Basswood Pond (Burlington, NY)

With the streams running high due to all the rain lately, my buddy and I opted for some pond fishing instead.  We threw the boats (a kayak for me, an ultra-light canoe for him) in the trailer and headed up to Basswood Pond in Burlington, NY.  We arrived around 6pm and couldn't have asked for a better scene.  The pond was smooth as glass and the bugs were just starting to come out.  Fish were already rising throughout the pond so we boarded our boats with high expectations.

Best I could tell based on coloration, size, and time of year, the cream colored mayflies swarming the water were most likely Light Cahills (Stenonema ithaca, perhaps?) though I had my best luck with a March Brown dry fly.  It was a fun evening as mayflies were swarming everywhere and the fish were eager to get a meal.  I didn't catch anything larger than a foot, but by the end of the evening I had netted 1 brown, 1 rainbow, a couple of smallmouths (the DEC says there are only largemouths in the pond, but I beg to differ), a sunny or two, and a few fingerling largemouths.

Casting from such a low seat in the kayak was a challenge for me, mostly because I kept trying to force things by muscling the rod around in my excitement.  All that got me were tailing loops and fly line wrapped around my rod tip.  Purposely slowing things down and smoothly accelerating to each stop got me straightened out.  I really need to focus on "less is more" when I cast.  There's more time than you think.  Drifting in a kayak and presenting to rising fish also meant a lot of casting at odd body angles and even more practice fishing my back cast.

Unlike my usual stream fishing, success on the smooth pond was all about delicate presentation, something at which I'm not yet consistent.  On a stream, fishing in a current, you can get away with some more awkward presentations since the water is riffly and you're casting above the fish and allowing it to drift down over them.  Not so in a pond.  If the fly doesn't float down naturally, nobody's interested and if you overpower it and it hits too hard, you'll see the surface ripple as your fish disappears into the weed bed below.

I didn't land any lunkers, but the night was beautiful and it's always fun to catch fish, even if they're just little guys fresh out of the stocking tank.