Fishing Beaver Ponds

Fishing beaver ponds is suitable for any outdoorsman. If you are adept at stalking whitetail deer in scrub oak thickets, then you have the credentials to become a top beaver pond fisherman. The qualifications are rigid and patience is the main ingredient. But the rewards are very satisfying.

Wherever the beaver thrives in the United States and Canada, anglers find a brand of fishing with its own rules for success. The industrious beavers seem to have a naturally devised system of quality angling in the ponds they created because it takes an angler with finesse to master the ponds and the fish within them. The fly caster must lay an artificial on the water in the same manner as a snowflake comes to a landing. The spin fisherman plays a game of inches, not feet, when zeroing in on pond fish. Hard landings and bad casts are extremely unnatural to the normal, delicate movements in and on the water of a beaver haunt.

The fisherman who does not like to walk; does not like to blaze new trails through stream and pond quagmire; and who shudders at the idea of fighting tangles, unhooking back casts and swatting mosquitoes, is better off back at the civilized pond in the city park.

The Rewards of Fishing Beaver Ponds

For me at least, the rewards of challenging beaver pond obstacles far outweigh any efforts an angler makes. Fish grow fast in ponds due to an abundance of natural food. In areas of heavy fishing pressure on well-known lakes and streams, the beaver ponds offer best chances of success. Most anglers pass up the tangles of willow, and refuse to set foot in the myriad of birch and aspen downfall that typically surrounds a beaver pond. Yet the same anglers, fortunately, will stand elbow to elbow with other anglers in a well used fishing hole. So there is a feeling of privacy -wilderness isolation if you like, on a string of ponds.

Fish variety is another good reason for hitting beaver holes. In the West, trout reign supreme in the ponds. Brook trout are usually the predominant species, but some ponds also contain rainbows, browns and cutthroats. Trout abound in beaver ponds in other parts of the country and in Canada. But warm water species are evident also. Bass, pike and panfish find the deep, cover-laden ponds to their liking. Trout will be the main concern here and the techniques for fishing them will apply to other species.

Beavers create good fishing. They can turn a mere trickle of a stream into a deep pool filled with scrappy brook trout. Where a narrow, brush-lined creek may have been impossible to fish with lure or fly, the beaver's log dam means a tempting pool. Man has destroyed millions of acres of prime beaver habitat in the guise of progress, but there is still enough left to support vigorous populations of dam builders. Where the beaver is controlled by selective trapping, but not over-harvested, there results a reasonable balance of nature. In turn, anglers fortunate enough to live near beaver country are treated to an ever-changing variety of fishing holes. In the beaver's quest to store a sufficient amount of water for protection in summer and winter, top fishing usually results.