The sign to the boat launch on Horne Pond is clearly marked at the entrance by North Road
Horne Pond (a.k.a Pequawket Lake) covers 166 acres and is located in Limington, York County, Maine (see The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer map 4 D4). The public boat launch can be reached by turning onto Moy Mo Da Yo Road (I swear I didn’t make that name up!), which is the first dirt road on the right side of North Road about 400 ft after you turn onto it from Route 25. The turn-off on North Road is clearly indicated by a large green sign. Drive for another half a mile or so on this dirt road and follow the directions for the boat launch. The launch is hard-topped and can accommodate substantial boats. Ample parking is available nearby.
The bite by a brown trout can be vicious!
Horne Pond is an interesting body of water. Even though it is relatively small, the pond is quite deep (maximum depth of 58 feet), and is blessed with extremely clear and translucent water. Click here for a depth map and more fisheries information. It also sustains a robust smelt population, which in turn supports a locally well-known brown trout fishery. It is not unusual to catch 4 to 6-pound browns in this small body of water, and I suspect that still larger fish may be lurking in its depths. It is those brown trout that are the target of my trolling efforts this morning. I arrive at the boat launch at 5:45 am with my buddy Frank. He won’t be fishing but just wants to come along for the ride. I’ll be “sowing” my baitfish today using a long needle, instead of using a sliding minnow rig like last week. The sowing technique is quite simple and effective. I’ll be using both live minnows about 3” long and preserved smelt about 4” long. The latter are not ideal because they are stiff from the preservation process but at least present a smelt-like profile to the scaly denizens below. Using smelt is important because the local brown trout are most likely keyed-in on that important food source. Click here for the fishing regulations that apply to this pond.
I’m quite happy with this brown trout!
We push off from the boat launch at Horne Pond a little after 6 am and start trolling slowly with the two types of baitfish placed between 15 and 20 ft below the surface. One rod uses lead core line with a sown smelt and the other uses monofilament teamed up with a portable downrigger and a sown shiner. The morning is actually gorgeous, perhaps too much so. The fog is absent, there’s no wind, and the sky is cloudless. We slowly troll around the pond in a big circle, staying over water 30 to 40 ft deep. I get four hits on my lead core line over the next hour, but no hookups. Regardless, the fish are quite active down there! Frank suspects that I’m trolling just a smidgen too fast (about 1.5 MPH versus the preferred 1 MPH), even though the outboard is idling as slow as possible. That’s my fault because I forgot to bring a drift bucket to slow the boat down even more to a crawl. Browns can be that finnicky! On the other hand, all four hits occurred on the smelt, which says something about the choice of baitfish. An additional reason for those bites may be that I hold the rod with the lead core line in my hands and gently sway the tip back and forth to impart some additional movement to the smelt. That action is obviously missing from the sown shiner which is attached to the downrigger weight ball and is just being dragged along for the ride. Anyway, the sun has now risen above the eastern horizon and is flooding the pond with bright light. The bite stops.
This is one lousy picture but the 21.5″ smallmouth bass is not!
Frank and I spend the next hour fruitlessly trolling around but enjoying the conversation (mostly about fishing, of course) and each other’s company. I suddenly get another hit on my lead core line and immediately set the hook which finally penetrates a fishy mouth down below. It’s a hefty creature but it is barely fighting. In fact, it appears to be swimming towards the boat and I’m having a heck of a time keeping the tension going as I’m frantically reeling in the lead core line. The fish becomes visible as it slowly emerges through the clear water. YES!! It’s a nice brown trout. We successfully land the fish, admire it, take a couple of pictures, and let it go. We keep on trolling with renewed enthusiasm until I see the tip of the rod attached to the downrigger shake with insistence. I grab the rod, set the hook, and feel an even bigger fish at the other end. OMG, could it be the huge brown I’m looking for?? This one puts up a real fight, consistently ripping line off my reel, and only reluctantly rising from the depths. Somewhat disappointingly, giving what I was hoping for this morning, this second fish is actually a really nice 21.5” (5 pound!) smallmouth bass! Boy, you just never know what you’ll catch when trolling. We call it good after this second fish and after spending a fun and successful morning fishing on Horne Pond.
The results: I caught one 20” brown trout and a huge 21.5” smallmouth bass in 3.5 hours of trolling with sown bait.
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