Well, a trip that started well ended pretty awful for me. I drove out to Rood Pond in Williamstown VT to test out my new float tube. Caught some Brook Trout, but also had my hip pack with all my flies and supplies as well as my fly rod stolen in the process. I had forgot to load my gear after deflating my float tube. After realizing this I turned around to go back only to be told two guys took off with it. Such a shame.
Today was a blast, it was really the first productive day of fishing I’ve had since I moved up here. Nestled among the green mountains of Vermont, I found myself at a nice high elevation pond holding a healthy population of brook trout. It was nice accessing the spot, a short, but very steep hike brought us to the top.
The view was truly spectacular and was only exceeded by the fishing. It didn’t take long to land the first fish. I tied on an old faithful, the wooly bugger to do some initial prodding of the water. A rather large pond, the temperature was at a cool 50 degrees, receiving some help from the snow melt still taking place. Anyways, back to the fishing. I packed my waders so I was able to actually get into the water, I’m still waiting on my float tube, so I only had so much room to work with. My first few casts came and went without much success. On the fifth or six, I had a pretty aggressive take. With a quick hookset, I had my first Brook trout on my line. After a quick battle, he was in my net.
Like I said, this pond was pretty large, so I made sure to make my way around it and fish as many spots as I could access. Every spot I stopped at was productive. I stayed mostly subsurface fishing buggers, grey ghosts, and a couple sculpin patterns. I did however see probably the largest fish of the day rising to what looked like a BWO hatch out in the centers of the pond. Again, this is where my lack of float tube really left me wondering just how big those fish were, and reallllly wishing I had that float tube. Short of any other drawn out stories here’s some more fish:
Before we headed out for the day, we decided to take a trip down one of the limited access roads that finally re-opened for spring:
It was a pretty surreal experience as the road seemed almost out of place winding through the mountains. The road had no real shoulders in this section, with large boulders that you could reach out and touch as you drove by. The road eventually gave way to a split roadway with a small stream running parallel to it. My gut feeling told me we should see where it led to, and boy am I glad we did. We pulled off the road to follow the stream for a while. The water was without a doubt mountain fed, it was crystal clear and absolutely freezing. As we followed it down, we found a series of the renowned Vermont beaver ponds:
We took up a spot on the edge of one of the small pond and waited for the tell tale rings from rising brookies. It didn’t take long to realize how many fish were holding in these tiny ponds, so we strung up our rods, tied on some small stimulator patterns and went to work:
All in all, a great day!
I’ll keep this post short, because the day was equally as short. I ended up camping in the Allegany State Park last night. I made my way to a few of the watersheds around our camp ground and caught quite a few native NY brook trout. They may not be the biggest fish, but they make up for what they lack in size with their beauty. The fishing was cut short by some terrible rain that rendered the waters unfishable. Pretty lame, so I’ll be making another trip back out here next weekend. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.
After a drawn out day at work, I slipped over to one of my favorite streams. I had just picked up my new Orvis Superfine Touch 7” 3wt (expect a review here soon) and wanted to put it to the test with some dry flies. I made my way over to a nice pool that I discovered last week, and took a seat to watch for risers.
My wait didn’t take long. I watched as 5-7 Brown Trout of varying sizes, started rising to primarily terrestrials and caddis. I had arrived at about 6pm, and there was a decent hatch going on.
I tied on a small mayfly emerger, as the fish were sipping off the surface, and I figured the pattern would draw some attention. Sure enough on the first cast I managed to land an odd looking little brown. He put up a decent fight for his size, and after a short battle, I put him back in the water. The fish were still busy feeding, and I was eying down a couple of larger fish at the front of the pool. I dried off my emerger pattern, and sent a nice roll cast to the front of the pool. It took a few passes, but I managed to entice a bit of a larger brown to the surface. Bringing him in on my new Superfine was a blast. After almost hanging me up on a submerged log, I managed to get my second fish to the net:
I was very happy to manage a larger fish out of the creek, given the temperature, and the fact that western, NY isn’t renowned for it’s July trout fishing. Luckily my girlfriend had decided to stop by and hang out, so getting pictures of this guy was a quick and painless process. I slipped him back in the creek and went back to fishing.
After catching a handful of browns anywhere from 6-11″ I noticed a huge trout, pushing all the other fish out of the front of the pool. The water wasn’t too deep where he positioned himself, maybe a foot, foot and a half. The water was crystal clear as well. I knew catching this fish was not going to be an easy task, but I was up to the challenge. Up until this point I was making an upstream approach with the fish I had caught. However, given the low, clear water, I knew I was going to have to change tactics if I wanted this trout. I made my way up the creek ahead of him, and found some cover behind large bush on the shore. I added a bit of tippet to my leader, giving myself about 12 feet to work with. I cast the fly just ahead of him, allowing my fly line to float just out of his sight on the right side. I watched through the bush as my emerger headed right down over his head. On the first pass he very calmly rose to the fly and slurped it right down. A clean hook set and the fight was on! The fish and I fought it out for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was all of 5-6 minutes. After a close call of my leader catching on an overhanging tree, I eventually brought him to the net. A huge trout for this creek, and one I had not the slightest expectation of catching. All in all, a terrific little evening of fishing. Here’s the beast:
jdsflyfishing 