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View of Kimball Pond from the rough boat launch

Kimball pond is a 55-acre body of water located in the town of Vienna in the far northwestern fringes of Kennebec County. The public access point is located off Kimball Pond Road. It consists of a rough unimproved boat launch best used for dispatching a canoe or a kayak, although one could launch a small trailered boat in a pinch. I selected this pond because it is well stocked with brookies (click here for details) and is managed especially to produce a trophy brook trout fishery. As a result, the fishing rules are strict: (a) the pond is closed to ice fishing, (b) only artificial lures are allowed, and (c) the daily bag limit on trout is two fish, with a minimum length of 12” and only one trout can exceed 14”.

Trolling with lead core line in Kimball Pond

I reach Kimball Pond a little after 11 am. I’m fishing by myself today because neither one of my two trusted fishing buddies (i.e., my son Joel and nephew Christian) was able to join me on this expedition. I put my canoe in the water but am disorganized because it is my first open-water fishing trip of the 2016 season, and it shows… The weather is favorable though: the air temperature is 43°F and the sky is completely overcast and consistently spits out rain drops. However, a stiff breeze blows in from the south which is going to complicate my life since I’m paddling alone. The surface water is a cold 36°F. In fact, I observe several patches of floating ice clinging to the edges of the pond. I was hoping that the water would have warmed up more in response to our balmy March but that is clearly not the case! The shoreline supports about two dozen summer camps and is otherwise uninteresting. The surface water is crystal clear. The substrate consists of clean gravel, cobbles, and boulders. The pond has a mean and maximum depth of 10 ft and 19 ft, respectively. Click here for a depth map and more fisheries information.

Ahoy, mate! Ice berg ahead!!

I’m using two rods which I cross in between my legs to fish both sides of the canoe at the same time. One set-up is an 8-weight fly fishing rod with lead core line to which I tie two small colored Mooselook Wobbler spoons separated from each other by about 2 ft of monofilament. The other set up is a light spinning rod and reel to which I tie a small no-name yellow-orange spoon followed by a silver Phoebe spoon. I crimp two large split shots 3 ft above the no-name spoon to force the line to sink a few feet below the surface when I paddle. I like fishing a two-rod/two-lure combination because that puts four lures in the water which greatly increases the odds of catching fish.

Little gluttons, I tell ya, that’s what they all are!

I start trolling northwards along the western shoreline in about 5 to 10 ft of water. I get my first hit when I reach the northern end of the pond, but miss the fish. It’s just tough to set a hook while paddling a canoe alone and with two rods intertwined between my legs! I continue paddling southwards along the eastern shoreline and run into an annoying headwind that constantly wants to turn my canoe sideways. This is where the fishing buddy system would come in handy… It takes me about 30 minutes to make one complete circle around the pond. The breeze has picked up, so I decide to stop fighting it by paddling north through the middle (deepest part) of the pond with the wind in my back. My lead core is two colors down when a fish comes calling and hooks itself on the terminal lure. It’s a little 8” brookie. But from this one fish a pattern develops. I paddle downwind trolling with two rods through the middle of the pond, and struggle back upwind along either shoreline fishing with just my shallow-running spinning rod. This strategy yields three more 8” brookies over the next hour and a half, all caught on the lead core line two colors down. The two smaller spoons on the spinning rod provide no action at all today. Overall, the fishing was tough, with stiff headwinds and very cold water. I’m actually glad that I still managed to catch four brookies under those conditions, although these fish were invariably small. My biggest disappointment is that I did not succeed in hooking into a larger brookie, as I had hoped. But that’s why there’s hope in the first place and always a next time … :-)

The results: I caught four 8” brookies in 2 hours of hard fishing.

Ai, mate! More icebergs along the shoreline!

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