Posts Tagged ‘Moosehead Region Fishing Report’
Posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 by Maine Sportsman
Last year, IF&W teamed up with the Natural Resource Education Center (NREC) in Greenville to create a college internship/summer work program to benefit fisheries in the area. One of the first projects includes a competition removal study on several local trout ponds. The project continued this spring at Crocker Pond in Dennistown and Center Pond in Soldiertown. The goal of this project is to remove species that compete with brook trout for food and habitat. Based on work conducted by this region on Little Moxie Pond in Shirley, the removal of these species can greatly improve growth rates and survival rates for young wild trout.
In 2008, we removed over 2,000 pounds (5,350 individuals) of white suckers from Crocker Pond. Based on our population estimates derived from the catch rates, we removed around 47-100 percent of the total sucker biomass. Of course, we didn’t get them all but the actual figure was probably close to 85 percent. That was a pretty good start.
In 2009, we again hired 2 Unity College students to return to Crocker Pond and continue the project. We tended four nets from May 7 to May 22. In this time, we removed approximately 1,200 lbs of suckers. The amount of effort was nearly identical to the previous year.
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Tags: Moosehead Region Fishing Report • Categories: Fishing Reports
Posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 by Maine Sportsman
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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Tags: Moosehead Region Fishing Report • Categories: Fishing Reports
Posted on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 by Maine Sportsman
The ice fishing season is in full swing in the Moosehead Lake Region as the cold temperatures firm up the ice on the lakes and ponds in the area. While anglers must always take care while traveling on the ice, most areas up this way are safe with 12-16 inches of ice. The snowmobile trails in the Moosehead Lake — Jackman area are in great shape thanks to the cold temperatures and fresh snow.
Corey Hegarty of Sally Mountain Cabins in Jackman reports that the fishing on Big Wood Pond and Little Big Wood Pond has been terrific so far this winter. Anglers are catching nice colorful splake in the 16-17 inches range along with salmon mostly in the 14-16 inches range but with a few as big as 18 inches. It sounds like the smelts may be biting too for the anglers that know where to jig on Big Wood Pond. Corey reports that the cusk fishing on Little Big Wood Pond has been really good with one lucky angler getting a 9 ½ lb fish. That will make enough chowda’ for the rest of the winter!
We checked a number of anglers on Moosehead Lake this weekend. The anglers in the Rockwood area were picking up a number of the smaller togue that are available for harvest. We also saw a few brook trout on the ice this weekend. January is typically the best month of the ice fishing season for catching brook trout. Folks are still just getting their ice shacks out and we anticipate the fishing activity to pick up over the next few weeks. Don’t forget that the 2nd annual Moosehead Lake Togue Derby is scheduled for Jan 30-Feb 1. Be sure to pick up your tickets at Indian Hill Trading Post, Kineo Flies, Moosehead Bait and Tackle, Northwoods Outfitters, or the Chamber of Commerce’s Visitor Center. Derby ticket sales end at 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 31. There will be lots of great prizes including $1,500 for the best togue.
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Tags: Moosehead Region Fishing Report • Categories: Fishing Reports
Posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 by Maine Sportsman
The ice fishing season is in full swing in the Moosehead Lake Region as the cold temperatures firm up the ice on the lakes and ponds in the area. While anglers must always take care while traveling on the ice, most areas up this way are safe with 12-16 inches of ice. The snowmobile trails in the Moosehead Lake — Jackman area are in great shape thanks to the cold temperatures and fresh snow.
Corey Hegarty of Sally Mountain Cabins in Jackman reports that the fishing on Big Wood Pond and Little Big Wood Pond has been terrific so far this winter. Anglers are catching nice colorful splake in the 16-17 inches range along with salmon mostly in the 14-16 inches range but with a few as big as 18 inches. It sounds like the smelts may be biting too for the anglers that know where to jig on Big Wood Pond. Corey reports that the cusk fishing on Little Big Wood Pond has been really good with one lucky angler getting a 9 ½ lb fish. That will make enough chowda’ for the rest of the winter!
We checked a number of anglers on Moosehead Lake this weekend. The anglers in the Rockwood area were picking up a number of the smaller togue that are available for harvest. We also saw a few brook trout on the ice this weekend. January is typically the best month of the ice fishing season for catching brook trout. Folks are still just getting their ice shacks out and we anticipate the fishing activity to pick up over the next few weeks. Don’t forget that the 2nd annual Moosehead Lake Togue Derby is scheduled for Jan 30-Feb 1. Be sure to pick up your tickets at Indian Hill Trading Post, Kineo Flies, Moosehead Bait and Tackle, Northwoods Outfitters, or the Chamber of Commerce’s Visitor Center. Derby ticket sales end at 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 31. There will be lots of great prizes including $1,500 for the best togue.
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Tags: Moosehead Region Fishing Report • Categories: Fishing Reports
Posted on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 by Maine Sportsman
The Fisheries Staff in Greenville has been busy once again this summer making our way to a few of the many unsurveyed ponds we have in the Moosehead Region. Our objective was to try and survey five waters that are zoned as Remote Ponds. Everyone seems to have heard of remote ponds and many think that these ponds are ponds located out in the middle of nowhere. Well, this is partly true. Many are in fact located in areas that are very challenging to get to as our experience this summer proved. However, many of the remote ponds in the Moosehead area have road systems that run very close to the pond. This is where the Maine Land Use Regulatory Commission (LURC) comes in. The early to mid-1970′s was a time when much of the Maine North Woods was being opened up by many new road networks, brought about by the large-scale wood salvage operations resulting from the spruce budworm infestation of Maine’s spruce-fir forests. LURC and MDIFW fisheries biologists worked together to identify ponds in the north woods that were deemed worthy of additional protection. By protecting or zoning a pond as remote, this resulted in limiting vehicle access to within a half-mile of the pond. Such limitations resulted in the installation of gates, the removal of culverts or bridges, or placing large boulders across a road to prevent the passage of cars or trucks.
In the Moosehead Region 123 ponds were zoned as remote. Many of these ponds had not been scientifically surveyed, that is, our knowledge of their trout fisheries was based on the reports of anglers. Due to time and resource constraints it was not possible to conduct scientific surveys to corroborate the presence of trout fisheries in these waters in the short period of time they were being designated for zoning. It was determined that it would be best to protect these resources while we could. The ponds would be surveyed as time and resources allowed.
In 2005 the Legislature proposed and IFW supported the designation of the Brook Trout as one of Maine’s Heritage Fish. MDIFW identified 305 Heritage waters (often called “A†list waters), i.e. ponds supporting principal fisheries for brook trout but having no record of stocking. Legislation was enacted to provide special protection for these unique waters. Later MDIFW identified nearly 300 additional waters that support self-sustaining populations of brook trout that had been stocked but not within the past 25 years (called “B†list waters). The Fisheries Division recognized the value of this latter resource by developing through policy an appropriate level of protection for “B†list waters. Based on this research it was determined that the Moosehead Region has 144 trout waters that fall into the “A†category and 99 that are on the “B†list. Many of these ponds are zoned remote and some have never been surveyed by a biologist.
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Tags: Moosehead Region Fishing Report • Categories: Fishing Reports
