The boat launch by the outlet of Hancock Pond is wide and spacious. Remember to leave your vehicle at the parking area across the road behind the mailboxes.
Sand Pond is a 256-acre body of water located in Denmark, Oxford County, Maine (see The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer map 4 B3. NOTE: both the Gazetteer and Google Maps refer to it as Walden Pond). This pond does not have a public launch area. Instead, access is via the hard-topped municipal boat launch found at the outlet of nearby Hancock Pond. Both ponds are connected via a short but shallow (< 1 ft. deep) thoroughfare. Keep in mind that the Hancock Pond launch is not deep and that trailered boats need to be backed out a way before they will float off. Also, a local homeowner tells me that vehicles should not be left behind in the launch area itself but instead must be parked in the open area across Wabunaki Road behind the mailboxes. The launch area does not provide any signs clarifying that important detail. Beware that, in the past, some vehicles parked at the launch have been towed away by the town at the owner’s expense…
It is so peaceful this morning, and I have the place all to myself!
Sand Pond is pretty, only moderately developed, and surrounded by several low, wooded hills. It consists of three shallow lobes that are connected by a deeper area in the center. I selected this water body as an angling target using my proven search strategy. The State stocks it each fall with 300 12- to 13-inch brown trout, which results in a sparse stocking density of about 1 fish per acre. That is the going rate for this species and never results in “fast” action…. As part of my pre-trip research, I checked the historical temperature and dissolved oxygen data for this pond, which I obtained from Lakes of Maine, to determine the depth of the thermocline. The data show that this narrow warm-to-cold water transition layer occurs between 20 and 23 ft. below the surface in early September. Normally, that is the depth I would troll for brown trout. However, a peculiar feature of the data piques my interest: not only does the cold water below the thermocline experience a severe oxygen deficiency in late summer, but so does the thermocline itself, as well as 5 ft. of water above the thermocline! The information shows that I need to troll 16 ft. down, but not one foot deeper, in order to stay in oxygenated water. This pattern means that the brown trout and their local food source (i.e., landlocked alewives and rainbow smelt) are forced to stay in a very narrow band of water marginally too warm but containing enough dissolved oxygen. The fish cannot spend any time in the well-oxygenated but warmer water above or in the colder but oxygen-deprived water below. This key factor makes it much easier to find the brown trout and removes much of the guesswork from the catch equation! It also shows the critical importance of fully understanding the local temperature and dissolved oxygen profiles when targeting salmonids at depth in the summer. It would be so easy to troll in the anoxic thermocline 20-23 ft. below the surface and catch… absolutely nothing. This pond has a maximum and mean depth of 44 ft. and 12 ft., respectively, which makes it relatively shallow. Click here for a depth map and more fisheries information. Most of the “fishable” water (i.e., with a depth above 20-25 ft.) is located in the center of the pond where the three lobes meet, which is where I concentrate all my efforts this morning. Open water angling at this location occurs under the general fishing laws applicable to the south zone, except that fishing is allowed between October 1 and December 31 using artificial lures only and all salmonids must be released alive and at once.
I just love it when all my triangulations produce the desired results!
I arrive at the Hancock Pond boat launch at 5:30 am and buzz off 15 minutes later. I move around the corner and through the shallow thoroughfare and am ready to troll in the center of Sand Pond by 6:00 am. Sunrise occurs in another 10 minutes. Great. I am still within the “Golden Hour”, i.e., the low-light conditions that exist before the sun fully emerges above the horizon. The weather is also to my liking: air temperature in the low 50’s and expected to rise into the mid 70’s, lite fog, no wind, and a cloudless sky. I deploy my usual trolling paraphernalia: a portable downrigger teamed with a spinning rod, and lead core line teamed with an 8-weight flyfishing rod. The spinning rod uses three Mooselook spoons tied back-to-back, and the flyrod fishes with three small one-hook smelt imitators tied back-to-back. I place both set of lures 16 ft. below the surface, and not one foot deeper. I haven’t been fishing for more than 10 minutes when I get a ferocious hit on the streamer flies! Boy, do I LOVE that feeling, particularly since I am holding the rod and therefore intimately feel the strike. The fish struggles hard for three seconds but then suddenly unhooks. Darn!! I am deeply frustrated with this unexpected loss but nonetheless satisfied with the confirmation that I placed my lures at the correct depth. Depth control is always in the back of my mind when trolling close to de-oxygenated water in the summer.
The brown trout spits out this juvenile landlocked alewife. It reminds me of the importance of matching lure size to bait size!
Thirty minutes go by without any action. By now, the sun has started its ascend into the cloudless sky and the fog is burning off. I get another hit on the lead core line, and this time the fish stays hooked! Ooh, this is a nice fighter. The creature takes several strong runs, ripping copious amounts of line off the reel. I give all it wants, while making sure that the tension remains constant. A brown trout slowly emerges out of the depths and I soon understand its tenacity: the fish got hooked in the tail and was therefore fighting “head first”! It gets netted, measured, photographed, and promptly released. After it swims away, I notice a small silvery fish on the bottom of my boat. OMG, it is a juvenile landlocked alewife! I realize that my Mooselook spoons on the downrigger have done nothing for me this morning and need to be swapped out. I replace them with three smaller and more compact Thomas Boyant T101 1/6 ounce trout spoons. That switch pays off because my spinning rod shakes violently 35 minutes later and I set the hook on a brute. It turns out to be a hard-fighting smallmouth bass which leaps several times out of the water. I have been trolling for about 2 hours when I check my gas tank and realize that it is nearing empty. Damn, I forgot to fill up the thing. I only have 30 minutes of gas left before I need to head back to the launch. I make one last circle around the deep area and get another hit, but no hookup, on the lead core. I am satisfied with the results: I caught my target species, landed a nice “bycatch”, and had two additional hits. It beats going home skunked.
A very nice “by-catch”!
The results: I caught one brown trout (19 inches) and one smallmouth bass (18.5 inches) in 2.5 hours of trolling.
The local loon gang drops by for a visit.
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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