Kettle Pond Trout: Five Ways I Fish Cape Cod’s Stillwaters By Anthony Lombardo

Cape Cod is better known for striped bass than trout. When most fly fishermen picture the Cape, they see sand beaches, rips, flats, and perhaps a school of stripers pushing bait against a shoreline. But scattered throughout that same landscape are hundreds of freshwater ponds, many of them remnants of the glaciers that shaped Cape Cod thousands of years ago.

These are the kettle ponds.

Many were formed near the end of the last Ice Age when blocks of glacial ice became buried in sediment and eventually melted, leaving depressions in the landscape. Where those depressions intersect the groundwater table, they become ponds. Unlike a typical lake fed by obvious rivers and streams, many Cape kettle ponds have no major surface inlet or outlet; they are essentially windows into the groundwater beneath the Cape. Cape Cod sources date their formation to the glacial landscape of roughly 18,000 years ago.

For a trout fisherman, some of these ponds offer something even more interesting. Massachusetts stocks brook, brown, rainbow, and tiger trout throughout the state each year, including numerous Cape ponds. The state manages its stocking program primarily as a put-and-take fishery, although a small percentage of fish can survive in deeper, colder water and become holdovers.

Those trout can be caught in dramatically different ways depending on how long they have been in the pond. That is what makes this fishing so interesting to me. There isn't one "kettle pond technique." The fish change, their behavior changes, and the way I approach them changes with it.

Over the years, I've settled on a handful of presentations that cover almost everything I encounter.

Stage One: Newly Stocked Trout and the Woolly Bugger

There is a brief period immediately after trout are stocked when they can behave almost unlike trout that have spent any significant amount of time in the wild.  These are hatchery fish. Until very recently, food simply appeared for them. Then they are dumped into a kettle pond and suddenly that arrangement ends. Nobody is delivering pellets anymore. Hunger comes quickly, but the fish haven't necessarily figured out what food in their new environment is supposed to look like.  That combination can create some spectacular streamer fishing.

At this stage I don't try to imitate anything too precisely. In fact, I think trying to "match the hatch" can miss the point. These trout are often aggressive, competitive, and willing to chase. I want to take advantage of that.

My favorite setup is extremely simple: a 6-weight rod, a clear intermediate or camo-colored intermediate line, and roughly five feet of straight Cortland Top Secret fluorocarbon in 3X or 4X. On the end goes a Woolly Bugger, usually somewhere from a size 8 to 12.

Then I move it.  A relatively fast strip can be deadly. I want the fly swimming with enough speed to trigger a reaction rather than give the trout much time to inspect it. The intermediate line keeps the fly beneath the surface while still allowing me to control its depth and speed.

The heavier fluorocarbon isn't accidental, either. These fish can absolutely hammer a moving fly, and I'm generally setting the hook with a firm strip set. The additional breaking strength gives me some insurance when a trout eats at full speed and I'm already pulling in the opposite direction.  It is wonderfully uncomplicated fishing.

But this period doesn't last forever.  Eventually those trout learn.

When Stocked Trout Become Pond Trout

A trout that has spent some time in a kettle pond begins discovering that the place is full of actual food. Chironomids, leeches, worms, emerging insects and other small aquatic organisms gradually become part of its vocabulary.  At the same time, much of that frantic post-stocking aggression begins to disappear.

Now I slow everything down.

Two of my favorite presentations during this stage are the hand-twist retrieve and suspending flies beneath an indicator. They accomplish slightly different things, but both allow you to keep a relatively small fly in productive water for a long time.

The hand-twist retrieve is almost the opposite of stripping a Woolly Bugger for freshly stocked fish. Instead of making the fly flee, you're crawling it through the water. Short, steady hand twists impart just enough motion to suggest life without making the fly look as though it is trying to escape the pond.  Chironomid imitations, leech patterns, worm patterns and emergers all work wonderfully this way.

The indicator approach can be even slower. Set the depth so your flies are suspended where you believe the trout are feeding and allow the pond to do much of the work. Wind, waves and tiny movements of the indicator transmit subtle motion down the leader. Instead of constantly retrieving the fly, you're letting it hover and crawl through the zone.  Patience becomes part of the presentation.

This is where stillwater fishing begins to become much more technical. You're no longer fishing for a trout simply because something moving caught its attention. You're fishing for a trout that has learned how to eat.

And then there is a technique that turns much of that logic upside down.

The Strangest Trout Technique I Know

Close to 15 years ago I was watching Sport Fishing on the Fly. Don and Dale Freschi and Brian Chan were fishing stillwaters and covering large areas with what they referred to as searching patterns.  What they were doing fascinated me.  They were fishing buoyant foam flies on full-sinking lines.  One of those flies was the Tequila Booby.

It had bright yellow foam eyes, a fluorescent-orange Gel Core Fritz collar, a fluorescent-yellow Gel Core Fritz body and a small flash tail. It looked like virtually nothing I could think of in nature.  And the trout absolutely loved it.

The technique was just as strange as the fly. They would cast out a full-sinking line and allow it to sink until it was lying along the bottom or following a drop-off. Then they retrieved the Booby with very short, fast strips—only an inch or two at a time.

The takes were fascinating. And watching them do it, they made the entire thing look almost absurdly easy.

Naturally, I had to try it.

The first time I really put the technique to work, I was fishing a pond in Attleboro with my friend Frank. Neither of us was prepared for what happened. The numbers of fish were impressive, but what really stuck with us was the aggression of the strikes.  There was clearly something to this.

I also began to realize that the fluorescent orange-and-yellow combination was special. Eventually I tied Jack Gartside-style Hoverbugs—essentially a Gurgler-type foam fly without the tail—in the same colors simply to give the fish a slightly different look.  They worked too.

The more I've fished this way, however, the more convinced I've become that color is only part of the equation.  The action is what makes this presentation truly different.

Think about what is happening underwater. The sinking line is lying close to the bottom, but the foam fly wants to float above it. Every short strip pulls the fly sharply downward toward the substrate. Stop pulling and its buoyancy makes it pop upward again.

Dive. Pop.

Dive. Pop.

You simply cannot duplicate that exact movement with a conventionally weighted fly. The sinking line and floating fly are working against each other, and that opposing force creates the action.

For this fishing I like a 6-weight and the fastest full-sinking line I can reasonably fish. The leader is barely a leader at all—roughly four feet of straight 3X or 4X Cortland Top Secret fluorocarbon. Long leaders defeat much of what we're trying to accomplish because we want that sinking line controlling the fly.  It is one of the strangest-looking trout flies in my box.  It is also one I would hate to be without.

The Technique Also Works On Wild Maine Brookies, But Thats Another Story.

When the Pond Starts Rising

There are other days when none of this matters because the pond tells you exactly where the trout are.  A ring appears.  Then another.  Then five more.  A hatch is underway.

This can look like easy fishing. After all, you can actually see the fish feeding. In practice, rising kettle-pond trout can be some of the most frustrating fish you'll encounter.

By this point, these aren't trout reacting blindly to whatever comes past them. They are conditioned to natural food, and when they're keyed into a hatch they can become remarkably selective.

Some of the mayflies involved can be tiny. Blue-winged olives are an important example, and my favorite flies when the fish are eating very small mayflies are traditional Catskill-style dries in sizes 20 and 22.  I also carry Griffith's Gnats from about size 16 down through 22 and Rich Strolis' Winter Caddis patterns. 

Presentation becomes everything.  A 12-foot leader is not excessive here. In many situations I consider it necessary. Four- or 5X tippet is generally enough, but I want plenty of separation between my fly line and that tiny dry.  My favorite rod for this fishing is a 5-weight.  I want enough grains in the line to make a long cast through the wind—which is rarely absent on Cape Cod—but I also want a long, gradual trout taper that turns over the leader gently. The goal isn't merely reaching the rise. The line and leader have to arrive without announcing themselves.

One mistake is casting directly at every ring you see. A rise tells you where the trout was. Try to determine which direction it is traveling and place the fly where you expect its next rise to occur.  When you get it right, the reward can be nothing more than another little dimple in the surface.  Then the line comes tight.  For me, that is about as good as trout fishing gets.

Going Deep for the Fish Everyone Else Misses

There is one more method I use, and this one is particularly suited to fishing from a canoe or kayak.

Some kettle ponds have substantial depth and defined drop-off ledges. Those areas can hold trout that have survived considerably longer than the recently stocked fish everyone sees cruising near shore.

These are the fish I'm looking for with specialized jig flies.

Two patterns I like are Rich Strolis' Marvin the Martian and the Ditch Witch.

I fish them on a thin, full-sinking line—or sometimes even a thin full-sinking running line.

Position the canoe or kayak along a drop-off, lower or cast the fly out, and let everything sink until you find bottom. From there, fish it almost exactly as you would jig conventional tackle for bottom fish in the ocean.

Lift.

Drop.

Touch bottom.

Lift again.

The Marvin the Martian is specifically designed as a heavy jig-style fly, and the pattern is available in substantial 1/8-ounce versions. The Ditch Witch gives you another large, bottom-oriented profile.  This isn't delicate fishing.  It also isn't always a numbers game.  But it is one of my favorite ways to look for a genuinely big holdover trout.

While most stocked trout in Massachusetts don't survive indefinitely—many waters eventually become too warm—a small number can survive in sufficiently deep, cold ponds. Those are the fish that keep me interested in what might be living beneath the obvious fishery.

One Pond, Several Fisheries

That, to me, is what makes the kettle ponds so interesting.  The pond doesn't change locations, but the fishing can feel completely different from one visit to the next.

Right after stocking, I might be ripping a size 8 Woolly Bugger on an intermediate line and waiting for a trout to nearly tear the rod out of my hand.

Weeks later, I could be slowly hand-twisting a chironomid or staring at an indicator, waiting for the slightest movement.

I might spend another afternoon throwing a fluorescent foam fly that resembles absolutely nothing, sinking it to the bottom and watching trout prove that they apparently don't care.

Then a hatch begins, and suddenly I'm standing there with a 12-foot leader, 5X tippet and a size 22 dry fly, trying to fool a fish that seems capable of detecting every imperfection in my presentation.

And somewhere beyond all of that, along the deep edge of a kettle-hole drop-off, there might be a trout that survived the anglers, predators and changing seasons—a fish that has been in the pond long enough to become something very different from the trout that originally came off the stocking truck.  That's when the kayak and the jig flies come out.

The Massachusetts stocking program gives us the fish, but the ponds themselves ultimately determine how we fish for them. MassWildlife's current program stocks hundreds of thousands of trout annually, and Cape waters including ponds in Barnstable, Brewster, Chatham, Dennis, Falmouth, Orleans, Sandwich, Truro, Wellfleet and Yarmouth appear on the state's stocked-water list.

A trout may enter one of those ponds knowing little more than that food used to fall from above.  If it survives long enough, everything changes.  And learning to change along with it is what keeps bringing me back to the kettle ponds.