It was one of those brutally hot summer days but after cleaning the garage and mowing the grass, I wanted to go fishing somewhere, anywhere, for just a few hours.
It was late afternoon and I could see thunderclouds building in the distance. Bright, clear sky and an impending t-storm is not exactly great fishing weather but I wanted to go so I grabbed a 3 weight and a small box of terrestrial flies and headed out to pound some Bluegill, Sunfish and Bass at the local ponds.
There was nobody around at any of the locations I fished. I picked up several Sunfish on my first couple of casts, but the Bass remained elusive. Foliage had really grown in over the summer so any attempt at a backcast would be foolish, just asking those tree monkeys to grab your leader and fly. Most of the time it was roll casts, bow and arrow casts or just dapping the fly between the bushes and trees.
However at one spot that was fairly open I did manage to get enough room open behind me to fling a line. I caught a few fish close in but on one of my longer casts to the deeper water I watched the line unfurl and the size 16 paranymph hook onto a dragonfly that was zipping over the water. The line hit the water, but the impaled dragonfly was zipping all over the pond, dragging the leader and fly. I slowly reeled all the fly line back onto the reel until just the leader was out the tip as I tried to fumble the camera out of my pocket to take a photo. However this dragonfly was pissed and as it got closer to shore it flew up into a tangle of bushes and that’s where it ended. I managed to get the fly back, but the real bug was done.
I continued to fish for a little while more, but when I heard the distant rumble of thunder it was time to reel up and head for home.
EQUIPMENT: I used a medium action 3 weight rod over-lined with a 4 weight floating line to really load the rod for in-close casting. I used a standard taper 9 foot leader and 5X tippet. I fished all dry flies--size 12 to 14 with the paranymph being the fly the pond fish desired the most.