The ice is glare and the light levels are low.
Crystal Pond (a.k.a. Beals Pond) covers 47 acres and is located in Turner, Androscoggin County, Maine (see The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer map 11 C4). This body of water is immediately adjacent to Route 4. Ample space is available to leave vehicles next by the pond, but be aware that this parking area is typically not plowed in the winter. During my visit, the snow was all packed down and icy due to the recent thaw, and I was able to park my car off the road. That may not be the case after a snow storm or if the snowplows have left behind a deep snowbank next to the road. In that case, vehicles must be parked in the breakdown lane of Route 4.
That’s one fat white perch!
I trolled Crystal Pond in early November 2017 with the hope of catching some of the larger brook trout or brown trout that had been stocked earlier last fall. I fell short of that goal. However, I noticed an interesting habitat feature that caught my attention while paddling around the pond in my canoe trailing my lures: the northeast corner of the pond remains quite shallow (< 5 ft deep) and weedy for about 200 ft off-shore and then quite suddenly drops off to a depth of 15 ft. Weedy flats next to abrupt drop-offs provide great hunting habitat for trout under the ice. I made a mental note of this set-up and promised myself to come back during the hard-water season to check out this area. I note that this body of water is not only stocked each fall with salmonids, but also supports thriving populations of largemouth bass, white perch, yellow perch, and northern pike. The pond has a maximum and average depth of 39 ft and 16 ft, respectively. Click here for a depth map and more fisheries information. The ice fishing rules fall under the general law provisions
We caught too many of those today…
My son Joel and I reach Crystal Pond by 7 am. The weather for this morning calls for temps in the teens and rising, with mostly cloudy skies and no wind. That makes for pleasant ice fishing conditions. Two other parties are already deploying their tip-ups along the shoreline in the immediate vicinity of the parking area. We quickly make our way to our target area and reach the other side in less than 10 minutes. The pond is covered by glare ice which makes it so much easier to walk versus dragging a loaded sled through deep snow!! Our off-shore holes find only deeper (> 10 ft) water, whereas our on-shore holes are quite shallow (< 4 ft). It takes a lot more drilling before we realize that those off-shore holes are actually no more than 40 ft away from the sought-after drop-off… The shallow on-shore holes don’t generate a single flag all morning. Nor do they produce any trout or any other fish after 2 hours of disappointing jigging. The four holes placed right over the drop-off produce a few flags, and yield two largemouth bass, including a fat 20 incher, but no trout.
That largemouth bass made the trip worthwhile, although it was really the trout we were after.
The off-shore holes closest to the drop-off continuously generate flags over the next three hours. So, we’re definitely on to something. However, those holes yield only a bunch of yellow perch, a fat white perch, and a largemouth bass. Clearly, we haven’t found the trout on this pond yet but Joel and I have a grand time chatting together, tending the numerous flags, and dreaming about future adventures together. We have developed a strong father-son camaraderie after 30+ years of fishing together, and I love it! The flag action slows down noticeably around 9:30 am and stops altogether around 10 am. We call it good at 10:30 am. As we walk back to our car, we stop and chat with an angler who’s fishing in the vicinity of the parking area. He mentions that, based on his past experiences, the best trout fishing on Crystal Pond is in fact just where he’s fishing, i.e., in front of the parking area. That theory will have to be put to the test at some future time.
The results: We landed a dozen yellow perch, three largemouth bass, and a fat white perch, but no trout, in 3.5 hours of fun ice fishing.
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