Walden Pond

[mike kelly]

Thinking about hitting walden for a couple of hours around lunch today with the 5 wt and woolly buggers. Anyone think there's a better idea near there?

[MNJoe]

I was there all afternoon yesterday - it was a total Trout Circus. They're still amazingly uneducated - right off the bus, if you will.

I rocked them (lost count!) on various size 14 mayfly nymphs. There was actually a pretty serious dark quilly-looking hatch. Wooly buggers were good too. The emerger action was out of control though, at one time there were FIVE trout in the air at virtually the same time, 20 feet in front of us. All fish were 12-16.5 inches. These guys are launching into the air, I'm talking 40 inches up, flips, spins, even a superlong tail-walk!

On the downside, the pond is full of people with worms and spinners harvesting their limit as fast as they can... Get out there while you can, I guess.

[Fly Deacon]

Sounds like the dolphin show at SeaWorld.

I think the stock trout tastes terrible and the consistency is mushy. Putting the catch and release debate completely aside - I'm not sure why there's such a draw to take home your limit like they do at Walden.

[mike kelly]

thanks, was hoping a weekday might be less crowded, ah well, sounds worth the trip.

[pushaw]

I went for an hour after work a couple of days ago. Yes, there was a crowd in one area, but I had a decent section to myself, dredged up one fish on a wooly bugger. It was quite pleasant, no hatch coming off, not much surface activity. There might've been a dozen or a few more people than that. I'd say that I enjoyed myself, but I can't wait to hit the moving water. Fishing Walden is like fishing my neighbors trout pond, its OK for a little while, but fishing stocked ponds just doesn't do it for me. But... I'm all for them stocking accessible ponds. Otherwise there'd be gangs of fishermen out on the Deerfield, where I value the fishing, but the power bait crowd isn't going to do any better than they do at Walden.

[mike kelly]

well, it wasn't quite as turned on as yesterday, but caught a couple smallish fish in 1.5 hours, if we get a warm afternoon next week, i'll go back...there are some nice fish in there...at least for now, powerbait and lawn chair guys working the end by the road pretty well. still, first fish of the year a trout on a fly, all is right with the world, --125-3

[Fly Deacon]

Were you putting the fly on the surface or sinking it?

[pushaw]

I got my fish deep and slow, basically dredging around the bottom. I tried some other stuff, but mostly wanted to get on the board. I'm not much of a pond-fisher, but I bet you could nail some on emergers too.

[Fly Deacon]

Pushaw-

Cool - that's how I have been doing it with moderate success- I brought up a nice brown last night after work.

I hear ya about the pond fishing but my hatred of driving long distances to fish (becuase of limited free time) keeps me away from the deerfield.

It feels good to be back in the game after a miserable winter.

Good luck

[mike kelly]

Were you putting the fly on the surface or sinking it?

fly deacon, same as pushaw, deep and slow, floated some dry flys, after i caught a couple fish, but just cause i think its more fun. did see a few rises, but not consistently and couldn't really see anything coming off