View of the boat launch at the southern tip of Pleasant Pond with the small cement dam on the right.

Pleasant Pond is a 192-acre body of water located in Turner, Androscoggin County, Maine (see The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer map 11 C5). The public access point is a hard boat launch which is not shown in my 2019 Gazetteer. This launch is located by a small cement dam and the outlet at the southern tip of the pond, right off Pleasant Pond Road. Parking is limited to a few vehicles. Beware not to park in front of the hard suction hose that gives firefighters access to lake water in case of a fire emergency.

This first fish tells me that the rises come from feeding brookies.

Pleasant Pond and I are old acquaintances. I trolled it twice for landlocked salmon earlier this year, but got skunked both times, which sucked. I want to see if I have better luck catching its brook trout in the fall… Both species are stocked annually to maintain a year-round open-water and hard-water salmonid fishery. The pond is open to fishing between October 1 and December 31 using artificial lures only and with the stipulation that all salmonids must be released alive and at once.

The brookies are chasing my spinner this morning! The end of the embayment is visible in the upper right-hand side of the picture.

I reach Pleasant Pond at 7 am, layer up to keep warm, and enter the water in my waders a few minutes later. The air is a cold 31°F but the lack of wind makes the conditions quite bearable. Sunrise is at 6:50 am and the air temperature will rise into the low 60’s later today under full sunshine. I am exploring the area up-gradient of the dam which represents a 400-ft. shallow embayment that is split off from the rest of the lake by a narrow passage. I also fish to the right of the boat launch next to and past the dam to avoid encroaching on private property to the left. The wading conditions are not ideal: the substrate along the shoreline is soft, causing my boots to sink in up to 4 to 6 inches of sticky muck. I also have to pay attention to shoreline trees to avoid getting my lure stuck in overhanging branches. I am fishing using an ultralight spinning rod, a small spinning reel spooled with 6-pound monofilament, and a marvelous #2 Mepps spinner. The ultralight rod makes every fish feel big, and I can cast the spinner way out because of the light monofilament line. By the way, if I were ever exiled to a god forsaken place somewhere and told that I could only bring one kind of lure with me for survival, it would be the Mepps. That is how much confidence I have in this lure. I always cut one hook off the treble and flatten the barb on one of the two remaining hooks to limit injury to the fish. Also, keep in mind that a spinner is a “mechanical” device. It is up to the user to make it come fully alive by constantly twitching the rod tip during the retrieve to cause the blade to flutter and the lure to dart erratically, which ignites the killer instinct of the scaly predators below.

The prettiest, and biggest, brook trout caught this morning on Pleasant Pond.

I spend the first 15 minutes casting the spinner around but without eliciting a strike. I am not overly concerned yet because I observe several rises which tell me that fish are actively feeding in the embayment area. The water between the dam and where it opens up to the rest of the lake is relatively shallow (I guess < 5 ft. deep) and unobstructed by aquatic vegetation or sunken wood. I finally get a hookup and fight a spirited 13-inch brook trout. Great, that is what I was looking for. It takes about one hour to wade towards the end of the embayment and then back towards the dam. I catch another two brookies during that period. The fish are not suicidal this morning but are nonetheless feeding, and willing to pursue a darting spinner. I leave a satisfied angler, pleased that Pleasant Pond did not skunk me for a third time in a row!

The results: I caught three brook trout (largest = 15 inches) in 1 hour of fishing.

Was the information in this blog useful? I invite you to share your thoughts and opinions. Also, feel free to discuss your fishing experiences at this location.

Tight Lines, y’all.

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