Refreshed After Work But Big Bass Skit Rather than Play even as Dread Algae Develops

Minutes before sunset, I jaunted down to the northeast corner of Bedminster Pond, enlivened with each step after a tough day at work. Birds filled the trees with fluid levity. On my way to Clarence Dillon Public Library again, my worries about the clarity of the water felt relieved since the stain from recent rain only clouded what I saw. The amount of algae on the surface surprised me, some of this visible in the photograph. Because of it, this will be my last visit to this pond until possibly in the fall. During the summer the vegetation is thick and chokes the life from all but uncomfortable efforts to coax response, such as weedless surface presentations worked endlessly for scattered bass that perhaps inevitably don't hit. 

The bass population isn't very good here anyhow. I wonder how they spawn with such thick muck in the shallows with carp present. For all I know, the stories about these big, ugly, cumbersome fish sucking down bass eggs are true. But I imagine a few bass here may manage to grow big. I've heard stories, but don't quite believe the sizes, five and six pounds. Maximum depths range only about six feet, and if as muddy as the shallows, that's not so good.

Once again I set down my tackle tote, and cast my black and chartreuse spinnerbait. This time a wake shot away from nearby the lure, leaving a big boil behind it. That, I knew, was not a good sign. I resigned myself to probably getting skunked, and worked my way down the east side. The third time a wake went in the opposite direction, I quickly tied on a twister tailed plastic worm from the under compartment of the tote. That only drew sunfish to yank. I reached for my tote and opened it for a surface lure. Oh. I brought the wrong compartment, full of minnow plugs and crankbaits, and smoky clear plastic to see through at that. So I tied the spinnerbait back on, and the first cast drew a strike from a bass of about a pound, right on the surface as I buzzed the lure making a wake. Missed it.

One always wonders why on one 70-degree evening the bass hit at every opportunity, and then after a 75-degree afternoon and plenty of sun, they avoid. The temperature had suddenly dropped 10 degrees from what it was when I got home at 5:00. Clouds moved in. But I never leap to conclusions about the whys and whereofs. I notice what I can, and try not to make things up about what I observe. However, I don't suppose the darker water had to do with it, since that big Colorado blade certainly makes the lure's presence known. I could be dead wrong.