Small Pay Pond in Fayette County, Ga - May 17, 2013

Work is stressful for me. I work as a Continuous Improvement Specialist for a very large plastics manufacturing company. My job requires me to run complex analysis and make decisions that not only effect my plant, but that also effects our several other plants around the country. Needless to say, sometimes after work I need to detox from the stresses of my job. The best way I have found to do this is find a nearby body of water and wet a hook.

In my search for fishing waters near my home in Palmetto I came across this little pay lake/pond on Sandy Creek Rd in Fayette County. The sign out front is a tad deceptive when it states "$10 Donation Appreciated". That $10 is more of a requirement when the owner of the lake comes out and asks for it! When I arrived I didn't realize this and only had $7 on my in cash, but luckily he was really nice and took the $7 as payment.

I arrived around 6:45 pm and there were a couple people with lines in the water. Looked like they were fishing for crappie or bream. As I was walking up a couple was leaving so I stopped and talked to them for a moment to see how the fishing was. They had done fairly well with a small mess of crappie and a handful of eating size bass. With this encouragement I grabbed my fly rod and practically ran to the waters edge.

I tied on a small popper fly made a few casts out into the pond. After about 10 minutes of nothing I started to worry that my money may have been wasted. I saw some movement up on the bank to my right a few yards away so I decided to cast right up on the bank. After 2 pops of the popper a bass struck my lure with a vengeance like I had never seen! The fish literally came completely out of the water on the strike and swallowed my popper. When I brought the fish to hand he was about 13" long, but a hell of a fighter. The owner had asked that I keep as many as possible to help control population so I put him on the stringer and made a cast to the same spot. 3 pops this time then BAM! It was on again.

This was the story for the rest of the evening until it got too dark to see. I missed twice as many as I caught from rookie mistakes (I'm new to fly fishing) like poor line management. I did end up catching about 10 eating size keeper to take home to the knife. All in all this was a great spot to fish. Given half a day the cost would be well worth it to fish the whole pond. I'm positive there are some lunkers in there just waiting to be dinner. I'll definitely be going back sometime. Highly recommended for families as well. The pond is VERY well maintained with grass banks all around with benches and trashcans. Only open from Thursday to Sunday and only a couple months during summer out of the year so you gotta get in when you can.

There is no better way to shake the stress of a long day then bending a rod and bringing home dinner.

Let's go fishing!