Denville Park Pond

The Denville, New Jersey, area is dotted with lakes and ponds; I visited more than half-a-dozen this afternoon, and found only one open to the public. This Denville Park Pond has a couple surface acres with clean, tannic acid water beneath. You can see in the photo that the fat 2 1/2-pound largemouth I caught is truly a black bass. Typically called tea water, deeper tannic water looks like coffee.

This particular pond has no depths greater than perhaps six feet. Already aquatic vegetation is taking up a lot of space. I rigged a 7 1/2-inch Chompers plastic worm on an inset hook to keep it weedless. I used a two-foot length of 15-pound test fluorocarbon tied to a small barrel swivel, because pickerel are rumored to inhabit this pond, just like they do for certain in the Pine Barrens' tannic waters. 

The last photo of the series shows the relatively obscure corner where the bass sucked in the worm. Almost all of the acreage on this other side of the bridge is extremely shallow and pad covered. But the corner is perhaps four feet deep, black, with current moving under the bridge just outside it. 

This little pond doesn't get my vote for being a regular spot to fish, but it was interesting today. Over a week ago I saw bass on beds here, and today I saw those beds--without any bass guarding them.