View of Halfmoon Pond from the carriage road
Halfmoon Pond covers 3 acres and is located in Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island (MDI) in Hancock County, Maine (see The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer map 16 B3). The pond can be reached by walking for about one mile on the 16 foot-wide and well-maintained carriage road. Leave your car in the small parking lot located off Route 233 across from Eagle Lake. Be aware that you’ll need a pass to legally park your car anywhere inside the Park, including here. The pass can be purchased on-line or at the Park’s major visitor center on MDI, among other places. I reach the parking lot at 9 am and head first to Lower Breakneck Pond and then to Upper Breakneck Pond. After fishing these two locations, I place my canoe on my “canoe wheels” and lug everything to my next destination.
The entire shoreline around Halfmoon Pond is flooded because the busy beavers dammed the outlet
Halfmoon Pond is a pretty but miniscule body of water. I reach it by 2 pm. The western shoreline abuts a large swampy area, whereas the Park’s famous carriage road runs along its eastern shoreline. Don’t expect a “remote” experience while fishing here, however, because this well-maintained 16-foot wide gravel path is frequented by hikers, joggers, bicyclists, families with small children, horseback riders, etc. Fortunately, I have the place pretty much to myself because it is still very early in the tourist season. The pond’s surface water is quite clear but the substrate consists mostly of sand and muck covered with aquatic vegetation. No fishing is possible from shore or the nearby carriage road. The reason is that busy beavers have dammed the outlet, thereby raising the water level and flooding the entire shoreline, which is surrounded by low-growing bushes and other vegetation. Hence, you’ll definitely need a small craft to fish this pond.
Small but pretty
Halfmoon Pond is stocked each fall with around 125 brook trout measuring 8”, which yields a serious 42 fish per acre. Most of these trout, although small in size, are still available to be caught the next spring because the pond is closed to ice fishing. The pond is also capable of producing hold-over trout in the 12” to 14” size range. The remarkable thing about this water body is that it is relatively deep given its small size, with a maximum and mean depth of 20 ft and 14 ft, respectively. Click here for a depth map and more fishing information. Spring fishing at this location falls under the general rules. Click here for the open-water fishing rules.
The vast majority of the brook trout in Halfmoon Pond are of this size
I place my canoe in the water by the dammed outlet of Halfmoon Pond and paddle out. The wind has abated a bit from earlier this morning but I’m still facing a stiff southeastern breeze. But it is otherwise a glorious early May day, with full sunshine, not a single mosquitoe or blackfly, and only a few people walking or running on the carriage road. My strategy is to troll all around the edge of the deep water using my lead core line and three small trout spoons placed one and a half colors down (i.e., 8-10 ft deep). It takes me only about 10 minutes to paddle around the pond due to its small size. I hook four trout and land two over the next two hours of gently padding around and around. It would be worth the effort to return in late May when things have warmed up more and catch the same fish on a dry fly. However, don’t expect to catch any monsters here.
The results: I landed two 8” brook trout in two hours of quiet trolling.
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