View of the lily pad bed by the access point
Collins Pond is a 42-acre body of water located in Windham, Maine (see The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer map 5 D2). It is an impoundment on Ditch Brook, which is the outlet of Little Sebago Lake, via Mill Pond located just upstream of Route 115. The pond can be reached by turning onto Running Brook Road from Route 115 and driving down the hill for 200-300 ft just past house #25 on your right. Park your car on the road shoulder and walk down a short foot path towards a small sandy beach by the pond. I’m not sure that this is a “public” access point but I did not see any No Trespassing signs either. Only small, hand-carried craft such as a canoe or kayak, can be launched from this point. I also noticed a wide forest/four wheeler trail with a fire pit next to the outlet at the other end of the pond. A walk up this trail leads to a huge gravel pit operation. I don’t know if the pond can be accessed from that end. Collins Pond Collins Pond has a maximum depth of 18 ft and a mean depth of 7 ft, which makes it quite shallow. The water is very clear, which is no surprise since its source is Little Sebago Lake. The substrate is clean, consisting mostly of rough sand and small gravel interspersed with boulders. Several dozen camps and year-round houses dot the shoreline. General fishing law applies on this pond (click here for more details). Click here for a depth map and more fisheries information.
View of the shoreline of Collins Pond
Collins Pond provides marginal largemouth bass habitat. A large lily pad bed and some emerging pickerel weed beds are found in the shallows by the inlet area and a number of docks also provide shelter and shade but that’s about it. There’s very little sunken wood or other holding structure elsewhere. What the pond does have in abundance is invasive milfoil! My goodness… Large areas of the pond are overwhelmed by the stuff, which overtakes the entire water column and is esthetically unpleasing. The source of this plant is Little Sebago Lake and Mill Pond. Note also that Collins Pond has a few drop-down brown trout and rainbow trout which originated from Little Sebago Lake. Those fish should be catchable in the fall, winter, and spring. I know that they survive in there because I’ve seen them in Ditch Brook upstream of the pond in the spring…
Ditch Brook (summer low flow) at the point where it enters Collins Pond
I arrive on Collins Pond by myself around 2 pm. The sun is filtering through a high cloud deck and a warm light breeze gently blows in from the southwest. I launch my canoe and paddle down to the outlet in order to let the wind slowly blow me back upstream. I fish using a black buzzbait and a 5” soft stickbait. I catch 11 largemouth bass in two hours, which sounds great except that they’re all tiny fish measuring between 9” and 11”… I also missed another half dozen of similar size. It appears that the largemouth bass population is abundant but also stunted. Overall, I’m not impressed with the pond and would not recommend it for summer fishing. However, I suspect that the ice fishing action may be fast and furious during the winter months because besides the three fish species already mentioned above, the pond also contains populations of smallmouth bass, chain pickerel, white perch, yellow perch, bullheads, and sunfish. It sure sounds like a place to bring the kids for a great day on the ice!
The results: I caught 11 tiny largemouth bass in two hours of fishing.
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