The 3/4-mile foot trail leading to Little Concord Pond starts behind this kiosk.
Little Concord Pond covers 30 acres and is located in Woodstock, Oxford County, Maine (see The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer map 11A1). To reach the pond, drive down Shagg Pond Road (note: the Maine Atlas and Gazetteer calls it Redding Road), pass the unimproved boat launch on Shagg Pond, and drive another 0.5 miles until you reach a small parking lot across from the wooden kiosk announcing Little Concord Pond State Park. The pond is another ¾ mile walk from the parking lot down an old closed-off tote road. While the first half of that trail is nice and smooth, the second half is bouldery and steep. As a result, anglers cannot use canoe wheels but must instead carry their craft on their backs. The launch by the pond is not immediately obvious. Fallen trees, floating logs, and aquatic bushes obstruct the area where the trail meets the pond. Instead, a discrete but steep foot trail along the shore to the left crosses over a small rocky knoll before reaching the actual launch which is surrounded by a dozen locked canoes.
Damn, I won’t be able to use my canoe wheels…
Little Concord Pond is one of those rare brook trout waters in southern Maine that we love to discover and explore (click here, here, here, and here for other examples)!! It has the look and feel of places in more remoter corners of western Maine (click here and here for examples) and northern Maine (click here, here, and here for examples). That alone makes it worth the effort to reach this location. The pond sits in the shadow of Bald Mountain and Speckled Mountain and looks out on several other mountains to the north. The view from the water is quite spectacular! The shoreline is totally undeveloped and forested. The water column is crystal clear with the bottom visible >20 ft deep. In fact, the water is so transparent that it has this unique turquoise “shine” to it. The pond was chemically reclaimed about a decade ago to remove all competing fish species and to allow for intensive brook trout management. Hence, this is a “pure” brook trout fishery, which is quite unusual in southern Maine: every rise, hit, and hookup comes from a squaretail, without interference from other species. The pond is stocked each fall with 600 yearling brookies to sustain the population. The fishing rules are strict to protect this unique fishery and shield it from competing species, as follows: a) closed to ice fishing, b) closed to open-water fishing from October 1 to March 31, c) fly fishing only (i.e., no trolling and no use of live or dead bait), d) daily bag limit on trout is two fish with a minimum length of 12 inches and only one fish may exceed 14 inches. The pond is remarkably deep for its relatively small size, with a mean and maximum depth of 23 ft and 56 ft, respectively. Click here for a depth map and more fisheries information.
Come to papa!
I pull into the parking lot at 4:00 pm. Holy mackerel, the place is busy: I count nine vehicles, which I presume are from folks hiking up to Bald Mountain. It takes me over one hour and about four miles of walking to a) get to the pond to assess the quality of the trail and find the launch, b) walk back to the truck, c) haul the canoe on my back to the pond, d) return to the truck, and e) bring all my fishing gear to the pond… The weather is perfect: mid 70’s, partial sunshine, with no wind. The water is like a mirror! Mercifully, the mosquitoes are few, and the blackflies absent altogether. My hope is to fish the evening hatch using dry flies, which is my all-time favorite way to catch salmonids. The water temperature is also a very agreeable 61°F and reflects the cool weather Maine has experienced over the last 2-3 weeks. That suits me just fine because it extends the spring trout fishing well into June!
It is so much fun to catch brookies on a dry fly!!
I launch the canoe and immediately observed a couple of rises in front of me. I excitedly paddle up to the area, slowly anchor the canoe (wow, this water is deep!!), and cast out my mayfly dun imitator. I get a hit within a minute but miss the hookup. Damn!! Fortunately, I did not spook the fish because the rises continue. I get another hit a few minutes later and connect with a tenacious brookie which gets landed, photographed, and released. The rises stop in response to the commotion and I continue paddling, looking for other surface activity. The evening progresses, the wind-still conditions are just perfect for a hatch, and I am anxiously waiting for the surface feeding to commence (click here and here for examples). Unfortunately, that much-anticipated event does not materialize. In fact, I have long stretches of time where I see no surface activity whatsoever anywhere on the pond. It is quite frustrating and unexpected given the conditions and the time of the year. In desperation, I fish for a total of 45 minutes with a woolly bugger to see if I can dredge up anything from deeper in the water column. Nothing happens on that front. Besides, my heart just is not into woolly-buggering right now because I want to catch fish on the dry fly. I therefore wait patiently to observe a few rises here or there before paddling to the target area to deploy my dry fly and entice a hit. By the time I leave at 8 pm, I have had six hits and landed three brookies. It’s not much to show for all my efforts paddling all over the pond chasing the occasional rises. But at least I am not going home skunked… I will end by saying that I did not have the place to myself even though I was the only angler on the water. Three groups of hikers took refreshing but noisy dips which diminished the sense of isolation I so seek. Nonetheless, I highly recommend spending quality time exploring this gorgeous location.
A gorgeous view of Little Concord Pond. But where are all the rises?
The results: I landed three brook trout (largest = 13 inches) in 3 hours of slow and frustrating fishing.
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