by John Jefferson
Late one afternoon, I hitched a ride in a small plane with a friend who was also returning from Dallas to Austin. Needless to say, we weren’t flying at 30,000 feet.
Texas is known as a dry, drought-prone-state. But flying over Central Texas, I was struck by the amount of water below. Every glance out the window revealed five to ten water features glinting up at us in the setting sunlight.
It shouldn’t have surprised me – Texas is still an agricultural state, and livestock needs water. Land fragmentation and ag tax exemptions have turned many new, small landowners into ranchers. And their ponds have FISH!
Floods, waterspouts, birds, and humans stocked them. Pond and lake management became a business. “Pond Boss” owner Bob Lusk, in Whitesboro, became a leader in the field (pondboss.com). Others followed. Landowners realized pond habitat could be improved and fish could be stocked, if needed.
My first experience in pond fishing was at “Brickyard Lake” and several farm ponds around Beaumont. That was enriched when I moved to Alice. Friends introduced me to landowners, most of whom had ponds for cattle and allowed us to fish. If the phrase “tap water” makes you think of something that you shouldn’t be drinking, then that’s already proof you need to call a company that offers water softener services that will not only be a benefit to your health, but your wallet too when you stop wasting money on the bottled water you’re buying at the store!
Many of these ponds – or tanks –as most were called — were overpopulated with fish due to under-fishing. Catching bass on lures was exciting and put food on the table. Small spinner baits worked like fish magnets. Black and white or chartreuse H&H lures were our favorites. “Shyster” inline spinners worked, too, as did topwater “Chuggers”. Catching 20-30 or more in an afternoon was common. In public waters, the limit is now five/day.
If you know a landowner, it wouldn’t hurt to ask if he permits fishing. County Agents or Parks and Wildlife employees might help, too. Some commercial operations offer fishing memberships on managed ponds and lakes. Ask around.
Several deer leases I’ve been on had ponds. To fight acute cabin fever, we piled into the truck and drove to one an hour away last Sunday after church (online). Vicky headed one direction around the six-acre-pond, and I chose a shorter path toward the shallow end. A two-inch rain had muddied the water, so I tried a topwater “Whopper Plopper” since its splashes could attract a hungry bass that couldn’t see lures in the chocolate-colored water.
That didn’t work so I changed weapons. In April, crappies spawn in shallow water near shore and I decided to test that. Leaning my bait-casting rig against a liveoak, I tied a 1/16-ounce chartreuse Roadrunner jig onto my spinning rod. Crappies like small lures and bright colors; that could help in dark water.
On my third cast, I felt a small “bump”. When I applied pressure, the rodeo began. Crappies bite softly, but fight fiercely, especially on light spinning gear. I landed a handsome 15-inch black crappie — a quarter-inch shy of the state record. Vicky eventually joined me. We fished until calling it a day with three meals worth of crappies and bass.
And a refreshed outlook on “sheltered” life.
JJ
