IT'S BASS FISHING'S PASTORAL PLACE.

Byline: Bennett J. Mintz Special to the Daily News

The small fly-rod bass popper landed squarely between the red barn and the horse corral. A moment later a terrific fish came charging out from the maple tree and swallowed the lure.

Fishing for bass in a tree near a barn and corral? Is this one of those old fishing tales your grandfather used to spin, or it is a scene from the latest entry on the Internet?

Not exactly. The tree, the barn and the corral were reflections in one of the ponds at the Bonnie B Ranch, located midway between Fresno and Yosemite National Park. But the popper and the bass that tracked it down were real.

The private ranch, also known as Bryant Farms, is a 440-acre spread in the Western Sierra Nevada foothills about 35 miles south of the park's boundary. It caters to anglers who have deep wallets and a hankering to tackle spunky, hand-raised bass.

The Bryants were once a prominent farming family, growing everything from cotton to tomatoes between Bakersfield and Visalia along Highway 99. Their handsome ranch in the town of North Fork, east of Highway 41 in the Sierra National Forest, was both a home and a vacation retreat.

Apparently, former president Ronald Reagan considered purchasing the Bryant estate prior to settling on his homestead north of Santa Barbara. Yet, the family managed to retain the rustic acreage, cutting some 70 miles of horse trails, building a magnificent estate home, stables and a tack room, and creating a number of ponds.

Today, the picturesque bodies of water - dubbed Home, Leaky, Sneaky, Mossy I and Mossy II - are used for irrigation, fire safety and flood control . . . oh, and for growing some monster bass that could rival any Halloween ghoul or goblin. Besides harboring the bass, the ponds crawl with various varieties of bluegill (a hybrid lot that run as big as Mike Tyson's fist), frogs, turtles and a plethora of aquatic insects.

Is it easy to catch a lunker bass? No. Is it fun to try? You bet.

Ranch manager Larry Curtiss greets customers with a brief tour of the fishing holes and offers his best advice.

``If you can sneak into the shallow end of Sneaky, there's a 12-pounder back there. I caught him twice,'' he said with a chuckle during a recent visit.

``There's an even bigger one in there,'' he noted, pointing to Mossy I, ``but nobody can catch him. Must go 15 pounds, maybe more.''

Home Lake, the one closest to the ranch house and barns, is the largest and deepest of the ponds and has both largemouth and smallmouth bass, mingled with bluegill, crappie and some hybrid warmwater fish. A few of the ponds can be fished from prams - flat-bottomed boats; others are strictly for shore-casting. While Home Lake doesn't have a pram, it is ideal for a float tube or similar free-floating device.

Plan on being on the pond that suits you best soon after dawn cracks the sky, then fishing until the sun covers the entire area. Take a stroll or horseback ride around the ranch during the afternoon. Then be back with rod and reel in hand once the evening shadows fall across the water and the bass come out from the weed beds. Depending on the pond, bluegill and crappie are pretty much available all day.

Poppers and streamers in hues of yellow to green are the most productive. To the bass they might look like the young bluegill or crappie on which they are accustomed to dining.

Fly-rodders should plan on casting deer-hair patterns, like a Dahlberg Diver, or any standard rubber-leg popper in size 4 or 6. If you want to catch sunfish, try a size 8 or 10 along the weed lines and watch it disappear. Olive Matukas, woolly buggers, woolly worms, muddlers and similar patterns are equally as effective.

But it is the slam-bam grab of a popper off the surface that stirs the soul and makes fly-fishing here worthwhile. A slight wind and wave action will undulate the popper's rubber legs, giving life to the little lure.

At first there might be the futile swirl of a bluegill trying to drown the invader. Then the bug will disappear, kerplunk, into the maw of a big bass. Most will be 2 to 3 pounds. Some will be bigger, some smaller. A dozen or so good-sized bass in the morning and an equal number at dusk is standard.

The bass will hesitate for a scant instant as the hook bites home, then it will head straight for the safety of a fallen log or other brush. There will be a leap or two in a vain attempt to toss the plug, but soon it's all over. Ease the barbless popper out of its mouth, release the fish and do it all over again. On the other hand, there is nothing quite so delicious as a pan-fried largemouth bass, with bluegill fillets and tiny red-skin potatoes on the side.

The Bonnie B Ranch was previously open only to families or groups on a weekly basis with a price tag of $2,300, but in recent months it has been made available to weekenders for $140 (two bedrooms, two bathrooms) to $350 (three bedrooms, three bathrooms) a night. Prices include use of the guest house and its well-equipped kitchen, horses, wranglers, hiking trails, boats and, of course, all the bass you can hook.

For more information, write to: Kerry Bryant, 323 26th St., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266, or call him between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. at [phone].

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Photo

Photo: (color) Maurice Colwell of Valley Village hooked a 4 -pound largemouth bass at the Bonnie B Ranch whiled reeling in a palm-sized bluegill.

Bennett J. Mintz / Special to the Daily News