BASELINE FROM THE DOCK
After another day of working around the Upper Watch, the barn, and the wood area, I went down to the lean-to at about 4:30.
During the day, before I went down, I noticed three boats on the pond at different times. I did not record exact intervals. At least two of the boats were fishing. The wind was moving them across the water: drift, fish, paddle back, drift again.
That pattern marks the day better than my opinion of the fishing. The wind was active enough to make boat position part of the effort.
This record is about the dock.
The 2026 dock record begins on May 13, with the addendum “PB from the Dock” on the Slurp page. That was the first time I fished from the dock this year, and it produced my personal-best brook trout anywhere, recorded at nineteen inches — from the dock.
After May 13, the dock record continued through the rest of spring and into mid-June.
The smaller, shorter, lighter rod carried a Mepps-style spinner. That setup worked from the dock, but it could not cast far. It reached the closer water, and the trout hit it there.
Later, I switched to a heavier spoon. The productive one was red and silver, silver on the inner side, with red across part of the outside. It had a treble hook and enough weight to throw well from the dock. I did not record the exact weight or length before losing it.
With that spoon, I could reach farther water. Across the dock record so far, the brook trout ranged from about six inches to several fish around sixteen inches, with the May 13 fish reaching nineteen inches.
My working interpretation is reach, not certainty. The heavier spoon may not have produced larger fish by itself. It may have let me cast into the water where larger fish were already holding.
My working interpretation is also seasonal position. By mid-June, the trout appear to be farther out and deeper than they were earlier in spring. They may still follow a lure back toward the dock, but the contact point seems to have shifted away from the shoreline.
I lost the productive spoon on the bottom. I tried to retrieve it by taking the canoe out and pulling from the opposite direction, but the line snapped. The snag point may be useful later as a bottom-structure note, but I did not record the depth or exact bottom type at the time.
After that, I switched to another spoon, lime green and silver, with a similar setup. I gave it about twenty to thirty minutes from the dock. No hits.
That does not prove the new spoon will not work. It only marks the change.
The lure details are method notes. The baseline is dock function: during spring into mid-June 2026, the dock reached fishable brook trout water.
The future test is functional, not exact-lure replication. If later fishing from this dock, with adjusted trout tackle and comparable effort, no longer contacts brook trout, then the dock record has changed. That would be the point to ask why.
The Creel was already active by June 7. From this point forward, it gives me a convenient place to scratch down fishing trips when I choose to record them.
The May 13 addendum gives the dock record its first mark. This baseline gives later Creel entries and dock notes their working condition.
Addendum: Rain Test
It rained all day: steady light to moderate rain, then waves of downpour. By late afternoon the ground was saturated and it was still raining.
Around 4:30, I left the barn and walked down to the dock in the rain. I fished a new spoon from the dock. The lower part of my pants got soaked, but the waxed canvas kept the rest of me dry.
The spoon produced contact. I netted one brook trout and lost another on the retrieve when it shook the lure.
The photograph almost did not happen. The trout was feisty, the lure had shaken free, the rod was still in one hand, and I was trying to get the phone out on a wet dock without losing anything to the water.
No claim is made for the duct-taped shoes as trout tackle, though the photograph records them too.
This is the first follow-up after the dock baseline. Different spoon, heavy rain, saturated ground, and the dock still contacted brook trout."
