Cochituate Lake’s Middle Pond

Saturday, 6/9/2007 - Cochituate Lake’s Middle Pond (west of Boston)

The State Park gates open at 8:00 a.m. on this drizzly Saturday. I decide to walk the shoreline rather than rent a boat from among the multi-colored rowboats and canoes and kayaks stacked near the dock. There is plenty of room to fish in all directions and I start with a Pop-R on the surface right there at the paved ramp area.

The ramp area is quite long with room for 10 or more simultaneous launchings, although no boaters are here on this June Saturday – probably the weather. This lake connects to the North Pond via a canal and thus contains the same species, from bass to Atlantic salmon. I’m after bass.

I see underwater weeds everywhere and thus determine that this lake is much shallower – and bassier – than the North Pond. The lake is flat this morning and I watch swifts dart busily across the water. I start with a Pop-R and on my first cast parallel to the shoreline paved ramps a bass silently engulfs it. He leaps once clear out of the water and I soon unhook and release him: 14 inches. A good start, but the Pop-R goes fishless in a dozen more casts so I switch to a finesse worm.

I turn and walk along the shore to the sandy swimming area over to the right where nobody swims this morning. The drizzle and the air temperature (I’m wearing a jacket) will keep swimmers away today. One thing I’ve learned from a lot of years of fishing in public waters is that swimming holes, when not used, often have bass. This swimming beach bordered by a rope tethered to a row of poles parallel to the shore and the distance of a long cast. Outside the rope, on all sides, grow underwater grasses which reach the surface. Within the roped swimming area are no grasses. How do they mow them?

And there are ducks and geese here: a dozen mallards and 14 Canada geese. They part as I walk among them.

And sure enough, even though the swimming area appears featureless, I start catching bass on a finesse worm – one after another, perhaps 8 in the next hour, all 12 to 15 inches, all displaying a full leap upon being hooked, all healthy and well marked. And when I cast my worm outside the swimming area, into the underwater weeds, I catch nothing.

The strangest thing I’ve seen this morning is there in the sand next to the water: my last name, Bryan, written into the sand with a stick. And I’m the first one here this morning. Next to it is the name Catherine and next to that is Limena. I’ve never known – or heard of – a Limena. I’ll have to ask Janet.

A juvenile cottontail rabbit scampers from shoreline brush and scoots along the sand and into another brushy area. A short bit further a black-striped chipmunk does the same.

A couple of other shoreline anglers arrive and set up shop on the short piers along the ramp area, watching their set rods baited for trout. Nobody catches anything while I’m there.

After I leave the swimming area I catch an occasional additional bass – all on the finesse worm although I try several other lures including my big Senko which I was certain would attract bass but didn’t. One of the trout anglers whistles briefly in amazement as I lift a 15-inch bass within a couple of casts of his pier.

I see that there is a walking trail leading into the woods in both directions, and I bet it is accompanied by lots of good fishing spots. I wish I could stay all day.