My friend Jeff and I decided to try our hand at stillwater fly fishing for Adirondack heritage strain brook trout at Black Pond and Long Pond yesterday. It was exciting to see the mayflies and midges just hatching as the temperature warmed throughout the day. Unfortunately we had no luck catching a brookie, but there were several other fishermen with spinners who seemed to be pulling in their lunch for the day. We learned that Black Pond serves as a broodstock for Windfall strain heritage brook trout. Although the DEC has placed an upstream barrier at Long Pond to prevent competitors from entering the reclaimed brook trout habitat, there is now an abundance of golden shiners that were introduced from bait fish escaping. While it is encouraging to see so many other fishermen taking advantage of the nice weather, heritage brook trout have struggled to persist in the Adirondacks and responsible fishing practices are necessary to help restore populations.