One of the great things about spring is the beaver ponds start to fill up again. Fish found in these ponds tend to be a little more aggressive since the food supply is usually a little less. Especially in the spring when the fish?s metabolism starts warming up with the water and they put on the feed bags. Plus you never know what you are going to find in a beaver pond.
I have seen a 20? brown trout pulled out of a pond that was maybe 50ft of shore line, he must of swam in during high water chasing fry and didn?t swim out in time. I?ve also heard crazy stories of muskrats being caught. In Colorado most of these ponds I stumble across hold brook trout and it can be fast non-stop action.
Today I hit one of the beaver ponds just up the mountain from Colorado Springs, within 25 minutes of my house. Worried it might of winter killed or been fished out I sat above it and watched for life. Still cold at the elevation just under 40 degrees I wasn?t expecting surface action but was trying to see the bottom so I could spot a cruising fish. But I saw a surface hit then another and another, it appeared that a small hatch was coming off the water. By small I mean really small midges probably close to 26-30 hook size. Not something I usually carry so I thought I would crash the hatch and tied on a stimulator pattern.
I casted to the rising fish and immediately hooked up right after it hit the water, pulling in a beautiful brook trout. Every 3rd or 4rth cast I had landed a fish the other casts were either misses or last minute refusals. It was truly crashing the hatch, I moved around casting the stimulator to different rises either catching or missing the fish. I then switched to a small hopper pattern (size 16) I had recently tied up for the high country to test it out. It didn?t draw as many strikes as the stimulator but with a slow steady strip back to shore it got plenty of attention and the brookies started tearing it up, I still missed plenty but caught well over 30 fish from this small beaver pond.
These gems can be pretty rare and most people don?t fish them because of how small they are but if I were you I would pull over or hike down that ridge just to test my luck at that little beaver pond, because you never know what might be in there.
