January 8, 2001

This last week's snowstorm has created some problems that ice fishermen and travelers should be aware of. Newly formed ice, less than what will hold a person on foot or a snowmobile, has been covered with the new snow, so people wandering into the middle sections of some lakes and near any moving water should be extremely cautious. In some instances, the snow has caused slush to form a layer between the ice and the snow. This has made travel by foot, snowmobiles or ATV's, very tough and almost impossible on some ponds. Even in the far North, fishermen and all snow travelers are warned to use extreme caution.

At Maine's largest lake, Moosehead, Dan Legere at the Maine Guide Fly Shop in Greenville advises that some of the best togue (lake trout) fishing of the past few years has been taking place at Squaw Bay. "We had a party of six fishermen in here that had been fishing Squaw Bay. They took limits of togue to five pounds each day. They were using smelt and sucker bait on tip-ups and also jigging with lures such as Swedish Pimples and Leadfish tipped with cut sucker. The brook trout fishing along the shoreline on Moosehead continues to be excellent. The thing with ice fishing for brook trout is that they are territorial, so you want to move your fishing gear when you don't get a bite within a couple of hours. A nightcrawler fished on bottom is the hot bait for brook trout. For people that crave action for landlocked salmon, the best place in this area is Chesuncook Lake. This huge lake has an overpopulation of salmon so the regulations have been liberalized. You can now take two salmon a day of 14 inches or more. There are a lot of those smaller salmon, but there are also enough big ones, to five pounds, to keep most people not taking two of the smaller ones. That gives them a chance to keep a big one. The average catch for two fishermen would be from 15 to 25 salmon! There's action galore!" Dan enthused.

Gary Adams, President of the Kittery Trading Post, can often be found on weekends at his camp at Moosehead Lake. Gary reports that conditions are great for both ice fishing and snow sledding and joins Legere in his enthusiasm for this lake.

There's plenty of good news in the Sebago Lake Region today. Dave Garcia at Naples Bait on Long Lake said that the fishing on Long this weekend had been very good, with lots of two fish limits of salmon, from 14 to 22 inches and a lot of nice brown trout caught, from 12 to 22 inches. "There's been some of those big broodstock brown trout hooked, but they've broken lines and leaders. If you're fishing light gear and hook one of those fish, you've got to take your time and handle them without putting too much pressure on them. We've seen some fast white perch fishing here as well, with most catches including a half dozen or so slab-sized perch. Trickey Pond (Naples) has been good for brookies in the 14 to 16 inch range. Fish close to shore. Cold Rain Pond was producing a lot of yellow perch and pickerel," Dave ended.

Carroll Cutting reported that some of Sebago Lake's more sheltered waters, especially Sebago Station, were seeing some fishing pressure and shanties were going on the ice there, but warned that the main part of the lake had not frozen and that there were plenty of areas with only an inch or so of ice that were snow covered, creating a deadly trap for the unwary. "They are catching some togue at the Station," he noted. While we talked, Warren Gamash of Camp Ellis, ME was weighing in a togue that he'd caught this morning. The huge fish was 37 inches long, had an 18 inch girth and weighed 15.5 pounds. Gamash was fishing at Sebago Station on four inches of black ice, which extended out to Indian Island.

"There have been plenty of good reports about the nearby ponds. Moose Pond in Bridgeton has been good for salmon, and the warm water ponds have been producing a lot of perch and pickerel action. At Cold Rain Pond, the slush was terrible but some brookies up to 15 inches had been caught," Cutting said.

Guide Mike Guarino at Maine Wilderness Tours (207-495-7729) fishes and guides on all of the Belgrade Lakes and reports that the conditions couldn't be better, and the fish are hitting. "We've had some decent fishing for trout, mostly browns and some good salmon fishing. This place is where to come for big pike--we've already had pike to 15 pounds caught and a bunch that were from eight to ten pounds. Great Pond, Messalonskee Lake and North Ponds are where to concentrate your pike fishing efforts. Fishermen can feel free to call for particulars at any time," Mike offered.

"We've got some offbeat fishing recreation here that is getting more and more attention," laughed Cal Robinson at Saco Bay Tackle. "If you are the hardy soul that can don your neoprene waders, rain slicker and tape up your rubber gloves to your sleeves, you may want to join this crew of hen clamdiggers that harvest most of their clams on especially low tides. This week we've got some exceptional tides, with the lowest occurring on Thursday early evening. We'll probably resort to using headlamps to help us dig, as the best time on the tide will be shortly after dusk. The equipment needed is pretty fundamental. Besides the gear you need to wear, you'll want a net bag and a couple of five gallon buckets, as well as some kind of a round-tine pitchfork to actually dig the clams with. We wade in the shallows and probe with the pitchfork until we hit a solid object, and then you've gotta dig like crazy or the tide will wash the clam away. It's not unusual to be able to dig more than one bucketful in a tide. The clams are huge and make incredible chowders and baked stuffed clams," Cal instructed. He also mentioned that no license is required for this recreational digging.

His report on the local ice fishing scene was also quite enthusiastic. One of his helpers, Wayne Jordan, had fished nearby Barker Pond in Lyman on Saturday and had taken some brookies over three pounds. Kennebunk Pond, also in Lyman, had been producing some nice brookies and browns over the weekend.

Dave Ganter at the Kittery Trading Post's Fishing Department, echoed Cal's report about Barker Pond, and he added that there had been some big landlocked salmon coming out of Mousam Lake in Shapleigh. "We've seen a tremendous amount of interest in ice fishing so far, both for saltwater smelt and for fresh water. Panfishing, especially for crappie, perch and pickerel has really seen a resurgence. Crappie now are present in many of the local warm water ponds, which probably is why the interest has been so high," Ganter explained.

New Hampshire's freshwater ice fishing continues to be great, again with caution urged about ice conditions. "There's only a couple of inches of ice on the Broads on Lake Winnipesaukee," noted Bill Martel at Martel's Bait at Laconia. "The coves and bays on the big lake have good ice, and the fishing has started off pretty good in most of those places. On Paugus Bay, there are several dozen shanties out behind the Burger King there, and I'd say there's a lot of action. Here on Lake Winnisquam there have been some good lakers being caught and an occasional rainbow trout. (George Foster of Epsom agrees with Bill on the Winnisquam action). Lake Opechee still is producing nice catches of pan-sized white perch. Don't go there thinking you're going to catch some whoppers, because they aren't there, but you could be surprised by a big rainbow trout. Opechee has quite a population of these," he laughed.

Tom Remick at TR's Bait in Pittsburg, says that although there is some fishing pressure in his area, he expects that next weekend's three day span will really be the start of the heavy fishing. "We've got excellent snow traveling, good ice in most places and plenty of lake trout and rainbow and brown trout," he said.

"The crappie are very active at Belleau Lake, Pine River Pond, Ivanhoe Lake and Balch Pond," reports Tink Nelson at Nute's Trading Post in Wakefield. "Milton Three Ponds continue to produce some great pickerel, perch and an occasional brown trout and bass. Ice is still kind of shaky in some of these areas so be forewarned. The rainbow trout action on Lovell Lake (Sanbornville) has been steady, with an occasional fish to 20 inches, and there's also been some nice white perch to add to the catch there," he ended.

"We had a really big weekend," enthused George Taylor at Taylor's Trading Post in Madbury. "On the Bellamy Reservoir, there were crowds of up to fifty people in some areas. Crappie, big sunfish, yellow perch, pickerel and occasional largemouths made up most of the catch. In Barrington, Swains Lake and Ayers Lake were both producing some great panfish and pickerel. Bow Lake in Strafford was good for rainbow and brown trout and a few smallmouths, while Pawtuckaway Lake in Nottingham/Raymond was good for bass and some crappie. You want to watch the ice in the middle of Pawtuckaway," he warned.

Pete Santini at Fishing FINatics in Everett, Massachusetts had his kids on the ice yesterday at Wright's Pond in Medford. "It's slowed down a bit here," Pete said. "We caught a few pickerel and one bass. But there was some very good largemouths caught, to five pounds, at Long Sought After Pond in Westford. There's an Indian name for this pond but it contains all the letters in the alphabet twice, so we go by this name and that's not so short," he laughed. "Horn Pond in Woburn still has 50 or 60 big Atlantic salmon to be caught, but for some reason, they just stopped hitting," Pete ended.

From the Cape Cod area, Ken Nelson reports that ice has just made up, and some of the larger ponds still have open water. "We've heard of some fast fishing for pickerel and largemouth bass, but no trout yet," Ken said.

Saltwater fishing, both on the ice and some limited open water, remains great. Dave Ganter at the Kittery Trading Post remarked about all the good news he'd heard about the mid-coast Maine smelt fishing. A call to George Eddy at James Eddy Smelt Camp Rentals confirmed this. "We've had catches of about 20 to 30 pounds a shanty all week long. Actually, the fishing on the incoming tides, when they are in the evening, have outproduced the outgoing tides," he reports.

Jim MacKenzie, at Suds-n-Soda in Greenland, NH reported that the fishing on Great Bay and the rivers there was a mixed bag, with not a lot of big catches being reported, but with some fish coming from both the Bay and the Squamscot River in Exeter.

"We had plenty of successful smelt fishermen in here over the weekend that were mostly fishing the Oyster and Lamprey River," reports George Taylor at Taylor's Trading Post. There were a lot of limits and near limit catches. You've got to play the times right to get on the ice as we've had some exceptionally high tides. In Newmarket on the Lamprey, there were a lot of white perch showing up in the catches but now it's mostly smelt. On the Oyster, the best fishing seems to be up at the head-of-tide at the park," he ended.

Portsmouth veteran smelt fisherman Dave Jette was very disappointed about the Great Bay fishing near Half Tide Rock, reporting that he'd gone without a bite there in eight hours of fishing! He also checked on the Stratham flats off Depot road where fishermen there were also complaining of very little luck.

Another veteran smelter, Joe Kennick of Exeter, had checked out the Squamscot on Thursday night, finding even the "old river rats" there taking only an occasional smelt, with Kyle Walsh from Suds-n-Soda having the biggest catch he'd heard of, five pounds coming from off Sawyer's Landing in Newmarket.

Pete Santini added to his freshwater report with the news that one of his customers, Darien Dinucchi, had been jigging some great codfish off Stellwagon Bank in his 38 foot boat, with best luck being in 150 feet of water.