There is a fairly new (~4-5 yrs old) city-owned pond that I fished for the first time earlier this year. Today I noticed on Google Earth that it is called
Vintage Lake.
As I said, its a fairly new pond, so the year-class of fish that were initially stocked are still growing. I know there isn't anything BIG in this pond yet....it just isn't possible (unless a "bucket biologist" decided to stock some fish that were caught elsewhere into this pond). So, that takes some of the excitement out of the equation. It IS a nice-looking pond, though, and it was created with built-in fish structure which is awesome!
Since
the wind was blowing good out of the south today during lunch, it screwed up
the other fishing options I was entertaining in my mind, so I went to this Vintage
Lake and fished it from the south shoreline. The shoreline is overgrown with the hardened remants of last years giant varieties of vegetation...whatever kinds of weeds that get 6' tall! I had a number of "I feel like an idiot" moments of untangling my line and/or fly from things that weren't in the water.
Good-looking water! Reasonably clear…but not TOO clear (meaning…it
looks like it’ll be a healthy pond). I
could see bottom down to MAYBE 3’ deep or so. Shallow shelf near shore has some
weeds/algae growing on it. Then it has a
very defined drop-off. The fish were all
within about 7’ of the deep side of the drop-off today. I hooked at least 3 bass, but only landed 1,
and it wasn’t the biggest one. The
biggest one MIGHT have gone 12”. Hey, it’s
a young pond! I caught at least 10
bluegills. Feisty! A couple were smaller, most were around 7.5”,
and I actually measured the big one of the day…it was 8” long! I was surprised at that!
I attached a couple pictures…one of the small bass,
...and one of the
bluegills…this was NOT the 8-incher, I just thought it was colorful. The sunlight sort of washed out the colors in the picture.
Dave
ReplyDeleteGreat looking gill and bass. Do you ever fish these ponds with a boat? The Pelican 8 ft. would be perfect for these waters. Thanks for sharing
As usual, getting me fired up about getting out on the water. I despise dead weeks, but I'm stoked to go out with my older bro on Saturday. Definitely going to take pictures! Keep these comin'.
ReplyDeleteAnd I second what Bill says, not because I know anything about Pelican 8 footers, just that any reasonably safe boat adds a nice touch to any pond fishing, I think.
I have not taken my kayak out on any of the city ponds. Almost all of them are wide open mowed grass around them, so casting is easy. I can't reach the middle of the ponds even with a long cast...but I can cover the bulk of the water. It might be fun to take the kayak out on some of them...but the ponds would feel awfully small once I was there!
ReplyDeleteSome pretty healthy looking gills in that pond! I definitely know that feeling of feeling like a fool when you're trying to untangle out of tall brush. But more often than not.. The little bit of hassle rarely out weights the enjoyment of fishing. It can definitely be the straw that breaks the camels back somedays though ha!
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