Our time was limited Sunday because she wanted to give Evan and her daughter, Abby, the opportunity to surprise her with kid-style home cooking that evening. Trolling for stocked trout at Hot Hole Pond seemed a good way to help her experience some success with fly fishing. When every pull and jerk by a struggling rainbow trout telegraphs through the fly line, a beginner begins to understand the appeal. Novices need some reinforcement if they are to pursue a form of fishing that can cause extreme frustration. Tim Savard, an old Concord friend who has taken his skills north to Pittsburg, introduced me to trolling at Hot Hole when we both had a year or two experience with the long rod.
Anglers sometimes describe trolling as a boat ride occasionally interrupted by a fish.
Assuming no surface activity, the idea is to cover as much underwater territory as possible while moving very slowly. The more territory covered, the greater the chance of hooking that random cruising fish. Trolling on a small trout pond is one of the more economical ways of fishing from a boat. I use a 14-foot White Stillwater, a short, wide canoe equipped with a keel. A Minn Kota electric trolling motor, a scaled-down version of what you find on the front of a bass boat, provides all the thrust needed for the slow crawl across the pond.