Took a weekend to go inland with the kids and do some fishing with "Grampy".. For over 70 years my family has fished at the same "secret pond" nestled in the rolling hills of VT.
My grandfather actually helped to build the pond, during the CCC days, on some old farmland, by building a dam. The pond was to supply fire suppression water. Somewhere along the way he and a few buddies pooled some money and bought the land, about 500 acres, that surrounded the pond and began stocking it with brook & rainbow trout.
The story, as passed down, is that they took one board out of the dam and dropped the acreage to just below the state limit for public access and then formed a "private club". My dad was fishing there as a kid, I was fishing there at 1-2 years old an up and my daughter has been fishing there since the age of three. The place is timeless and other than the trees being bigger not much has changed in 43 years.
Saturday night we arrived for the evening rise and landed 6 rainbows in under an hour. This morning we caught our daily limit, a mix of brookies and rainbows.. The kids loved it as I did. Just like the pond and cabin have not changed we still fish with the same three 1956 Orvis Impregnated Tonkin Bambo fishing rods that we used when I was a kid. To this day nothing, not even the most expensive and fancy graphite rods, can even come close to the real Tonkin bamboo rods in terms of performance. Sometimes older is better.
Amazing weekend and while not sailing we were still "on the water"....
Trout for diner!!!!
My grandfather actually helped to build the pond, during the CCC days, on some old farmland, by building a dam. The pond was to supply fire suppression water. Somewhere along the way he and a few buddies pooled some money and bought the land, about 500 acres, that surrounded the pond and began stocking it with brook & rainbow trout.
The story, as passed down, is that they took one board out of the dam and dropped the acreage to just below the state limit for public access and then formed a "private club". My dad was fishing there as a kid, I was fishing there at 1-2 years old an up and my daughter has been fishing there since the age of three. The place is timeless and other than the trees being bigger not much has changed in 43 years.
Saturday night we arrived for the evening rise and landed 6 rainbows in under an hour. This morning we caught our daily limit, a mix of brookies and rainbows.. The kids loved it as I did. Just like the pond and cabin have not changed we still fish with the same three 1956 Orvis Impregnated Tonkin Bambo fishing rods that we used when I was a kid. To this day nothing, not even the most expensive and fancy graphite rods, can even come close to the real Tonkin bamboo rods in terms of performance. Sometimes older is better.
Amazing weekend and while not sailing we were still "on the water"....
Trout for diner!!!!
