Moosehead Region Fishing Report: April 28, 2009
Information Hearing
The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife will be holding a public hearing on its antlerless deer permit proposal at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 13, at Greenville High School, Pritham Avenue, in Greenville.
Immediately after that hearing, the department will hold an information hearing regarding fishing regulations on Moosehead Lake.
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Open Water Fishing Preview
After a long and successful winter of ice fishing in the Moosehead Lake region, we will soon hear the delightful words, “ice-out!” and the angler will find a variety of opportunities.
Snow melt and spring run-off are changing angling opportunities daily. Many of our ponds and lakes still are covered with ice, but shortly after ice out they will produce some of the fastest fishing of the open water season. The region has a variety of fish species for anglers to pursue and various types of angling techniques are necessary to bag your quarry.
Consider how lake trout fishing strategies change with the season. Lake trout typically seek a constant water temperature between 40-52 degrees Fahrenheit. Lake trout can be targeted between the surface and at depth of 15 feet at ice-out. In mid- to late spring, anglers will need to get down to deeper water around depths of 30–50 feet as water temperatures increase.
Lake trout primarily feed on small fish, but can be taken with heavy jigs or cut bait and are also caught by trolling large spoons and lures. Anglers can find some fast fishing on Moosehead Lake, First Roach Pond and Lower Wilson Pond if they are targeting lake trout this spring.
Spring also is a good time to find landlocked salmon cruising the shallows and the mouths of tributaries. Salmon are looking for a feed of smelts as they begin to congregate in preparation for their annual spawning runs. Gray Ghosts, Black Ghosts, Mickey Fins, and a variety of other smelt imitation streamer patterns can be deadly this time of year.
Among of the Moosehead Region’s salmon waters to try this spring are Chesuncook Lake, Brassua Lake, Moosehead Lake and First Roach Pond. There also are good opportunities to catch landlocked salmon on some of our local river fisheries like the Roach River, Moose River, East and West outlets of the Kennebec River, and the West Branch of the Penobscot.
Many of the season’s largest brook trout are caught along the shore as water temperatures begin to increase. Even the most novice angler can find brook trout that will take an assortment of flies, lures and bait. Make sure to check the law book to determine which fishing gear is allowed on bodies of water you plan to fish.
Once we begin to see an increase in water temperatures and a decrease in stream and river flows, we will begin our annual spring stocking of legal-size brook trout. These brook trout are stocked in easily accessible waters through the region to create “instant fishing” opportunities. Many of these waters are stocked on more than one occasion to distribute the catch among anglers and to ensure fishing success longer into the season.
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List of Spring stocked brook trout:
Bennett Pond, Parkman; Big Wood, Jackman; Doe Pond, Monson; Drummond Pond, Abbott (family fishing area); Fitzgerald Pond, Big Moose Township; Gravel Pit Pond, Little Moose Township (family fishing area); Hebron Lake, Monson; Kiwanis Park Pond (Dunham Brook), Dover-Foxcroft (restricted to anglers under 16); Moose River, Jackman; Parlin Pond, Parlin Pond Township; Piscataquis River, Dover-Foxcroft and Guilford; Power Trout Pond, Little Moose Township; Prong Pond, Beaver Cove Township; Sawyer Pond, Greenville; Shadow Pond, Little Moose Township; Shirley Pond, Shirley; Snow’s Pond, Dover-Foxcroft; Spectacle Ponds, Monson; West Outlet Kennebec River, Sapling; and Whetstone Pond, Blanchard Township.
Regional fisheries biologists rely heavily on voluntary information to evaluate the success of the region’s fisheries. The number of waters biologists are able to sample in a season is very low when you begin to consider the number of waters managed by the Moosehead fisheries staff. In the Moosehead Lake Region, three fisheries biologists are responsible for the management of 592 Great Ponds (greater than 10 acres) and 686 ponds less than 10 acres, along with 4,125 miles of stream habitat located in 125 townships in Piscataquis and Somerset Counties. So providing voluntary catch information as a voluntary record-book keeper or by filling out survey cards at access sites is one of the most important contributions an angler can make to the Fishery Division’s fishery management program.
Information on where and when you fish, along with the number and sizes of fish you catch, provides the IF&W Fisheries Division with the information needed to help evaluate strategies such as stocking allocations and regulation changes. Since the bottom line of the success of any fishery is how well it provides to the rod and reel, this information is essential for making sound fishery management decisions.
The voluntary fishing record program has been one of our more successful endeavors and continues to provide useful data to state fisheries biologists. Any Moosehead region angler interested in providing this information or knows of any other anglers who might be interested in maintaining a voluntary fishing record book and would like to become a member of this program, please have them contact me, Stephen Seeback, at 695-3756.
If you fish other regions of the state and would like to get involved in this program, please contact the regional office of the region you do most of your fishing activity.