Please Remind Me To Fish Here

Check out this pond.....or puddle.  It's about the size of 2.5 backyard swimming pools. It's a small pond, possibly one of the smallest ones I've fished (expecting to find fish).

I can easily cast from one side to the other, but shoreline to stand and cast from is very limited. There is a raised platform, likely for bird watching, but it's really to high to use as a place to cast. So, I'm limited to on small section. I have fished it, once, for a minute or two, but it was later in the year than this picture and it was weeded over pretty good.

So, I'm just going to ask that someone remind me about this little jewel in about a month or two, before the weeds take over again, because I do suspect that there is a fat bass in there that's just dying to attack one of my flies!

Oh, and while you're in a friendly "Remind Mike to fish" mood, tell me about the even more secluded pond just south of this one!

Pond Safety - Stay off

While searching the internet for something to read to pass the time I came across this article out of Indiana that says lawmakers are trying to pass a bill to make home owners pay for barriers around ponds.

As a fisherman who frequents these types of ponds, I don't like the idea of fencing them in, and fencing me out. I completely understand the desire to keep children and motorists safe, but like the guy in the video, I agree that kids will often just climb the fence or find some other way (or pond) in. Just in the last year, locally there was a pond that was mostly fenced in, and a kid found the hole in the fence and drowned. It's sad, but it's often preventable.

When I drive by the frozen ponds in my town, I'm often reminded that I need to teach my kids about winter pond safety....simply....STAY OFF!!!  When I was a boyscout I remember playing on an iced over pond and listening to it crack. Fortunately, I got off before any issue. During the summer time I teach my kids to stay back a step or two (they like standing close to the water usually.) Also, I try to ask them every time we are out "What do you do if you fall in?" We fish from the shore, not a boat, and they usually answer something like "swim" "yell for help", then I tell them the first thing they need to do is stand up. I figure that kids might be too worried about being wet and scared to think of the simple solution of standing up. Shore fishing on simple ponds means that most of the time the kids can just stand up and be safe.

We can't sit back and hope for fences to save our kids (not that we all want them), we need to teach them how to avoid these dangers. No matter what law they pass, a pond, a puddle, a lake, a ditch, a danger will always be there. Teach your kids safety!

LINK to the original story.