As noted below, my buddy Jim and I are giving a presentation about pond fishing Tuesday night in Pepperell at the Squanna-a-tissit TU chapter meeting. We have some ponds in our overview FF in NH pitch, but the prep for Tuesday required some additional material. Every season I probably spend 90% of the time fishing rivers and streams, but some of the best memories I have are of fishing ponds. Fishing rivers, I have almost limitless patience. As long as I am confident that there are fish there to be caught, I'll hike for miles and try hundreds of flies and consider it a success if I even see one fish inspect my offering. On the other hand, unless I see fish rising or catch one or two on a subsurface pattern, my patience on ponds has a short fuse. But when a pond is "on" there is nothing like it! Most of my best pond-fishing memories are of fishing the hex hatch in summer. Huge mayflies bring every fish in the pond up to the surface. But in May you can also have great days as the water warms in the afternoon and smaller mayflies begin hatching. One of my kids graduated from Plymouth State U. On May 18 of one of her years there, I went up there to move her out of the dorm. She was on one of the upper floors and they had assigned time slots for use of the elevator. Well I took advantage of the occasion to stop by one of my favorite ponds in the WMNF. Not much was happening until about a half hour before I needed to leave to be on time for the assigned elevator slot. Then it began - aggressive rises just off the canoe launch (I was wading.) I used a small beadhead mayfly softhackle and I must have caught over 30 fish in the next 90 minutes. I kept saying, if I make three casts without getting a fish, I'll change to a dry - I never changed flies. I reluctantly reeled-up with a few fish still rising. Suffice to say it was a tense ride home from school, but she got over it (Good practice in case she settles down with a flyfisherman.) Another great time to have a memorable day on a pond is in September, as the surface water cools. Flying ants are often the abundant insect on the water. That same pond has surrendered dozens of bright orange-bellied brookies on sunny September afternoons on big ant patterns and small hoppers. Well, back to my presentation. Click the title of this entry for a link to more info about pond fishing for trout.
Tight lines
I read your comments all season and did not see any references to Sky Pond this year. I fished it a couple of times with no luck.
ReplyDeleteI only fished Sky Pond a couple times. Not much action, so not much to report. When I needed to take somebody to catch fish we went to Echo. Real good hex hatch and lots of fish.
ReplyDeleteGerry,
ReplyDeleteCould you tell me how late into the season the fishing holds up at the Sqaunnacook and the Nissitissit? The last few years I have always made the day after Thanksgiving my last trip of the year and have had success on this day every year, which leads to my asking how late into the winter will these two rivers produce fish? I made it out to the Nissi for an hour yesterday at the end of the day and caught a really nice rainbow on an egg pattern in the runs around the first bend below the Prescott St Bridge. There are some good runs on this river that are accessible without having to do a lot of waist-deep wading, which would be key in the winter months.