Evening thunder

Hurried home from work yesterday after a stop by the printer to print up a sampling of my latest efforts for this weekend’s show at the South Holston Fly Fishing Fest, and another quick stop to get sheared at the local barbershop. Hurried out to do a bit of my assigned yard work, got that done then grabbed a beer and headed to the neighborhood pond for a few minutes of pure pleasure.


I figured that a few days without rain would put the pond in good condition. On my first cast with a yellow Wooly Worm I had a hit. Got a brief look at his side as he rolled laterally on the take and said to myself, “nice bass.” But the nice bass was lazy...that or weak. No fight in him at all. Sure enough, wasn’t a bass. A crappie. Nice one, but I didn’t hurry home to catch a crappie.

The pond was dead calm and the next dozen or so casts brought nothing. Noticed a thunderhead approaching over the trees and decided that would be my excuse if the evening proved unproductive.

The pond has a fountain about 80 feet out and as I had my TFO 5 weight I figured I’d test its range and see if any fish were congregating there. No luck there either. But then I saw something unusual. A swirl on the other side of the pond. Then another one...and another. Looked like bass chasing minnows on the surface, but even with the 5 wt. there was no way I’d reach them. I stood there a long while trying to figure out what the repeated, but irregular surface commotion was all about. It continued in the same general area so it must have been dinner time across the pond. That, or there was a leak in the pipe leading to the fountain. Maybe it was just belching air. Or maybe a carp?

Returning to reality, I looked skyward and saw that the thunderhead had moved in on me and had gotten a bit turbulent. The atmosphere had turned that weird green color and some scary looking cumulonimbus mammatus clouds had formed an ominous canopy right on top of me. Had I been back in Oklahoma I’d of considered headin’ for the “Hide-y- Hole” but since this was North Carolina....

Then I remembered that I had promised to grill some brats for dinner, and as grilling in the rain aint no fun, I headed for the house ahead of the storm. I fired up the grill and came back inside to fry up some onions. As I returned to check on the fire I heard the whine of the tornado siren winding down at the local fire house. (Sure glad I couldn’t hear it inside...I hate interruptions when I’m cookin’.) No more siren...no more scare, so I returned to the onions.

The brats were great...the sky didn’t fall, and the fish didn’t bite. All in all, a very nice ending to the day. Maybe I’ll try again later in the week. The brats, that is. Or maybe I’ll chase down that disturbance on the other side of the pond.