Thissell Pond in Piscataquis County (T5R11) has been getting a lot of attention lately from anglers and fisheries biologists. It is a trout pond and a Maine sport fishery with a somewhat checkered but interesting fisheries management history.
Not surprisingly, this small body of water (141 acres), according to biologist Tim Obrey, boasts “some cool, well-oxygenated layers between 25 and 35 feet. Although it is just 42 feet deep, the pond was a natural lake trout (togue) fishery in the way back before the era of scientific fisheries management. Over the years it also has been habitat for brook trout, suckers, lake chubs and blacknosed dace.
Then, in 1962 the pond was “chemically reclaimed” using Toxaphene. For the next 20 years, the pond was stocked annually with fall fingerling brook trout. According to Obrey, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife stocked the pond with 123,0000 brookies. ( I caught a few of those during the 1970s.)
Trouble then came to the Thissell Pond fishery with an illegal act. Some misguided souls began spiking the pond with a fish not native to the pond — rainbow smelts. What in the world were they thinking? This illegal introduction had a significant deleterious effect on the pond’s trout population. Translation: The adult smelt ate the trout eggs and juvenile trout and the Thissell Pond sport fishery went south. Fewer and fewer brookies were being caught as time marched on.
In the right aquatic habitats rainbow smelt populations can be hard to control. In an effort to reduce the smelt numbers, splake (which don’t reproduce) were experimentally introduced into Thissell Pond. The splake did well, fattening themselves on the smelt. ( I caught, joyfully, some of those fat, 16- inch splake on a flyrod, as did many other happy fishermen.) Obrey says that splake have been boated that were close to 8 lbs.
In 2005 and 2006, the smelt densities shrank and the splake stopped thriving. However there was no corresponding increase in the numbers or condition of the few brook trout in the pond. There did not seem to be sufficient “seed” to bring about a natural revival of wild brook trout either.
As a sport fishery, the once robust Thissell Pond languished. Emboldened by state fisheries protocol and policy, which places a priority on the management for brook trout on the good waters, the Department elected to reclaim the pond and start over.
Tim Obrey, the Greenville regional fisheries biologist responsible for Thissell Pond told me this: “Yes, we reclaimed the pond last summer. We plan to restock with fall fingerlings (trout) this fall. We took eggs and milt from some Sourdnahunk brook trout last fall and the resulting trout are currently in the Enfield hatchery to be stocked in waters in Baxter Park and Thissell Pond.”
Of late, the state’s management of Thissell has not been without criticism. A number of callers on my Sunday night radio program, Maine Outdoors, have complained about the state’s handling of this pond.
Some anglers had become quite fond of the splake fishery there and, to my surprise, wanted it continued.
Some were upset that the Department, rather than”killing” the pond, did not give anglers a couple of years to fish it out, then reclaim it.
Like the fabled, bewhiskered rail splitter from Illinois said in an historic moment of deep frustration,”You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t….”
There is a seminal point in all of this that deserves consideration by proponents and critics alike: Thissell Pond is one of our unique “B” waters and has shown itself historically capable of being a self-sustaining wild brook trout fishery. It was once, and after this latest restoration attempt and restocking this fall, it may revert to its old self and become a true wild trout fishery. And a good one.
Cross your fingers. Tim Obrey is.
The author is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News- Talk Network (WVOMFM 103.9, WQVMFM 101.3) and former information of icer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His email address is vpaulr@tds.net.. He has two books “A Maine Deer Hunter’s Logbook” and his latest, “Backtrack.”
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