach the fish below. It’s the first fish I’ve reeled in with a sink-tip line, and the first haul with my 7’6 Cabelas CGR 5/6-weight, paired today with a Lamson Liquid.
Earlier, I had fished a white Woolly Bugger to no avail. Once I switched to an olive pattern, my luck improved. As Lucky Ketcham repeatedly points out, “Dark flies for dark days; bright flies for bright days.” You don’t argue with a fisherman with a name like that.
I hope to fish this pond regularly. It is a good place to hone my casting skills in close quarters and learn about largemouth bass in a controlled environment. It’s much more than a place to catch fish: It’s a lab of sorts, a bucolic setting where I can try out different lines, flies, rods and casting strokes as I learn more about freshwater fish. Like Henry David Thoreau, I want “to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it.”
Click here for a short primer on fishing for largemouth bass.
sandiegoflyfish.com 