Colie Egertson is a guy to watch and follow (his blog here).
He really knows his fly fishing. I first interacted with him on the Reddit fly fishing sub-group. We then kept in touch. After I started writing for this blog, I saw a few of his comments and invited him to write a guest post.
One of my personal goals for this blog is to have it be community-driven. Have more and more people write blog posts and share their incredible knowledge. I’m so happy that Colie said “yes” when I asked him to do a post. I’m going to forward his post to Mass. DFW, actually.
And, I’d love if more of you would volunteer and write some posts. I’m at BlogFlyFishMA on Gmail.
Here’s Colie’s guest post:
Why aren’t there any trout in the Nashua below Wachusett?
Given the lack of winter fishing opportunities other than the Swift, I’ve been thinking a lot about tailwaters recently. In Massachusetts we have two coldwater tailwaters: the Swift and the Deerfield.
Tailwaters result from water that is released from the bottom of deep reservoirs, wherewater temperature remains relatively constant year-round. With this in mind, I began to wonder why the Wachusett Reservoir, another deep reservoir in MA,
doesn’t have a tailwater fishery in its outflow, the Nashua River.
My first guess was that the dam releases water from the top, where water is warm; however, examination of satellite imagery did not agree with this assumption. I did some further research on the dam and found an article released by the state at the Dam’s
100th anniversary in 2005.
In this article I found the information I was looking for:
Four 48 inch diameter, cast-iron pipes pass through the
dam, 111 feet below the high water level, with valves to control water flow to
four hydroelectric generators located in the powerhouse at the dam’s base.
Now we know the Wachusett outflow is coming from 111 feet below the surface, so it must be cold. So, why no trout fishery? A quick glance at the satellite images from below the dam seemed to reveal an obvious answer: There’s a small dam directly downstream in Clinton, such that the reservoir releases water directly into a shallow pond called Lancaster Mill Pond. The water in this pond could warm to levels lethal for trout in the summer, but it isn’t a very large pond, and the Swift stays cool below the Bondsville Dams, so I wasn’t convinced that this pond was the culprit.
Next, I searched for data on water temperature on the Nashua in Clinton. To my surprise, I discovered there is a USGS stream gauge with a thermometer located about 2.5 miles downstream of the reservoir. To my surprise, the data available from the summers of 2013 and 2014 indicates that the water temperatures in this stretch of the Nashua should be suitable for trout.
In 2014 the water temperature only rose above 20 C (~68 F), the generally accepted threshold for a coldwater fishery, 3 times, each for 3-4 days, with a maximum temp of 24 C (~75 F). While these temperatures are not ideal, trout can certainly survive. The Quinapoxet River get much warmer in the summer, and it holds over trout, so water temperature is not likely the reason
there are no trout here.
What steps can we take?
1. Contact the DFW. sk why trout are not stocked in the Nashua and if they were ever stocked in the past. It seems like this section of the Nashua can support wild trout, especially Browns, which have a higher temperature tolerance than other trout. If not, it should at least provide a good year-round stocked trout fishery. That being said, there could be a good reason trout are not stocked there.
2. Contact Trout Unlimited. The Central MA chapter is fairly active, and would likely be willing to lead the way on a project like this.
It would be awesome to have another tailwater in MA, especially one closer to Boston. It will probably be difficult, but hopefully something will come of this!
Interesting read… What is the river itself like? I mean, even with temperaturetemperatures in the right zone, the river could be simply unsuitable for sustaining trout.
Gravel bottom, some fallen trees, fast boring slow water, etc? There might be something missing. Bug I'm definitely with you, I would like another tailwater close to home!
Yes, this was informative. Thanks for writing, Coleman! I am wondering the same thing as Anonymous though, could there be another factor rendering the river unable to support trout?
I think it could be pollution – the Nashua used to look like this:
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-07-02-NashuaRanRed.jpg
Apparently it was "a different color every day" until the 70s, so I doubt anyone even considered trout stocking before that.
Even if there's no spawning gravel it could probably support some trout. The swift above Route 9 doesn't have a ton of habitat, but the fish still survive.
The USGS gauge is here:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/42%C2%B025'09.9%22N+71%C2%B039'58.9%22W/@42.419418,-71.666348,618m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0
The portion upstream looks channelized, but the downstream portion has some nice bends that should provide good habitat.
I'll take a look next time I'm in the area.
the north nashua river was polluted, this is the south branch from the Wachusett Reservoir outflow
Private property may be the glitch here. Point blank, I'm confident there are trout there, and there most certainly are many other fish. The glitch, is that the property below the road (immediately below the mill pond) is owned by a factory looking building. If you try to fish it, you get about 5 minutes before security comes and kicks you out. Could TU or other groups like MDFW work with the land owner to secure access? I dont know. But if you try, you learn, they dont want you there (land owner).
Anyplace in that stretch you can get in, without legal issues, you can get into a variety of species.
If it could be "formalized" legally, it would be great.
That's a great heads-up. Thank you for writing so that our readers don't burn time fishing a spot from which they'll be asked to move.
Sorry to off OP topic, but where exactly is is Lancaster Mill Pond in Clinton?
According to the Dept of Fish and Game, Lancaster Mill Pond was stocked on 5/26/16 but I cannot find it on any map. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
I don't know, but I'm hoping someone out there does. Also, there's no need to feel bad about changing topics. This is meant to be a community-driven blog site. I think people's comments have been great and have contributed much to the group's overall knowledge and camaraderie.
i fished lancaster millpond with great sucess last year everyday i went there i caught rainbow trout that i assume where stocked because of there size.im handicapped an i went there alot an was never skunked always caught something i caught yellow perch white bass, small mouth bass an quite a few what im believing where shiners but big ones all in all i had a great time fishig there an they just restocked it 4/3/2017 with rainbow an brown trout so ill be there fishing in a couple days once they get hungry hope this helps you guys with the great fishing that i had MIKE
Sounds great, Mike. So awesome to read that you’re getting out and enjoying the great outdoors!
ok here we go again this is mike ive been fishing in lancaster mill pond this year 2017 without the success i had last year even though they dumped plenty of trout in there this year i dont understand this ive tried various baits dont get me wrong i have caught fish a number of times so far but just not like last year the garlic clear with gold speckled orange egg shaped power bait by berkley seems to be the best even for the brown trout i caught there every trout i caught there was over a pound an a half even the 3 browns i caught ive seen some pretty big pickerel there an a friend caught a 5 pound big mouth with a fake frog and yes after about june 30 the fishing of trout stops there the water just gets to warm an you catch nothing til you ice shack it in winter time hope this helps a bit MIKE
Some nice fish!
I grew up about a mile from the Nashua River in Clinton. The pollution downstream from the old factory buildings was considerable in the 1970’s and earlier. The river itself is full of debris (old tires, scrap metal, bottles, all kinds of junk) for about a 5 mile stretch downstream from the Lancaster Mills Pond. With that said, today the water quality there is very likely good enough to sustain trout.
If the river itself was physically cleaned up this stretch would be productive. There is a large floodplain area that is accessible to the public that could be a great access point for angling.