The Day Was Perfect

It was a perfect day to be floating in the Trout Pond. Sunshine, blue skies, air temperature around 51, 52, and the water temperature was ???? I didn't bring my thermometer, but it wasn't all that cold.
They stocked yesterday. What more could someone ask?

Trout Pond

More Trout Pond

And more again

What more could someone ask? How about a few fish that bite. I got to the pond just before 9:00 and by the time I got the Float Tube Cumberland aired up and my fly rod strung it was about 9:15 when I launched.

On one hand, I was glad I was tubing because even though all the people don't show in the pictures above (I was lazy and posted old pictures of the pond), the place was PACKED. On the shore, Combat Fishing at it's finest. They must have sent out a bulletin or something because every spot where you could throw a line out was filled and that was at 9:00 am.

OK, so I flippered out along the back side and started with the old reliable Thinmint. To make this shorter than I normally would, let me list the flies I tried.

1. Thinmint
2. Pink/black Woolly Bugger
3. Thinmint (sorry, already said that)
4. Some type of nymph. 
5. Olive Woolly Bugger
6. Black Woolly Bugger
7. Rust colored Crystal Bugger
8. White Woolly Bugger

Then I got desperate and sinking to the depths of fly fishing depravity, I even tried a Mice Tail in orange/chartreuse and red/brown. On the way back toward launch I started to get a cramp in my left thigh, probably because of lack of flippering exercise in the last 6 months, so I called it a day just after Noon.

Now it's not that people weren't catching a fish or two. I saw maybe a half dozen caught among the thousands fishing out there. OK, maybe 75 or so people around the pond.

I talked to a couple while I was rigging up and they managed two on, of all things, Power Bait. I will not sink to those depths and fish Power Bait on a fly rod. I just won't.

So, next Tuesday Juan from "Breaking the Bank" blog and I are going to try to get together and soak some Power Bait out at North Shore. He hasn't been fishing for so long that he's probably forgotten everything I taught him.

Oh, I forgot to mention that there was a guy out there in a float tube just like the Float Tube Cumberland, but there is only one "Float Tube Cumberland".  

So stay tuned.