View of the rough launch at the south end of Bowler Pond.
Bowler Pond (a.k.a. Belton Pond) is a 34-acre body of water located in Palermo, Waldo County, Maine (see The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer map 13 A5). The public access is via a rough, unimproved launch found at the southern tip of the pond off Level Hill Road. Someone in the past spread a pile of small boulders on a limited section of the launch, presumably to fix muddy ruts. I was glad to have a four-wheel drive truck to pull my trailered boat out of the water and across these slippery rocks. Beware also that the water by the launch stays shallow for about 30 ft. offshore, which requires backing into the pond a ways to float the boat off the trailer. Of course, this is not an issue if fishing from a canoe or kayak. Parking is quite limited at this location; the narrow road shoulder can accommodate only a few cars. An alternative carry-in access point is found about a quarter mile passed the boat launch off Level Hill Road next to a small sandy parking area.
This first brookie tells us that the fish are suspending over the deep hole, even though it is only mid-May…
Bowler Pond is a lightly-developed water body embedded in a forested landscape. I used my proven search strategy to identify this place. I am intrigued by several specific regulatory features meant to sustain a robust brook trout fishery. First, the pond is stocked annually with 300 9-inch brookies but is closed to ice fishing. This regulation means that it is not a simple “put-and-take” fishery where the trout stocked in one year are not expected to survive passed the next. Second, anglers can only fish with artificial lures (e.g., spinners, spoons, dry flies, streamer flies) which prevents the use of earthworms or live bait fish that will more readily catch trout or compete with them if bait fish are released. Finally, only one keeper fish may exceed 14 inches, meaning that the brook trout are given a chance to grow bigger. Click here for additional rules. The pond has a mean and maximum depth of 15 ft. and 40 ft., respectively, making it relatively deep for its small size. Click here for a depth map and more fisheries information.
The brook trout are definitely down there!
I reach Bowler Pond with Lily at noon and launch the motor boat 10 minutes later. We are enjoying a gorgeous spring day with plenty of sunshine, little or no wind, and an air temperature in the mid 70’s. The temperature of the surface water is a surprisingly balmy 65°F. I am secretly hoping for a mayfly hatch so we can fish using dry flies which is the best way to catch salmonids. But no flies are hatching, and we see no rises. Clearly, the fish are not focused on the water surface. So, we use lead core line to troll the whole shoreline over about 10 ft. of water to pick up a brookie (click here and here for other examples of this type of fishing). Lily uses two small trout spoons tied back-to-back, and I use three proven one-hook streamer flies also tied back-to-back. We both place our lures about 5 ft. below the surface. We go around the pond three times and, to our surprise, fail to get a single hit. This lack of action is strange and baffling for mid-May but suggests that the trout have moved away from the shallows into deeper water. So, I use my depth finder to place the boat over 20-25 ft. of water, and we lower the same lures 10 to 12 ft. down (i.e., a color and a half to two colors). I do get one hit on the streamer flies, but we otherwise remain fishless as we fruitlessly go around and around in circles trying to find the brook trout.
The boss has spoken loud and clear!
We are at the end of our wits… The only place left to explore is the 30+ ft.-deep hole found in the middle of Bowler Pond. That is where I would troll in the summer when the warm surface water forces the trout down into the cool and oxygenated thermocline. But we are in mid-May and there just is no reason for the trout to swim that deep! But we nonetheless give it a try by placing our offerings 15 to 18 ft. deep and trolling back and forth over the narrow 30+ deep area of the pond. Lily gets a hookup within 10 minutes and fights a nice 15-inch brookie. OMG! Are the brookies really hiding that deep? She hits the jackpot over the next hour when she hooks another five large trout and lands two of them in the boat (all released). They are big, fat, and well-fed. I, meanwhile, do not get a single hit on my streamer flies. Somewhere in the process, she gives me one of her two small spoons (they are both identical, except that one is a bit smaller than the other; see picture below), and I use it instead of the flies. But she gets the next hit and hookup. We then exchange our spoons but she still gets the following hit and hookup. Clearly, the fish gods are only smiling on her this afternoon. Nothing I do will change that situation… Then the bite suddenly stops and the catching is over. We leave Bowler Pond 20 minutes later fully satisfied on having found the large brook trout hiding deep below in the hole. The key to success was to understand the fishery potential of this pond based on its angling rules and then systematically seeking to locate our quarry.
These two little spoons are today’s trout slayers. Note their diminutive size.
The results: I got skunked but Lily hooked six large brook trout and landed three of them (largest = 18 inches) in 3 hours of fun fishing.
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Tight Lines, y’all.
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