View of Long Lake from Pine Island looking north.
Long Lake covers 4,867 acres and is located in the towns of Naples, Bridgeton, and Harrison in Cumberland County, Maine (see The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer map 4 AB5). This lake, which is the second-largest body of water in southern Maine, is aptly named as it stretches for 11 miles from north to south. It also has a well-deserved reputation as a “windy” lake on account of its long but narrow morphology and its northwest to southeast orientation which roughly matches the prevailing wind direction. My son Joel and his family are spending the weekend winter camping in their pop-up trailer at the Colonial Mast Campground located next to Mast Cove right off Route 302 about 3 miles north of Naples. He asked me earlier in the week if I wanted to join him and the fam on Saturday morning for some ice fishing.
I haven’t fished Long Lake before and know nothing about it. A bit of on-line research shows that the lake receives a light annual stocking of landlocked Atlantic salmon and brown trout. It is also home to multiple other fish species, including largemouth and smallmouth bass, white and yellow perch, and pickerel. Click here for a depth map and more fisheries information. Note that the ice fishing rules for this lake fall under the general fishing laws. An aerial view of Mast Cove via Google Maps shows the presence of a small wooded island called Pine Island located within walking distance of the camping site. Based on that information, we decide to focus our attention on brown trout along the shoreline of Pine island. We don’t put our hopes too high because this salmonid species is notoriously difficult to catch through the ice, at least compared to brook trout. But, no pain no gain!
That is one big pickerel!
I arrive at the camp side at 7 am. Joel is just getting up and preparing breakfast for the boys. I let them be and head straight out for the island on Long Pond. The ice is a solid 14” thick with 2” of rough snow on top. That makes for easy walking. I set up my four traps baited with small shiners in 4 to 8 ft of water and also begin jigging. Nothing happens over the next hour, which is never a good sign because this is the active early-morning fishing period. I finally get a brief feeding flurry at 9 am which results in three flags and three fish (nothing on the jig, though). Two of those fish are a small yellow perch and a 21” pickerel. The third fish makes my morning. The spool is slowly turning when I reach the trap and I immediately set the hook. I feel a hefty, angry resistance at the other end. Holy mackerel, this must be the big brown trout I was hoping for!! I fight the fish and slowly bring it towards the hole. However, my hopes are dashed when I realize that I hooked a big fat 25.5” (5 pound) pickerel! I don’t care to catch these guys, but five pounds of any freshwater fish does make my day!
Joel arrives shortly thereafter with the two boys and we jointly deploy another 15 baited traps along the shoreline of Pine Island. But by this point, I have no illusion anymore about catching brown trout or any other salmonid for that matter. The location doesn’t seem to lend itself to it, the morning is too advanced, and a bright sun has come out of hiding from behind the clouds. And yet, we are in for another unexpected surprise because anything can happen during ice fishing. Joel deployed one of his trap in 6 ft of water with the baitfish placed 2 ft below the ice. We see the flag go up and are expecting another perch or pickerel. But to our astonishment, Joel brings in a 14” little salmon! Caught in 6 ft of water?? That one must have been quite hungry to be looking for a bite to eat so shallow and so close to shore. That’s a first in my 30+ years of ice fishing! So, the moral of the story is this: go out and icefish because you just never know what might be biting at the other end of your line!
We caught lots of fish this morning (including a 14″ landlocked salmon) but no brown trout…
The results: We landed a 14” landlocked salmon, five pickerels, and bunch of yellow perch in 5 hours of fun ice fishing with the fam.
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