Pumpkinseed Sunfish
On The Water Magazine’s weekly forecast suggested that Sheomet Lake might be one of the few ponds in Central Massachusetts to still have good ice conditions. So I decided make Sheomet my destination for one of the last ice fishing trips of the season. I was also attracted to this lake because of the fish populations reported to be there by the state Division of Fish & Game. The report mentions holdover Brook Trout, plus high numbers of Brown Bullhead and Suckers. Catching some nice size Brookies would be a nice way to end the season. Bullhead and White Sucker would be good additions to this year’s species list.
I left the house at 7am. Didn’t encounter too much commuter traffic which was good. What wasn’t good is that I didn’t see any decent ice conditions on the ponds that I passed by. Despite the extremely cold temperatures over the weekend it was mostly open water and skim ice.
Once I started down the backroads it was obvious that the elevation was increasing. There was more snow still on the ground. I reached the state forest and noticed a hard thick layer of ice covering the roads. I was encouraged at seeing what appeared to be a good cover of ice on the pond. A quick auger drill revealed a three inch crust of refrozen slush over twelve inches of dark ice.
The pond is surrounded by a state forest and has an undeveloped shoreline. There’s a handful of small islands. A stream flows in at one end and there’s an outlet with a dam at the other end. The pond is small and shallow, with 33 acres and a maximum depth of 13 ft. I would assume that a good flow of water is what makes it suitable trout habitat.
I fished from 11am to 6 pm using worms and nightcrawlers on four tip ups and a Mummichog on one. Kept getting flags on the worms, but the fish were finicky and would drop the bait. There was one other person fishing on the other side of the pond. Using shiners, he caught only one small pickerel and a few small yellow perch. He also had a lot of flags caused by finicky feeders. By the end of the day I had caught one Pumpkinseed Sunfish and a small Yellow Perch.
Fuzzy Photo Of The Bald Eagle
The highlight of the day was seeing a Bald Eagle that that stayed around for about 30 minutes. I would return to this site. Next time I would try to fish closer to the islands and nearer to the stream inlet.
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