Matthew Dickerson, Addison Independent, July 24
It was dark night, but it wasn't stormy. With last week's thunderstorms having passed through on Tuesday, and (slightly) cooler weather having moved in behind, Wednesday seemed like a good evening to check out Bristol Pond (a.k.a. Winona Lake) to see if the bass and northern pike were hitting. Accompanied by Randy Butler--local carpenter extraordinaire and a pretty good fishermen too--we loaded my canoe on his pickup around 6:00pm and were at the pond fishing by 6:15pm. We worked our way first down the northern shore where the pond gives way to marshes and duck habitat.
Randy hooked the first one, which was big enough to tow our canoe several yards toward the shore before he landed it. His little Panther Martin lure was imbedded deep in the jaw of 24" northern pike. Meanwhile, I continued to fool around with various Daredevils, rubber worms, and other assorted lures with no luck. After about half an hour, I finally switched to a #2 red-and- white Meppes spinner and got some action. My first four fish illustrated the species diversity of the pond: a 10" perch, a blue-gill sunfish, a 19" northern, and a small bass. None were close to Randy's in length or weight, but they were better than nothing. Overall, though, the pond was fairly quiet for the first hour.
Later, I put down my spinning rod, pulled out my 9' 5-wt fly rod and took several casts with a small plug. The very first cast elicited a hard strike from what looked like an impressive bass. However since I failed to set the hook, my only view of the fish was its initial explosion on the surface. Other than a few more blue-gill, that was my only excitement with the fly rod. At about 7:30pm, we did see some more action a short distance up the lake. Unfortunately, the action was in another boat. After watching a very large fish being landed by a pair of fisherman casting from a motorboat, we paddled over to investigate. Jim Lyman of Monkton had just caught a 6.5 pound northern pike. It was an impressive monster. He had released the fish, but a Polaroid picture testified to what we had seen from a distance. His fishing partner, Scot Keefe, had also earlier landed a very nice fish: a hard-fighting 3 pound bass. Before we left Randy hooked one more large northern, weighing about 6.5 pounds and measuring 30", beating his earlier mark by half a foot. However judging from the proximity to the other boat and the fact that the fish looked exhausted, we suspect it was probably the same fish that Jim had earlier caught.
For those interested, the lake is just north of Bristol. It is a nice place for a leisurely paddle, or for decent bass and pike fishing. Reach it by going north about three miles from either the junction of 17 and 116 or up North Street in Bristol. A well-marked access road is on the right. A boat ramp and short paddle up the outlet channel will lead you to the pond. The lake is fairly secluded with only a small number of camps on the east shore, all set back in the woods and invisible from the water. At 8:00pm we counted 10 boats on the lake: 3 canoes and 7 larger bass boats so it isn't as quiet as one might expect. Still, it's a nice place for an evening, and readily accessible. Randy also told me about a couple other hot fishing spots that are his favorites, but I'm out of space.