Warmwater Fishing is Fantastic!

I'm in Hillsville, Virginia for the week, so while it's not as hot as the lowlands, I'll tell you the climate doesn't alter as much as you'd think up here. With heat in mind, we decided to go up high. 3,000 feet ASL is high enough. I fished the small mill pond on the Blue Ridge Parkway I frequent. As is usual this time of the year, it fished exceptionally well today. After a few casts I began my quest to rob the pond of it's booty catch a few fish. After being guided to the pond by the flock of resident white ducks begging for bread and insurance (Aflac!) and I was casting to bass and bluegill as the sun went behind the trees. I had two rods, one rigged with a streamer and one rigged with a small Tiger Beetle. The streamer was the first to get wet, as I watched a pretty good sized bass cruising and obviously on the lookout for potential food items. I intercepted his projected path. Strip, strip, stop...strip, strip, strip, stop...strip, str...bang. He decided to slurp my offering with a little hesitance. I set the hook and he took off in a mad rage. A moment later, he was landed, had his picture taken, and was released (first two pictures). Shortly after releasing him, I was hooked into another fish, roughly the same size as the first one. They tend to be pretty selective and look over what they're about to eat with extreme caution. I watched one large fish slowly turn to meet my streamer, refuse it, and sink back to his lie. Sounds like the Davidson. Pretty typical of these fish. Oddly enough, I'm really the only one pressuring the fish. I saw one person fishing this pond 6 years ago. That's it. My grandparents used to live in the development close to the pond, so they have connections. It's my all-time favorite warmwater destination in the area. I'm fishing it again all day Friday, so more to come! Until then, I'm tying more Foxy Reds and Zonkers...