It’s an old story: the small pond stocked with decent bass and bream, the pier with structural integrity that’s questionable at best, and the wide-eyed child with a Zebco and a styrofoam box of night crawlers.
It’s too easy to write off the small pond as unsophisticated. It’s where the lot of fisherfolk got their starts, but a little age and an upgrade in tackle often leads to bigger and better things than the meager pond.
I am guilty. If I had access to a river, bayou, or lake, I’d be quick to turn my nose up to the stocked pond— but the past few months have given me a reason to rescind my prejudices. In August, I began a new semester as a first-year law student. Needless to say, I was pressed for time. The canoe rentals and rowing trips around my college town were largely a distant memory logged in the pages of my undergraduate experience. I still wanted to take some of the free time that I did have to be in the outdoors and fish, but I needed minimal prep and break-down. I found the solution in getting permission to fish a local wetlands research facility with plenty of ponds.
I was relaxed and humbled by the occasional Friday afternoon ventures. The bass were usually receptive to topwater flies but sometimes demanded streamers. I got skunked a couple times when the temps dropped off. It may have been the close monitoring of the fish populations in the ponds or it may have been a penalty for my arrogance, but I spent plenty of time experimenting with different flies to get the ponds to produce well. Rarely did I just tie on any old fly and tear through scores of fish. The challenge was a pleasant surprise to say the least.
The greatest thing the ponds offered me is no different from the greatest thing local fly fishing offers us all. I could spend time in the outdoors and keep my cast sharp. It’s no secret that I’m willing to stand on the soapbox for the sake of local water, and this is just another spoke on that wheel. You can’t expect to spend three days a year fly fishing and be a proficient angler, no matter how many years you’ve done it. It requires practice, and that’s what I wanted.
My cast may not be what it was in college, but I can still make do thanks to a little backyard casting practice and the ponds.
Randolph Mikell is a Christ-follower and outdoorsman. A native Mississippian, Mikell decided to explore his local fly fishing scene. He found an unsurprisingly small number of fly anglers and a large number of fish willing to take flies. His time in the outdoors has brought about friendships and experiences that he cherishes continually.