A Gift

We fish when we can, not necessarily when conditions are best for catching, unless we're independently wealthy and utterly committed to fishing whenever and wherever it's best to. Today would've been a day to fish trout, and after the heavy rain not long ago spreading out those trout, I know of spots I would have loved to fish today, far from the madding crowd. But I showed John Lusk this pond, so he can come here on his own sometime. 

Matt and I discovered this place not long ago. I am about 100% certain it has bass, but John and I didn't prove that today. We fished an hour at most, first throwing in-line spinners against a brutal, cold wind, but not getting any knocks we could have interpreted as reluctant fish. Then we switched to a traditional worm on John's rod, a Senko on mine, and, as expected, tempted nothing from near a few a deadfalls, getting those worms as close to sticks as we could. 

You never know. But probability is pretty fool proof. I once cast a #9 Rapala floater against the wind into a pond in November, water temps in the 40's, and scored a 13-inch largemouth. That pond, which my son and I fished, gets a lot of pressure, too. On a more recent occasion, I threw an in-line spinner into another pond with no exceptional catch rate, the water temperature 45 in March, and scored another largemouth about the same size. I could say a lot more....

As we departed, John checked distance on his device. "I'm 20 minutes away,"  he said. Now he has an alternative to ponds even closer to his home, which are closed.