View of the boat launch on the Kennebec River in downtown Waterville with the Lockwood Dam turbine house in the background.
My goal this morning is to catch smallmouth bass on the Kennebec River in the shadow of Lockwood Dam in downtown Waterville, Kennebec County, Maine (see the Maine Atlas and Gazetteer map 76 C2). This long but low dam is located about 0.5 miles above the confluence with the Sebasticook River and is the most downstream hydroelectric structure on the Kennebec River. It is also an area I tried, but failed, to reach with my motor boat earlier this summer. To access this spot, drive to 10 Water Street in Waterville (look for the white “Hathaway Creative Center” sign). Turn into the large paved parking lot, drive all the way to the back, and look for the boat launch sign on the right. Beware that only canoes and kayaks can be launched from this location because the access point is blocked by large boulders.
The smallmouth bass caught in front of the turbine house are all tiny…
I have high hopes for this morning’s expedition. The weather is definitely to my liking: cool (lower 60’s) and overcast, with a chance of showers. But more importantly, an earlier “overflight” of this general locale using Google Maps shows three promising areas: (a) the water flowing out of the turbine house, (b) a large overflow feature dumping copious amounts of river water from behind the turbine house, and (c) the head of Lockwood Dam at the Ticonic Falls upgradient from the Bridge Street bridge. I reach my destination at 8 am and push off 15 minutes later. My first target is the front of the turbine house. The water appears to flow out of a single turbine this morning but still creates plenty of interesting currents going both forward and sideways. To my surprise, it is no more than about 4-5 ft deep in that general area, and the depth quickly decreases away from the structure. I fan cast a #2 silver Mepps spinner using my ultralight fishing rod and am underwhelmed by the results. Thirty minutes of probing every current seam in front of the building yields four scrawny smallmouth bass…
The smallmouth bass caught in the vicinity of the overflow feature are also tiny…
I paddle the short distance to the large overflow feature behind the turbine house which creates much turbulence and white frothy foam in the river below. That whole area actually looks and feel promising, particularly because the falling water can be expected to fully oxygenate the surrounding river, which should attract fish in the summer. But the depth is again less than 4 ft. I suspect that a deeper hole must be present at the spot where the water dumps into the river, but I do not bother to check because of the dangerous hydraulic conditions in that area. The fishing is similarly disappointing and no different from what I experienced earlier up front: half a dozen little dinks, none with any size to speak of. What’s going on here!?
The smallmouth bass caught at the head of the dam by the Ticonic Falls remain tiny…
Disappointed, I leave the overflow pool after 45 minutes and paddle further upstream towards the upper end of the Lockwood Dam built on top of the Ticonic Falls. The water depth decreases to less than 3 ft and the substrate consists mostly of bedrock. These kinds of conditions do not bode well, and the results confirm it. Even though this general area is actually pretty, the fishing is truly lousy (two little dinks). The on-going drizzle has now turned into a steady rain. I call it good, turn the canoe around, and paddle back to the put-in. I chat with a local guy who’s fishing for catfish (!) by the launch; he’s caught several this morning using a small plastic fish lure he’s been dragging on the bottom. He also confirms that small striped bass make it all the way up here in late spring; he shows me pictures on his cell phone of several schoolies he caught at this location earlier this year. I store that information for future consideration. For the record, the fishing laws specify that this section of the river can only be fished using single-hook artificial lures.
In summary, I was not impressed with this morning’s fishing: the general area looked promising but the results proved otherwise. Even though I did catch a dozen smallmouth bass, none exceeded 11”. I would not consider this location on the Kennebec River to be a prime bronzeback area .
The results: I caught 12 tiny smallmouth bass in two hours of lousy fishing.
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