retention pond

I've gotten into this habit whereas when my wife and I plan a trip to visit folks, I'm eventually Googleing the terrain to see if there's any good fishing going on near were we'll be staying, and would I have a free couple of hours, usually at the crack of dawn while all are still asleep, to try my luck with the local salmonids.
Such was the case last weekend, when we loaded up the SUV with stuff — lots of stuff we never dreamed of ever having to take on a four-day jaunt to Orlando, Florida, that is since we had a baby last summer.
Now, I wasn't in charge of packing for the tyke, so I can't tell you what was in the eight or so extra bags (a four-day weekend!), but I can tell you that the car was completely loaded down.
The good news is that we were off to see her folks in their new winter home. The bad news is the fishing constituted retention ponds.
Now, let me back up a second. I prefer to fish with a dry fly, preferably on a river with moving water and no alligators, and preferably for trout. The holy grail of all places would be the quintessential trophy waters, tough enough to access as to leave all the weak at the more recreational streams, and one that is in a picturesque, soul-cleansing sort of place.
The dead opposite of that would be a retention pond in a condo development chuck-filled with blindingly white-skinned golfers from Sandusky, Ohio, and Poughkeepsie, N.Y., ponds where the golf-course run off seeps in to overfertilize the natural (natural?) vegetation, and one where golf carts packed with prospective timeshare buyers zoom behind you every 30 seconds with the agent asking how the fishing is all while hearing the din of roller-coaster riders from maybe 10 miles away screaming during the big drop, oh, and did I forget, getting a good line out on a fish only to be disrupted by a very bad golfer who smacked the Titleist right into the pond in which you were trying to fish (and then asking if there are any fish in the pond — the audacity).
Talk about a fish out of water. While all the snowbirds were walking around either on the front nine or heading out to play shuffleboard or hit the swimming pool, there we were, my father-in-law Tom Rydzy and I in full fly fishing garb. I even had the vest and the net. What was I thinking.
But a strange thing happened. There were fish. And they were huge.
The first pond we hit was a retention job just off the No. 5 pin on the golf course. We accessed it from the road on its east side only because while driving by, there were 16-inch shadows lurking, which turned out to be tailing browns.
OK, so they were stocked — who cares? I was planning on catching mutant sunfish, and there were some of the most beautiful browns I'd seen outside of a fish hatchery tailing in the crud vegetation lining the low banks.
We approached with precision, sun in our faces so that the fish wouldn't see the shadows, low and with stealth and with a quick scout of the hatch. OK, so there was no hatch, but what there was were dragonflies. Those beautiful little electric blue and soft black guys that flit over the water and drive trout crazy.
Yeah, I didn't have any of those. But I did have a wooly bugger and some other black and blue patterns, as well as several moths, nymphs, streamers, coachmen, Wulffs, bass poppers and saltwater deceivers... I list these because none of them worked. My guess was that had I a hot dog or some popcorn and a snelled hook, I'd have been fine. These were junkyard dogs, and they were used to humans, especially those with fishing rods. What they — or anyone else in the development for that matter — weren't used to were fly rods. And there were more than enough comments from passers by to not think otherwise.
But that's OK. A good fisherman doesn't care what's leering at him, unless it's a bear, a python or a gator. And speaking of gators, before trying the retention pond, we did in all earnest grab a GPS and found a native lake behind the local Wal-Mart (one of 52 on International Drive) that I walked down to and found tell-tale signs of bass — a few uprooted trees in the pond, clear water, lily pads and a tall wooded bank. But just as we were gearing up, a bagger out collecting carts gave us some advice.
"A buddy of mine was fishing there, and he caught a couple of really nice fish."
That was encouraging, so we then got huge smiles on our faces. But as is the way with Southerners, there's always a little more to the story if you're patient and polite enough to listen to it.
"But then he saw a couple of gators back there — one about eight feet, the other sixteen."
Now, an eight-foot gator poses a health hazard for certain, but chances are, he's going to be a bit intimidated by your size, too, especially if there are a couple of you. He's probably not going to get close enough to find out unless he's having a particularly feisty day.
A sixteen-foot gator, however, isn't intimidated by anything, and if he's lived long enough to gain such length, well, there are probably more than a few neighborhood dogs who didn't come home at his expense.
So, off to the retention ponds where nuisance gators, as they're called, are hauled off by the local critter management team.
After a few fruitless hours of smacking these hoggers in the nose, running the fly over their tails and even trying to foul-hook them with a fast-pulled streamer, we gave up. I did get an interesting strike just before I gave up for the morning in about four inches of water: One of the browns, maybe 18 inches, was chasing a dragonfly on the bank when I dropped a black moth in. Just before I cast, I pointed to Tom, just as the Babe pointed to right field, and I let it fly.
The fish grabbed the moth (I think mistakenly, but I was impartial) and came out of the water with it. Neat! Tom was even watching! Then he jerked it to the left and right, and spat it out.
That night, over a couple of Labatt's sitting around the dining room table, we each tied a couple of black dragonflies. I used a dark blue bead for the head, which really looked good. We tied them on No. 2 streamer hooks, smashing the barbs in the vice to play fair (or at least look like we knew what we were doing).
We went out the next morning to the same retention pond, but the browns were nowhere to be found. Phantom fish. They must have tailed through the culverts to the next retention pond — there are quite a few, after all.
So we went to an old standby, a stocked pond with a fountain in the middle and a tennis court at our backs. That's better than a golf course because the type of balls used are worlds apart on the pain scale, should one shell you, and tennis folks just seem more neighborly than the cigar-toting Tiger wannabes.
Anyhow, I tool the west side so as to not cast a shadow in the early morning sun. Tom went around the other side and blended in among the shrubs and trees. On my first cast, I had an amazing strike from maybe a 16-inch brown. I was late in setting the hook, probably because I had no idea I'd actually get a hit on the first cast (a coachman, even), and by the time I had tried to set it, he was off. He made such a splash that I figured I had fouled the pool. Besides, this pond was a pretty good size, maybe seven or eight acres, so there was a lot of bank to fish.
While I was moseying down the bank to cast into a nice patch of vegetation, I heard Tom make a sound, and he landed a nice little bass. Now, I didn't see it, but he said it was a decent size, and that's good enough for me. I drew out a couple of sunfish with some eggs and even a nymph, but they were spooky, and I couldn't get them any closer than to gum at my hook.
Now, I knew from that minute that I should just stop right now, pack up the gear and leave. If I couldn't get a sunfish to bite, it was going to be a long morning. Ever the optimist, I moved on down the bank to a neat little pool that proved to be as much a biology lesson as it was a smorgasborg of different species. For there, in the same big pool, were bass in the five-pound range butting heads with brownies up to 18 inches while guarding their spawning holes. There were also a few sunfish and some minnows glubbing by. I imagine the smaller fish were food for these hogs simply because the fish were huge compared to the size of the pond, and, well, there weren't a ton on minnows swimming like you'd normally see.
So, I set my rod to it. I fished from behind some tall weeds so as to not be seen. I was on the right side of the bank so as to not show my shadow. I cast perfectly, lightly. I had damn-near nine feet of tippet and leader. I even copied the insects buzzing around — white and sulfur months, hornets and even the dragonflies. Nothing. So I moved through my arsenal being extra careful not to spook the fish. I'd change flies, move up the bank, then come back.
Nothing.
During one of my trips through the fly box, Tom came by, seeing that I had been hogging this one small pool all morning, cast a honey bee in, and whack, caught a small bass. From the sunny side of the bank, too, in plain view of the fish.
Huh.
I cast again, fluidly, precise, had lured some fish from their holes. Nothing.
A few minutes later, Tom hooked another.
I walked over and asked him what he was using. He showed me his yellow and white bee pattern. I already tried that, I explained. He gave me one of his.
I got a bite, and it was a big smallmouth bass, but he spit it right back out.
The rest of the morning, as it waned, held much of the same for me. It wasn't in the cards.
I could have stayed at that hole all day and wouldn't have caught a thing. Blame it on bad mojo, but the fish were on to me.
I'm glad Tom got some, though.
We made it back to the winter house 45 minutes late for lunch, which didn't make the women happy, but they were sympathetic to my dilemma, and they weren't about to make me feel any worse.
Thing is, I didn't feel bad at all. I didn't expect to catch anything in a retention pond with a 5-weight flyrod. I didn't expect there to be a challenging sized fish in the pond.
What I did expect, however, was to have a blast fishing with a very good fishing partner on a few gorgeous mornings and to walk away refreshed, skunked or not.
And I sure did get that.