August 22 2007, Business Park Pond, Berea, Ohio
Business park ponds present a set of tricky wickets, and I now guide the reader – and myself – through them as I encounter this one on my travels.
Fundamental rule: when you do find a good-fishing business park pond, don’t broadcast the information. The best way to get a bunch of No Fishing signs planted is to attract a lot of anglers who litter the grounds with used fishing line, empty worm containers, and drink cans. Thus today’s pond remains anonymous.
I am in Berea for just a portion of a day, but I can’t resist driving into a business park to investigate the wooded, weeded, area out back. Sometimes such woods and weeds are there to camouflage retention ponds, borrow pits, and other bodies of water associated with the business park’s construction and operation.
Today I am not disappointed. There is a beautiful little two-acre pond, and there is even a spot that provides fishable access. I park and walk the 20 feet to the pond’s edge.
(A note about parking: for these sorts of ponds there is almost always nearby parking. Of course you never want to park in a Reserved or No Parking spot.)
Next I look for fences and No Fishing, No Trespassing, and No Entry signs – nothing. So I gather my rod and lure vest from the trunk, tie on a finesse worm, and go quickly to the access area. The pond is muddy-brown with only a few inches of visibility. I look for minnows and bluegill along the shoreline in front of me, but I see none. I look across the smooth pond’s surface for splashes of baitfish and larger fish, but nothing. And I look for fish-eating birds - herons, cormorants, ospreys – and I see none.
From a lot of experience I do know that some of these ponds have no fish. Their water may not be healthy, they may have been chemically treated, they may have been recently drained dry, who knows? But I always arrive with positive expectation.
The pond is lined with extremely thick bushes and trees and shrubs, and I throw the worm parallel to the bank in both directions, hoping to lure a bass that’s hiding among the overhangs. My standing area includes little purple-clustered wildflowers on which bumblebees alight. Behind me is the business park, adjacent is a hotel, and across the main road is a restaurant. Cars hum a background chorus.
I work the finesse worm along the shoreline in both directions with no results. Then I fan-cast it out into the main pond, inching it along the bottom to feel for structure. A dozen casts later – that’s usually the point when I switch lures – I change to a chrome Rat-L-Trap so I can cast even further, reel even faster, and cover even more water. With limited time on an unknown body of water you want to cover a lot of water with a lot of lures in a hurry.
I still have seen no sign of minnows or fish, and I begin to suspect that this is a dead pond. Fifty feet to my left I see a four-inch white pipe sticking out from the steep bank and dripping some sort of liquid into the pond. At the drip area is a small flotsam of foam. I scour the ground around me and see no angling trash: no hook packages, no pieces of discarded line, no bobbers. And still not even one fishy splash or swirl. I am on the borderline of giving up on this fishless pond.
Then I see it! On the ground, hidden by greenery: a discarded plastic bait package. Yum Dingers, Junebug color! This is a good find. Only serious bass anglers use Yum Dingers, and only
knowledgeable bass anglers use them in the Junebug color.
So with fresh hope, nervous hands, and quickening heart I quickly tie on a Senko (similar to a Dinger) in green pumpkin (only color I have) and toss it to a shoreline bush. Bingo! A 12-inch bass. And during my remaining 45 minutes I catch six more – the largest almost two pounds.
Now there are at least two bass anglers who know about this pond’s bass. But had the other angler not discarded the lure package I would have likely departed thinking the pond was fishless.
There are all sorts of office park ponds and shopping center ponds and housing complex ponds. The ones you want to look for are the ones that are hidden within seemingly unattended woods and bushes. Usually you’ll have to snake your way through briars and vines and thick stuff. But more times than not there are fish waiting for you. People ask me how the fish get there. I don’t know.
Business park ponds present a set of tricky wickets, and I now guide the reader – and myself – through them as I encounter this one on my travels.
Fundamental rule: when you do find a good-fishing business park pond, don’t broadcast the information. The best way to get a bunch of No Fishing signs planted is to attract a lot of anglers who litter the grounds with used fishing line, empty worm containers, and drink cans. Thus today’s pond remains anonymous.
I am in Berea for just a portion of a day, but I can’t resist driving into a business park to investigate the wooded, weeded, area out back. Sometimes such woods and weeds are there to camouflage retention ponds, borrow pits, and other bodies of water associated with the business park’s construction and operation.
Today I am not disappointed. There is a beautiful little two-acre pond, and there is even a spot that provides fishable access. I park and walk the 20 feet to the pond’s edge.
(A note about parking: for these sorts of ponds there is almost always nearby parking. Of course you never want to park in a Reserved or No Parking spot.)
Next I look for fences and No Fishing, No Trespassing, and No Entry signs – nothing. So I gather my rod and lure vest from the trunk, tie on a finesse worm, and go quickly to the access area. The pond is muddy-brown with only a few inches of visibility. I look for minnows and bluegill along the shoreline in front of me, but I see none. I look across the smooth pond’s surface for splashes of baitfish and larger fish, but nothing. And I look for fish-eating birds - herons, cormorants, ospreys – and I see none.
From a lot of experience I do know that some of these ponds have no fish. Their water may not be healthy, they may have been chemically treated, they may have been recently drained dry, who knows? But I always arrive with positive expectation.
The pond is lined with extremely thick bushes and trees and shrubs, and I throw the worm parallel to the bank in both directions, hoping to lure a bass that’s hiding among the overhangs. My standing area includes little purple-clustered wildflowers on which bumblebees alight. Behind me is the business park, adjacent is a hotel, and across the main road is a restaurant. Cars hum a background chorus.
I work the finesse worm along the shoreline in both directions with no results. Then I fan-cast it out into the main pond, inching it along the bottom to feel for structure. A dozen casts later – that’s usually the point when I switch lures – I change to a chrome Rat-L-Trap so I can cast even further, reel even faster, and cover even more water. With limited time on an unknown body of water you want to cover a lot of water with a lot of lures in a hurry.
I still have seen no sign of minnows or fish, and I begin to suspect that this is a dead pond. Fifty feet to my left I see a four-inch white pipe sticking out from the steep bank and dripping some sort of liquid into the pond. At the drip area is a small flotsam of foam. I scour the ground around me and see no angling trash: no hook packages, no pieces of discarded line, no bobbers. And still not even one fishy splash or swirl. I am on the borderline of giving up on this fishless pond.
Then I see it! On the ground, hidden by greenery: a discarded plastic bait package. Yum Dingers, Junebug color! This is a good find. Only serious bass anglers use Yum Dingers, and only
knowledgeable bass anglers use them in the Junebug color.So with fresh hope, nervous hands, and quickening heart I quickly tie on a Senko (similar to a Dinger) in green pumpkin (only color I have) and toss it to a shoreline bush. Bingo! A 12-inch bass. And during my remaining 45 minutes I catch six more – the largest almost two pounds.
Now there are at least two bass anglers who know about this pond’s bass. But had the other angler not discarded the lure package I would have likely departed thinking the pond was fishless.
There are all sorts of office park ponds and shopping center ponds and housing complex ponds. The ones you want to look for are the ones that are hidden within seemingly unattended woods and bushes. Usually you’ll have to snake your way through briars and vines and thick stuff. But more times than not there are fish waiting for you. People ask me how the fish get there. I don’t know.
