Downeast Fishing Report: August 23, 2007
The staff in the Downeast office has been busy in the field lately. We have been conducting numerous stream, lake, and pond surveys.
We have been successful at finding brook trout in many of the brooks and streams we have been surveying. Recently we have been sampling on Mount Desert Island, Otis, Surry, Grand Lake Stream, Calais, and the northern part of the region in the Topsfield area. These surveys are providing us with a great deal of information. We electrofish a section of the stream, perform water quality analysis, record observations about habitat, and complete an assessment of any road crossings near the survey section. This information is vital for us to effectively manage fish populations in our region.
Recently we have surveyed fish populations at lakes and ponds in Calais, Lamoine, and Deblois. We surveyed Nash’s Lake in Calais to evaluate the landlocked salmon that we stock there annually. We sampled 25 salmon ranging from fish just over 1 year old, that were stocked in the spring, to fish that were just over 3 years old, and also one wild salmon that was just over 4 years old. The fish were all in good shape with the largest salmon being about 18.5 inches. About 75% of the fish sampled had good numbers of small smelts in their stomachs. We were pleased to see good smelt numbers since this spring’s smelt run at Nash’s Lake was somewhat poor as a result of fluctuating water levels in Interval Brook. I would like to thank Phil and David Hill for assisting us in our sampling efforts and also to Earl Boyd for providing us with some of his fishing experiences at Nash’s over last few decades as well as a detailed depth map that he created.
Last week, we surveyed Blunts Pond in Lamoine. This is a water that we knew nothing about and had never surveyed before. We created a depth map and performed water quality analysis. The maximum depth found was about 6 or 7 feet. The water was very clear and the bottom was hard and gravely in most places. We found pickerel and a large number of small yellow perch as well as crayfish.
At the end of last week we sampled a small “Kids Only” water in Deblois. We stock Foxhole Pond with ample numbers of brook trout each fall to provide some fun and exciting fishing for persons under 16 year old. We sampled the pond to see if we had any fish holding over throughout the warm summer months. We set nets for only a few hours and sampled 6 brook trout between 9.5 and 11 inches. We were pleased to see that water conditions allowed for some trout to survive through the summer. I would like to thank Warden Scott Osgood for assisting us in our sampling and with helping numerous kids get hooked on fishing by loaning out fishing gear to be used at Foxhole Pond. He showed me lots of great pictures of kids catching their first brook trout ever from this winter and spring fishing at Foxhole.
This is a great time of year to take a kid fishing. There are no bugs, plenty of sunshine, and some good action for warm water fish species. I can remember, when I was 12 or 13, this is the time of year that my cousins and I would get up bright and early to catch a few bass and perch before spending the day in my grandfather’s blueberry field, only to return to the pond that evening for a swim and another shot at that little rush of adrenaline as we landing another fish worthy of bragging about the next day.
