Bass Return to Neighborhood Pond

Got off work an hour early, and before long decided I did not want to reduce desire to fish the pond out back to temptation. We had a couple of super-severe winters in the middle of the past decade, the second of which greatly decimated the pond's bass population. The pond is so shallow that most of it froze to the bottom. For a year or two thereafter, we still caught some bass. And some nice ones. I recall one April evening when I caught eight within a half hour, the biggest about 17 inches, most of them 14 or 15. We figured the pond would bounce back. Why not? With that many adults laying eggs, you would think so.

It didn't play out that way. The fishing went from so-so, compared to how good it was before the big freeze, to almost non-productive. Any of  us here in Bedminster would go and get skunked. I don't know why. No one else seems to, either.

Good news tonight is that there are quite a few little nine-inchers now.  I caught the one in the photo, and missed hits from three others, the third taking my worm. That's when I quit, before 10 minutes were up, because I didn't bring along a second. I grabbed my rod, already rigged, took my camera and fishing license, keeping it simple.

Whether this pond ever again yields 10 bass over two pounds in a half hour, who knows. Many years ago, when I began fishing it, average size was about 11 inches. Why that average increased to about 16 inches, again, I don't know.

Maybe before we moved to Bedminster, it had a fish kill like the recent. I do know the winter of '93, '94 was severe.