Bear Mountain looms large over Bear Pond. Route 35 runs along the base of this mountain.
Bear Pond covers 218 acres and is located in Waterford, Oxford County, Maine (see The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer map 10 E4). The pond sits right next to Route 35 (Waterford Road) in the shadow of Bear Mountain. Access to the ice is from the boat launch off Route 35. The area in front of the launch is nicely plowed and can easily accommodate half a dozen vehicles. Anglers can also gain access to the ice with their vehicles from the launch. This pond has several advantages: (a) it is easily accessible from the road, (b) the fishing is good around the launch area and does not require walking out too far on the ice, and (c) it was stocked last fall with three different salmonid species, namely landlocked Atlantic salmon, splake, and brook trout. My plan is to target all three species. The salmon are pelagic creature which prefer to chase smelt, their main food item, over deeper water. Splake are a cross between brook trout and lake trout, and show behavioral characteristics of both, i.e., they feed both over deeper water and in shallower areas. Brook trout prefer shoreline areas.
I reach Bear Pond at 6:50 am. It’s Monday, so I expect to have the place all to myself. I’m surprised to see two other guys setting up their traps around their ice shacks by the boat launch as I walk in. And they both drove their pick-up trucks on the ice too. Wow, that means that the ice must be at least a foot thick! Not bad for early January. I set up shop a couple of 100 ft north of the boat launch next to Route 35. A review of the depth map for this pond shows that the lake bottom along the shoreline across from Bear Mountain quickly plunges down to 50+ ft, which is what I’m looking for to target the salmon and splake. The weather this morning is also favorable for ice fishing. The air is nippy (11°F) but the temperature is forecast to rise sharply into the high 20’s in response to an approaching low pressure. There’s also little or no wind. The cloud deck is low and slate grey, and will remain so for the rest of the day. It also spits out snow flurries on and off. All in all, these are great ice fishing conditions. Note that the ice fishing rules for this pond fall under the general fishing laws.
This little salmon is coming home for lunch. Note the large and powerful tail.
I place four tip-ups over depths ranging from 30 to 50 ft. The bait, which consists of a hardy 3 to 4” minnow, is placed 5 ft below the ice in the shallowest trap, 10 ft below the ice in the next trap, and so on. This approach allows me to probe depths from 5 ft to 20 ft below the ice in order to figure out how deep the salmon and splake are chasing bait this morning. I also drill half a dozen holes in shallow water < 10 ft deep right along the bouldery shoreline next to Route 35 to jig for brook trout and splake. I’m all set up by 7:45 am and begin jigging. Nothing happens anywhere for the first hour, which is discouraging. Then, a flag suddenly pops up in the trap fishing 20 ft deep! I run all the way out and see the spool slowly turning with the line going down at a steep angle. I wait a few seconds before setting the hook. Oh yes, I’ve got myself something angry at the other end! A small but feisty 17” salmon plops on the ice.
That was one tasty fish. Well worth the effort of going out and catching it!
OK, it’s time to re-arrange my pattern. I lower the bait from 15 ft to 20 ft in the next shallower trap, and rise the bait from 25 ft to 20 ft in the next deeper trap. I also drill a new hole in the vicinity of the trap that just caught the salmon and place the shallowest trap in it, with the bait 20 ft down. This new arrangement results in two more flags over the next two hours but they only yield white perch. This schooling species also chases baitfish over deep water, which tells me that I’m targeting the right depth. Unfortunately, the salmon (and splake) seem to be feeding elsewhere in the pond. I also did not get a single hit on the jig, which is a disappointment. I stop at one of the ice fishing shacks by the boat launch on my way out at 10:30 am to chat with its occupant. He shows me the 20” salmon he caught earlier this morning. He also mentions that his buddy in the next shack over caught three salmon this morning. So, it looks like none of us are going home skunked today!
The results: I landed one 17” landlocked Atlantic salmon and two white perches in 3.5 hours of fishing.
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