Good weather, good fishing, good friends

Early Saturday morning, Jon Swartwout, his buddies Jim and Chris, my brother in law Jamie, and I headed to the Minerva area to fish. The name of the game was ponds; traditional canoe carry in style in search of Adirondack brook trout. We arrived at the trail-head very early and packed up our gear. Heavy packs and three canoes would accompany us on the trip.

Chris, Jim and I reached our main target pond in a little under an hour. After waiting for Jamie and Jon to arrive for a while, it was apparent that they had stopped to fish another smaller pond along the way. We fished for a few hours and only managed a few small brookies.

We were taking a break when Jon and Jamie arrived. Jon passed his camera around, causing jaws to be dropped....

He had landed the massive brown on his new 3wt. Orvis Hydros and had fought the fish for 20+ minutes. Quite the way to break in a new rod (I'm surprised the fish didn't literally break it). We were all very amazed by the size of the fish. It was also quite a random fish considering that there is no record of browns being stoked in the pond.

We had a quick lunch and hiked to another pond close by. A few fish were landed but nothing of major size. We returned to the pond where we were camped and landed a few more smaller sized brookies. The rest of the night was enjoyed to the fullest, especially since master chef Jim cooked up some elk and venison. We ate several pounds of it and went to bed on full stomachs. 

Jon and Jamie

Home Sweet Home

In the morning, the decision was made to head back towards the cars and fish the pond where Jon had caught the brown on the way out. I ended up landing a nice brownie myself. However, it was nowhere even close to the size of Jon's fish. 

After a while we hiked out to the cars and found that it was only 10 in the morning. We drove down the road a ways and hiked into another small pond. It produced some small brookies as well. 

Overall it was a great trip. Everyone caught fish and the weather couldn't have been nicer (70's-80's and sunny). I had a great time and it was nice meeting Jim and Chris. It was also nice to see Jamie and Jon and get to fish with them again. Thanks for a great trip guys.

Photo credit: Jon and Jamie