By James McGuire
Contributing columnist
The old pond lies on the far side of a vast and rampantly overgrown weed field. Maybe a half mile from a small graveled parking lot. On public land.
When traversed under the blazing inferno of a scorching summer sun—even if done well before high noon—crossing this intervening expanse between the parking lot and pond is a torturous ordeal. A formidable shin-snaring gauntlet of jabbing thistles and hide-slicing briars, dusty pollen, lurking ticks, and sticky spider webs—which too often host the shuddery, scuttling arachnids that wove them.
At this time of year, the field is a patchwork of blooms—gold, purple, red, blue, white, orange. A chest-high tangle of color, and a veritable smorgasbord of bugs, seeds, nectar, and pollen. Birds abound, as do several species of bees.
Sometimes your bulldozing transit displaces one of the numerous busy bees. This upsets the creature and often prompts an immediate loud buzzing reprimand. But only rarely will your inadvertent jostling result in the annoyed insect actually retaliating with a jabbing sting.
Not only is the pond a fair ways from both the road and parking lot, but you can’t see it from either place. You wouldn’t know it was there unless you stumbled upon it by pure happenstance.
I was oblivious to its presence for years. Yet I made annual foraging treks to and from a deep-woods pocket beyond the field because that wooded cove harbors a dandy pawpaw patch—and I passed within a hundred yards of the pond every time. Yet I never suspected I was anywhere close to a great fishing hole!
In my defense, there’s a low swale between the pond and the direct-line route I took from the parking lot to the woods. Not even the tip-tops of the pond’s bordering willows are visible.
Too, when you’re a pawpaw obsessive, devoutly passionate about scoring an ambrosial fix of your favorite wild edibles, the mission is focused on that one mouth-watering goal. You’re a single-minded zealot, out to fill your tote sack…and not the least bit interested in wandering around investigating the distant corners of an itchy, intervening weed field.
I only discovered the pond because one year, near the end of the too-brief pawpaw season, having gathered the patch’s final handful of fist-sized fruit, I decided to give the rest of sprawling old woods a more thorough check with an eye to its squirrel hunting potential.
Near the edge of the timber, a bit of a hill allowed me a view beyond the trees. I looked down, into the field—and was absolutely astonished to see the roundish jewel of green water water glinting in the sun!
Naturally, I checked it out forthwith—just as soon as I could carry my paltry gleaning of pawpaws to the car, grab my fishing tackle, and stomp-forge my way back to the pond’s edge.
I’ve been returning regularly ever since.
I’d estimate the pond to be a bit over an acre. It’s deeper than you’d guess—fed by a tiny spring that trickles from beneath a rock ledge that protrudes from the base of the hill.
The water is contained in a depression—a little dip in the land that was likely always a soggy spot during the farm’s working days. My guess is some long-ago landowner finally got tired of trying to plow and work around the consistently unstable quagmire. Instead, he gave up fighting nature, dug the place out, maybe did some reshaping of the surrounding land—and thus enlarged and turned the vexing wet spot into a nice little pond.
Regardless, I’m thankful however it came about.
Unlike most long-forgotten and neglected ponds, this one is a true gem. In the morning sun, it sparkles like an opened jewel box.
A swath of dark-green cattails fringe one end, and a few low willows line the upper tip where the spring’s flow enters. There’s even a bit of watercress growing in this short, narrow channel.
The water is clear and deep. How deep? I dunno, but at least a dozen feet, and probably more. I can see that far down through my polarized-lens sunglasses.
Pods of pint-sized bluegill fin close to the mucky bank. And every so often a fair-sized largemouth will come cruising along like a great white shark—eyeing the little sunfish like a diner at a truck-stop café checking out the selection of pies. Not a big enough bass to get excited and lose sleep over—but one you wouldn’t mind catching and releasing just to watch it tailwalk and cartwheel, and to feel the weighty tugs.
What I come for are the BIG bluegill—dark-hued fish thick across their shoulders, and the size and shape of plates those above-mentioned pie slices might get served on! On ultralight tackle, such fish are a real handful. “Plumb fun!” as my father liked to say. The truth is, I’d rather catch a pound-plus bluegill than a three-pound largemouth any day.
Oddly, there are also a few crappie in the pond. Dandies, 13-14 inches! I catch one or two here every year.
But this isn’t a place I go to stringer and cart home the makings of a meal; I rarely keep a single fish.
Instead, I visit because it’s a sort of shared and special secret. A hidden place few know about or even suspect.
There’s no path around its parameter; no human footprints in the mud; and no discarded trash such as metal cans, plastic wrappers, or balls of tangled monofilament dangling in nearby bushes.
No evidence whatsoever that anyone but me ever visits.
I know that’s not true; I can’t possibly be the only person who comes around. Perhaps its seeming wildness is mostly a fantasy.
But I like to think of the place as wild. Spending occasional time there fulfills a sort of escapist need—and it’s probably as wild as any out-of-the-way pond on public land can ever be hereabouts.
For me, that’s close enough to truth to work.
or before today’s afternoon snooze.
Reach the writer at [email protected]
