When I moved to Maine, I wanted to start pursuing lake trout. Even though I grew up in Northern Ontario, lake trout were never a fish I took any interest in, because I didn't have a boat and lakes that contained them were few and far between. Sebago Lake is right in my backyard and it's considered one of the top lakes in New England for lake trout, However, it's a pretty big at 29,000 acres in size and the mean depth is over 100 feet deep. If I had a boat, I would probably spend every weekend on it. But, a kayak can only get you so far as I didn't want to spend hours trying to covering a lot of water. I wanted to start off small and work my way up. After doing some research, I read that Thompson Lake has a great lake trout fishery and it was the perfect size.
Thompson Lake is located about 35 minutes north of Windham. It's about 12 miles long and averages about 2 miles wide. It has a maximum depth of 120 feet. It's shallow at the north and south ends and deepest in the middle. The lake is also considered one of the cleanest in the state as it's fed by the Poland spring aquifer. Thompson Lake supports a wide variety of game fish such as largemouth and smallmouth bass and lake trout and Atlantic salmon. The current state record smallmouth bass was caught in this lake back in 1970. Thompson is only 45 minutes from Portland and 30 minutes from Lewiston-Auburn, two of Maine's most populated cites. Because of its close proximity to large urban areas, the shoreline is fairly developed on both sides.
As usual, I'm out on the water very early this morning. The sun has risen over the trees and it's a blazing ball of red. That's the result of Canadian wildfire smoke and we've had several days of it through out the summer where smoke has made the air quality terrible. The surface of the lake is like glass and it's so quiet I could hear some people talking from their cabins. With any new body of water, I usually like to go for a cruise and watch the fish finder for any structure. But, today I was going to focus on lake trout. In Maine, lake trout are referred to as togue. The name is thought to be derived from a native American word. Game fish often have local names depending where you live in the U.S or Canada. Where I grew up in Northern Ontario we always referred to walleye as pickerel and brook trout as speckled trout. But if you went to Northwestern Ontario, pike were called jackfish and if you ventured into Quebec, walleye were called dore. I thought name tougue amusing as it sounds like grotesque creature that lives on the bottom hidden in the mud.
I was able to get cell phone reception and I pulled up the depth chart map. I looked to the south and there was a very small island. Accoording to the map, the lake gets really deep just east of the island. As I'm pedaling, I see a boat in the distance chugging along out in the middle and from their speed, they were most likely fishing for lake trout or salmon. I finally make it out the middle and I'm directly over 105' of water. I make some adjustments on the fish finder such as cranking the gain up to 90% as that helps me see the jig and the thermocline. As the screen moves, I start seeing the band of where the thermocline starts and it's at 30'. I knew that lake trout often like to hang under it or near the bottom. I could have loved to use my ultralight rod as lake trout in Thompson rarely get over a couple of pounds. But, I was using a 1/2 ozs jig and a 4' white gulp minnow and a beefier rod was needed. I let the jig drop and I patiently wait for a fish to appear. For about 20 minutes I see nothing. Because there wasn't any wind, I barely moved. I move farther down and I drop the jig and repeated the process.
This time by sheer luck, a lake trout must of have been close by and taken the jig during the drop. Because when I closed the bail, I immediately felt some resistance and then the rod bent over. The fish fought pretty hard and I finally caught glimpse of it and it wasn't big when I got it to side of the kayak. It was small enough that I grabbed the jig head and hauled it out the water. It was probably about 24" and the first thing I noticed was the size of the fish's eyes as they were disproportionately larger than its head to the point of being cartoon like. This adaptation is most likely the result of foraging in deeper water where light levels are low. Its body was long and sleek and very dark in color. I proudly looked at my first lake trout and take a quick picture before releasing it.I continue to work this section and I dropped the jig down to 70' of water. I could see the zig zag pattern of my jig on the screen. For about 30 minutes, I didn't see anything. I thought to myself I wished I had a livescope sonar as I would be able to see fish in real time and at a wider distance. Unfortunately, they're very expensive as I remember the hardcore walleye anglers I knew back in Ohio didn't flinch when they shelled out $3000 for a livescope set-up. The closest I had to real time sonar was my A-scope and it was nothng more than a flasher that showed a pallette of colors on a narrow band. If there was a band of red that usually meant there was a fish inside the diameter of the cone. Because, I was in deeper water, my cone diameter was roughly 100' around my kayak.
Then I see the A-scope flashing red at about 80' and I feel a hit and I immediately set the hook. I feel the rod throb and the fight is on. This fish felt a little bigger and a few times I took line off the reel. I see it come to the surface and it's a little bigger then the one I previously caught. I quickly pop the jig out and the I see the fish slowly head back into the depths. Since lake trout don't generally school, I started fishing in grids as I would pedal a certain distance and then drop the jig. The three previous fish I caught all came in water about 90' deep and they were about 10' off the bottom. The week before I read an article about the Maine fishery department doing a fish survey on Thompson several years ago and according to their sampling, there were 5 lake trout per acre. That number sounded about right, considering lake trout inhabit lakes that are poor in nutrients. I moved farther down the lake and I caught a couple more lake trout in that 90 to 100 feet of water. From what I gathered this morning is that lake trout don't nibble, they take bait immediately and hit really hard. The other was having to move from spot to spot and try to intercept fish. I probably had move at least ten times just to catch six fish.
By now the wind started to pick up and the lake is getting choppy. The boat traffic also starts getting heavy and that's my cue to head closer to shore. I tied on a drop shot rig and headed over to a point. I was a 10 minute ride over and I could see a lot of rocks in the water. Since there was a decent push from the wind, I knew this would be a great place to drift fish. I cast and watch the line go slack. I lifted the rod tip high and let the wind move me along. I would start feeling taps and when I tried to set the hook there was nothing. This continued and I started to get annoyed as I knew the culprit was probably young bass. Eventually I managed to set the hook and I felt something small pull the line. It turned out be a sunfish, which as surprising as I'm using a fairly large hook and a 4" worm. It turned out to be a war of attrition as I hooked into one sunfish after another. In all the years I fishing, I don't think I ever caught a sunfish drop shotting. I did manage to catch some smallmouth bass, but nothing big. But, it was getting close to noon and that's usually when I call it a day.
On the way back to the boat launch, I could see in the distance a person seating in a beach chair reading a book and he was wearing a yellow vest. I chuckled and thought to myself, there's three certainties in Maine - death, taxes, and running into a courtesy boat inspector. This would be the fifth time I've ran into an inspector. He was a younger guy and he didn't get up from his chair. He just glanced over and asked how the fishing was. I figured since I had a kayak there would be no reason to check it out. I went over to get my car and I quickly got the kayak and strapped it down. The inspector was just content reading and working on his tan.
I thought my first outing on Thompson Lake was a success as I caught six lake trout. They weren't big, but it was another feather in the cap as earlier in the season, I caught my first chain pickerel. Thompson is a great lake for the angler targeting lake trout. It's an easy lake to get around as it took me about 15 minutes to get from the boat launch to deeper water. You'll definitely need to exercise patience and work hard for them.
No comments:
Post a Comment