Archive for May, 2007
Posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 by Maine Sportsman
Water levels remain good in Region F. The cooler temperatures are helping to maintain some very good brook trout fishing. Several of our stocked trout ponds are producing some nice fish. Round Pond in Lincoln is seeing a fair amount of anglers returning with some nice catches. We have reports of very good fishing in many of the Baxter Park waters. Anglers may want to check out Abol, Round and Rocky Ponds in T3 R9 WELS. Crystal, Loon, Trout and the Oxheads in T40 MD are starting to pick up as well. Duck Lake in T4 ND is producing some nice 12 ” to 14 ” trout.
East Grand Lake in Danforth, Pleasant Pond in Island Falls, Deering and Upper Jo Mary Lake are providing lots of action for the salmon angler. We have had reports of several nice salmon coming form Seboeis, Pemadumcook, and Schoodic Lakes. Reports from West, Sysladdobsis and Duck Lakes (T4 ND) are that fishing is slow. For most of these lakes the ice has only been out a short time.
Lake Trout fishing has be picking up on Schoodic, Millinocket, Cold Stream and East Grand Lakes. Some nice catches of 5 to 7 lb fish have been taken in Schoodic as well as East Grand. The smelts in most of our lakes finished running last week. Reports are that most waters had great runs.
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Tags: Penobscot Valley Fishing Report • Categories: General
Posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 by Maine Sportsman
Spring has sprung in the Moosehead Lake Region and now is the time to catch some of the biggest brookies of the year. Ice-out on Moosehead Lake was official on Saturday. It’s clear from years of monitoring angler records that the biggest trout typically come immediately after ice-out. So get out there and wet a line. This is the best time of the year to catch the fish of a lifetime.
The hatchery trucks are rolling into the region. Last week the following waters were stocked with some beautiful brook trout: Pingree Pond, Fitzgerald (Mountain View) Pond, Prong Pond, Hebron Lake, Mill Brook, Bear Brook, Sebec River, and the Piscataquis River (Dover to Guilford). We owe Bob Nelson and his crew of volunteers from the Dover-Foxcroft area a special “thank-you” for assisting the hatchery staff with the stocking program on the Piscataquis River.
There will be a couple special events for the kids in the area this week. There will be a Hooked on Fishing program at the Kiwanis Park Pond in Dover-Foxcroft on Saturday. The Piscataquis County Sheriffs Office sponsors the festivities. There will also be a kid’s fishing day at the Gravel Pit Pond in Greenville the same day. The Greenville Recreation Committee sponsors this annual event. You can contact either sponsor for more information.
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Tags: Moosehead Region Fishing Report • Categories: General
Posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 by Maine Sportsman
The ice went out of Rangeley Lake sometime last weekend. We receive a lot of questions about what day the ice goes out on Rangeley, because the following week or weeks are often the best fishing of the year. Anglers can boat over a dozen fish in just hours when they are biting. Salmon over five pounds are not uncommon. The included photo shows a 22-inch, 4-pound Rangeley salmon taken this spring by Steve Kasprzak of North Waterboro. Anyone interested in participating in this annual event should probably head up to Rangeley shortly after reading this.
Creel surveys are being conducted at Mooselookmeguntic Lake and Richardson Lakes this summer. The census began on May 11 and will continue into July, when the fishing activity begins to slow down. Aziscohos Lake will be surveyed again this summer with creel survey boxes. Fern Bosse of Poland has placed boxes at launch sites around the lake. If you are coming off the lake after fishing, please fill out a card. The data collected will be very useful for the future management of Aziscohos Lake.
With the summer heat returning, the waters are warming and aquatic insect life is beginning to emerge. Anglers should target small brook trout ponds in the evening to take advantage of eager feeding fish. A few places to try are Spencer Pond in Township D, Gull Pond in Dallas Plt., Bugeye Pond in Chain of Ponds Twp., and Rowe Pond in Pleasant Ridge Plt.
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Tags: Western Mountains Fishing Report • Categories: General
Posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 by Maine Sportsman
While the trees here in Downeast Maine are a little behind the rest of the state, we are finally beginning to see some leaves. Warm days are growing more common, the first blackflies of the season have been spotted, and I’ve had my first meal with fiddleheads of the year. This all adds up to one thing, spring has finally sprung!
Fishing for landlocked salmon has been heating up and will only improve in the coming weeks. Plus, anglers are reporting great catches of brook trout in ponds all over the region, including Six Mile Lake in Marshfield, Simpson Pond in Roque Bluffs, and Fox Pond in T-10 SD. Many of these great brook trout ponds are a result of increased stocking numbers in an effort to create some family fishing waters in our region. Also, this is the week to begin fishing your favorite brook or stream for wild brook trout as last weeks warm days helped to get the fish moving and feeding.
This spring the Downeast Region is focusing a great deal of sampling attention on Sea-Run Brook Trout. We know very little about these fish that spend a portion of their lives in the ocean before returning to coastal streams. Fishing for “salters,” as they are sometimes referred to, is quite popular and takes a great deal of patience. Often you have to fish many brooks, many different times before being successful. You have to know the tide cycle and where the “secret spots” are located. The time invested is well worth it if you are successful at catching one of these 10-16 inch silver beauties. The staff in the Region C office has been spending time electofishing in the brooks trying to find some of these Sea-Run Trout. We are interested in documenting the streams that have runs of these fish, so that in the future if conservation becomes an issue we will know more about these populations. Our staff will be surveying streams in Ellsworth, Trenton, Sullivan, Gouldsboro, Franklin, Milbridge, Whiting, Jonesport, Addison, Cutler, Trescott, Pembroke, Perry, and Edmunds, just to name a few. We have received lots of information from area anglers and greatly appreciate all the reports and advice. Finding Sea-Run Brook Trout has a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time and we know that our anglers have a great deal of knowledge about their favorite Sea-Run fishing spots. Also, I would like to thank Game Warden Joe McBrine for assisting us on a few occasions with electrofishing for Sea-Run Brook Trout.
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Tags: Downeast Fishing Report • Categories: General
Posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 by Maine Sportsman
A few years ago I reported on a project that had great potential for fulfilling an important goal of our Department, namely, “ to provide anglers with the most opportunities for the types of fishing they want, while ensuring that these same fish resources are going to be here for those who come after us”. I’d like to take this opportunity to bring you up-to-date on the status of that project.
A tributary to Pitcher Pond crosses Route 52 in the town of Lincolnville at the eastern edge of Region B. In the fall of 2003, the Maine Department of Transportation replaced a failing “perched culvert” at that stream crossing. A perched culvert, you may recall, has a drop in elevation at its downstream mouth. If the drop is sufficiently high, fish are unable to pass through the culvert to upstream habitat. The new culvert was installed with an embedded outlet, that is without a drop in elevation at its mouth. Nevertheless, the elevation difference from the upstream to downstream ends required a slope in the culvert about half way through so that streambed movement could be avoided. I was skeptical of the ability of brook trout to negotiate the slope, but told the DOT environmental reviewer the site would be a good place to evaluate fish passage with a brook trout fry stocking.
Townline Brook, the name I gave the stream at the time in order to satisfy stocking records, is really Rollins Brook according to Peg Miller, an elderly long time resident that owns land abutting the stream. She indicated that the stream dries up in some years. The brook is designated as an intermittent stream on the area’s topographical map. According to the map the total length of the stream is about 4000 feet. Mrs. Miller told me that in a 1954 hurricane, a flood removed a stone cribbed crossing and the perched culvert, the culvert replaced by MDOT last year, was the result. She couldn’t recall any angling in the brook in her lifetime. Since 1954, the stream was most likely waterless in many summers, eliminating any fish populations above the perched culvert. The vertical barrier formed by the perched culvert, prevented re-colonization of the brook from downstream of the culvert. Prior to 1954 we do not know if a barrier was present at the crossing, but there is free access from Pitcher Pond to the present crossing. Pitcher Pond has a warm-water fishery, but has a known natural brook trout fishery in another tributary at Sucker Brook that could allow some occasional migration of trout to nearby Rollins Brook.
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Tags: Central Maine Fishing Report • Categories: General
