Havalon Knives is pleased to announce that James Pavich of Canada, has won a free Havalon knife set. James was eligible because he subscribed to our email news during the month of May. His choice of prize: the Original Havalon Piranta. He will receive the knife, a set of replacement blades and a knife holster.
If you want to be eligible to win, just sign-up for our
email news on the home page of our website. Good luck!
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A bent fly rod means “fish on” in
Western Maine glacial ponds.
Before hiking up the three-thousand foot Western Maine mountain, my brother-in-law Bill Ormsbee stopped at the side of the trailhead to say a prayer. Bill is an avid angler, hiker, and minister
from Missouri, and always leads
with a prayer.
“Dear Lord,” began Ormsbee,
“help us to have a safe hike, to see
all your beauty, and to enjoy this
day of fishing you have blessed
us with. Amen.”
The hike only takes an hour and a half, and as we crested the summit I could see the smooth glacial pond and hear the sound of a hungry fish feeding on the other side of a huge rock that formed the south shoreline. I told Ormsbee to climb down as close as he could get to the shore, and fling his worm and bobber into the pond.
While I stood rigging my fly rod I could hear the splashing sounds of a hooked fish. Only a few minutes had passed and Ormsbee returned with a 14-inch brook trout. As I prepared to photograph him and his fish with the pond in the background, a strange noise began to break the awesome silence of the mountainous shoreline.
Before we could do anything, a small, single-prop plane crested the steep summit of the mountain and flew directly over our heads. It seemed so close that we ducked down as it passed over our position and flew straight over the pond, disappearing over the opposite edge of the mountain horizon.
We gathered ourselves to complete the fish photo, all the while exclaiming, “What is that pilot doing? Why did he come so close to us?” Then the plane suddenly crested the opposite side of the mountain and headed toward us, directly over the pond. Before either of us had time to say a thing, the pilot opened a bay door and dropped a huge load of hatchery trout into the still waters of the pond.
Most of the fish landed in the pond, but a large number of the four- to five-inch brookies landed on the rocks at the edge of the ponds – right at our feet. The flying fish didn’t hit us, but a lot of them landed around us on the shore and the shock left us standing there with our jaws hanging open. Ormsbee, the fishing minister, was the first to speak.
“I know I asked the Lord for success at fishing today,” Ormsbee exclaimed, “but I never dreamed he would send us trout from the heavens.”
We both laughed until tears rolled down our cheeks. As we scrambled to help a few of the struggling trout off the shoreline rocks and into the water, we continued to chuckle. I had heard of stocking remote ponds by using planes before, but never witnessed this procedure in such an up-close and personal manner. I couldn’t believe how close the plane came to us, and the sheer number of fish dropped baffled me and my angling brother-in-law. There must have been several hundred dropped in that one load.
We resumed fishing and caught several more big brook trout. Brookies, the only fish they stock in the glacial ponds, are meant to be caught and eaten. I have been assured by local biologists from Maine’s Department of Fish and Wildlife that the small glacial ponds that lace the mountains of Western Maine freeze nearly to the bottom during the winter months. Hardly any fish survive a pond that freezes that deeply, so they encourage anglers to catch and eat their limit of two fish per day.
When hiking in to fish the mountainous ponds, I always pack a sharp knife (Havalon Baracuta), a stick of butter, salt, and a pan. If I can’t build a little fire on the rocks to cook the fish, I’ll fry them over a small stove specifically made for backpacking. Nothing compares to a meal of fried brook trout at three thousand feet, especially after a day of chewing on beef jerky and power bars.
When we get up the next morning, the fishing starts well before breakfast. After we catch our two-fish limit, the fires get stoked and breakfast begins. If we remember to carefully pack in some eggs, they get tossed in with the frying fish. The combination surely makes a glorious morning meal for hungry hiking anglers.
When the glaciers moved across the mountains of Western Maine, they carved shallow pockets at the tops of many peaks. As the huge ice chunks melted, they filled these pockets with ice-cold water.
A Western Maine mountain pond
with white Kifaru tipi (kifaru.net) at shoreline (lower right).
Many of the glacial ponds in Maine’s mountains happen to be located on, or near, the Appalachian Trail (AT). The convenient thing about this is the fact that most of the well-marked AT trails near the ponds have lean-to shelters for overnight camping. This way an angler doesn’t have to pack in a heavy tent; they can simply use the provided shelters and enjoy the freedom of hiking without the added weight of a tent.
Another plus for fishing these remote, elevated ponds is that not many anglers are willing to climb a few thousand feet to go fishing. If an angler gets up early enough, they can have the whole pond to themselves. Most hikers won’t be at the summit at day break, leaving the pond to overnight anglers. Mornings on mountain ponds always provide early risers with the best fishing.
Around lunch time, hikers will start to straggle in – but not to worry, most of the hikers usually don’t fish. By dinner time, these same hikers leave to get down off the mountain before dark. Hiking anglers that prepare to stay the night have the best trout fishing time to themselves; the early morning and late-afternoon feeding frenzy. It doesn’t get much better than this.
Some anglers only hike in for a day of fishing, while others stay a few nights. Most of the glacial ponds in Western Maine require a two- to three-thousand foot hike, while a few reach closer to the four-thousand foot range. If I decide to hike in to those levels, I don’t want to come right back down – I’m staying at least overnight.
An Appalachian Trail hut in Western Maine mountains
provides great shelter for hiking anglers.
Like I stated earlier, a lot of the ponds along the AT have lean-to shelters for weary hikers, or hiking anglers. I’ve only seen other hikers using the shelters a few times in all the hiking and fishing I’ve done over the years. Still, I pack along a 9’ X 12’ silicone-treated nylon tarp just in case the
“inn is full.”
Some of the other gear I find absolutely necessary when hiking to elevated-angling locations makes a fishing trip a little easier. I don’t ever hike anywhere without SmartWool socks, some kind of wicking underwear, and a fleece jacket. SmartWool socks with a pair of liners have never allowed me to get a single blister. Wicking underwear offers warmth even if the hiker works up a chilling sweat – the material wicks the moisture away from the skin. The fleece jacket gets packed until the summit is reached, and then pulled out when the evening chill sets in. It’s surprising how warm a fleece jacket can be, especially if it’s got a quarter-zip collar that closes right up under the chin.
I also like to pack a stove and pot that boils water quickly, as well as a number of freeze-dried meals that cook up fast with the boiling water. If I don’t catch any fish, I can resort to these meals without too much fuss. I like a hot cup of coffee or tea for breakfast too, and the quick-boiling stove and pot combination take care of this in a hurry.
The last items I’ll list here, the sleeping system, ranks right up there in importance. Without a good night’s sleep, a hiking angler can’t function properly. Make sure to take a sleeping bag rated for the temperature extremes possible at that particular time of the year. During fishing season, even the coldest weather won’t be that bad – but believe me, the tops of three- to four-thousand foot mountains can get awful cold at night.
A good closed-cell sleeping pad helps soften the night’s sleep, too. This item is quite personal; I prefer a Therm-a-Rest pad that has an inflatable air chamber. The extra support of the air chamber helps alleviate morning back pains. I’ve heard other folks state that the cheap Big Box store brand, foam pad works for them – to each his own.
Some anglers prefer to fish with worms and lures on ponds that allow these methods. Although dunking a worm works perfectly, I still pack a fly rod. I can hook a worm onto a small hook on the fly rod and fling it if things get desperate.
My brother-in-law uses a bobber and worm to get his bait out a little farther from the shoreline. At times the trout can be very selective, and at other times they hit everything an angler throws at them. Some of the ponds have a five-fish-limit, and at times each of us has filled this limit using worms.
Fishing with flies presents some difficulties, but not enough to make me resort to worm fishing full-time. The cold ponds don’t offer much in the way of a hatch, but the warming thermals often pull insects up the mountains and deposit them in the ponds by the sheer force of the drafting winds.
After a late-afternoon heat wave, I have often noticed various types of bugs floating down from the sky. Flying ants, crickets, moths, and other terrestrials that don’t hatch in the water are blown in by the strong thermal mountain winds. I simulate this phenomenon by dropping similar imitations on the surface of the glacial ponds as the thermal winds begin to die down.
Believe it or not, my most successful fly takes only a few minutes to tie. I take a number 18 to 22 hook and wrap it with silver tinsel – that’s it. I don’t know what it is about that silly fly, but they hit it like mad. Maybe it reminds these “fish from heaven” of the sparkly angel wings they’ve seen as they pass from heaven to earth? What ever it is, fishing glacial ponds is truly a heavenly experience.
What kind of lure do you use when fly-fishing? Where is your favorite place to fish? Let us know, we’d love to hear from you!
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Jack Bett ~ Virginia
Havalon Knives is pleased to announce that Jack Bett of Virginia, has won a free Havalon knife set. Mr. Bett was eligible because he subscribed to our email news during the month of April. His choice of prize: the Havalon Baracuta Z pro-fillet knife. He will receive the knife, a set of replacement blades and a knife holster.
If you want to be eligible to win, just sign-up for our email news on the home page of our website.Good luck!
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Mossberg’s 835 using a Kick’s .670 ported choke tube. The Lead Sled sure helps.
“Whatever patterns best in your shotgun!” is usually the response when a hunter asks what shot size he should use for turkeys. Most turkey hunters assume there isn’t much difference in using the standard shot sizes for turkeys; fours, fives, sixes and even 7-1/2’s. They are all popular and they all work, so it really doesn’t matter which size you use. That is, unless you want to maximize the potential range of your turkey gun. Then shot size becomes critical.
If “patterns best” means putting the most pellets into your pattern, we should all hunt turkeys with tiny number nine shot because there are certainly more pellets in the pattern. The problem is they don’t penetrate a turkey’s head very well. We could, on the other hand, hunt turkeys with buckshot, as a single pellet will surely punch right on through a turkey skull. The problem is a shotshell contains only about a dozen pellets and most likely none of them would hit the little skull.
There must be a “just right” combination of pellet size and pellet energy to be lethal and to have enough of them to guarantee a few of those lethal hits.
We buy a 12-gauge magnum turkey gun, and most of them are about the same. We add an aftermarket turkey choke, and most of them are about the same. We buy a box of turkey loads, and they are mostly about the same. We choose our shot size, four, five, six, or perhaps even 7-1/2, and they are very much NOT the same.
By choosing larger and larger pellets to get more punch at longer distances you get fewer and fewer pellets in the shell to guarantee hits. ‘Point of diminishing returns’ is a term that relates to gaining and loosing at the same time, as is the turkey shot size predicament.
We typically call our gobblers in so close that any of the above turkey loads will work. It’s only when that boss gobbler hangs up that we wish we had done more homework at the patterning board.
The first step in getting the most from a turkey gun is to know what size shot it takes to penetrate a turkey’s skull or break their spine at various ranges.
Copper plated shot sizes: 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 1/2, with a 40-grain sierra .224 for a size reference.
How far down range will 6’s penetrate well? 4’s? 5’s, 7-1/2’s? There are no exact numbers. Hard lead shot penetrates better than the soft lead shot usually found in inexpensive shotshells. Copper or nickel plated lead shot penetrates better than hard lead shot. Steel shot is light for its size, loses energy quickly with range and doesn’t penetrate very well. The new Hevi-Shot, heavier even than lead for its size, penetrates extremely well. Higher velocity loads help penetration a bit, but lose more than they gain because that extra velocity doesn’t pattern as tightly.
Plated lead shot is still popular in turkey ammunition and is less expensive than “the hard stuff”. I know of a few hunters who use 7-1/2’s and limit themselves to thirty-five yards and have not lost a bird. I’ve heard of hunters who have lost birds with plated lead 6’s at 50 yards, so I use 40 or maybe 45-yards as a maximum. Plain old lead 4’s once killed ducks at beyond 60 yards, so I assume plated 4’s will penetrate a turkey’s skull at that distance. Five’s are fine at 50 to 55-yards.
When we consider the advantages of the added punch from the larger pellets, we often miss the fact that there are considerably fewer of them in each shotshell. They may have the energy for long range, but are no good if the pattern is too thin to guarantee a few lethal hits. While there are 450 pellets in a 2-ounce load of sixes, there are only 270 of the number four pellets. You are losing 40% of your pellet count to get that extra punch.
There are so few number four pellets that a distinct possibility exists that many shotguns will not throw a lethally dense pattern beyond 35 yards. We know that sixes will penetrate well out to 40+ yards, and there are 180 more of them in the shotshell and in the pattern.
All those extra number six pellets will give us a lethally dense pattern all the way out to 50-yards, but no, we don’t have an effective range of 50-yards because the number six pellet runs out of energy at 40 to 45-yards. But yes, switching from number four shot to number six shot does increase our maximum guaranteed effective range from 35 out to 40-yards.
What about number five shot? There are 340 of them in a 2-ounce shotshell and they’re lethal out to 50-yards. It’s possible and perhaps likely that number five shot will provide a lethally dense pattern out to 45-yards and have plenty of penetrating energy at that range. Fours run out of pattern density at 35-yards and sixes run out of energy at 45-yards, making fives the best choice for that tight patterning shotgun and choke carrying both energy and density out to 50-yards.
Hevi-Shot’s Hevi 13 has been winning all
the pattern contests.
Hevi-Shot began as a substitute for steel shot for waterfowl, but it was soon found that it is ideal for Turkey as well. The small, denser (heavier) than lead pellets give up their energy more slowly than lead pellets, (and much more slowly than steel pellets).
The main reason shotgun patterns spread with distance is that a majority of the pellets get severely squashed as 10,000 PSI pushes them down the barrel. These badly misshapen pellets begin odd spins and act like a pitcher’s curveball. They may fly quite straight and stay in a nice tight pattern for a while but, just like the pitcher’s curveball, when the curve breaks, the pattern spreads quickly. While hard Hevi-Shot pellets can appear a bit misshapen before they’re shot, they exit the barrel in much better shape than lead pellets.
Traditional shotgun patterns are measured as an even pellet distribution in a thirty inch diameter circle at forty yards, where 70-percent of the pellets going into that circle was considered a full choke. Today’s turkey loads not only throw patterns of 90-percent or better, but they have dense centers. A better guide to judge turkey patterns is to measure the hits in a fifteen inch diameter core circle instead of 30. I lay a 30” Plexiglas doughnut having a 15” hole over the patterning paper to find the densest center.
No pattern has perfectly even distribution when you start marking individual pellet hits. There are always a few little globs of pellets and a few small areas with few hits. To prove a pattern effective, bend a coat hanger into the shape of the head and neck of a gobbler and move that coat hanger around in the fifteen inch center of your pattern. Assure yourself that there are NO places in that circle where the turkey would not have been well hit. It takes 60 or more evenly spaced hits in the circle to do that.
If you were to shoot a little bit beyond that guaranteed lethal pattern, you’ll likely kill 9 out of 10 turkeys you shoot at. A little bit farther away and the holes in the pattern are larger and more numerous, and you’d likely kill 8/10, and so on. This reminds us of the “Golden Pellet” idea that it takes but one lucky pellet in the head kill a turkey. I prefer to know my maximum guaranteed range.
Hevi-Shot, or at least high-density shot is proving the most effective for turkeys, and there’s little reason to use larger than #6 shot, as it is lethal to 60-yards.
Before your gobbler comes into view, measure with a rangefinder a maximum range perimeter of rocks or trees. When he steps inside your circle, there’s no question, he’s yours. You can always let him come a little closer.
How do you know your shotgun’s maximum range? Taking one or even two shots at turkey head targets and looking for a few pellets in the head and neck just isn’t enough. Shotgun patterns just aren’t uniform enough for that, and a few lucky pellets can give you a false sense of effectiveness.
This lethal 50-yard pattern contains 210 hits in a 15” diameter circle, using Hevi-Shot’s Hevi 13, 3 1/2-inch, 2 1/4-ounce load of 6’s.
You’ll need a 4×4-foot blank paper, mark an X in the center, and the first shot should be at 25 or 30-yards to insure the shotgun is hitting center. On another paper at, perhaps 40-yards, again shoot for center. Draw a 15-inch diameter circle around the densest shot area.
Bend a coat hanger into the shape of the outline of the lethal area of a gobbler’s head and neck. Pass that coat hanger around inside that 15” circle and insure that nowhere in that circle would the gobbler have survived. Work your way back to find your maximum range. When you begin to see “holes” in the pattern where the turkey would have survived, you are beyond your maximum guaranteed lethal range. When you think you have found it, shoot a few more test targets to be sure.
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Turkey Hunting Secrets You Must Know This Spring.
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