Month: July 2019

Kayak Fishing – Estes Lake

Launch Date: 07/31/2019
Launch Site: Kayak Launch [Google Maps]
Lake Info: [Depth Map]
Fish: Large mouth bass, crappie, perch

Estes Lake, more like a big long pond, is a beautiful paddle. The lake exists due to a dam on the Mousam river. Large sections of the shore are completely undeveloped which allows for beautiful scenery. The official parking for the kayak launch is 1/4 mile down the road. Come with a buddy, come early, or come prepared to get some exercise hauling your boat and gear.

The fishing for my trip wasn’t great. I passed so many places that looked like perfect for large mouth bass and I didn’t see any. I had an aggressive black crappie early on and then nothing until I found a creek chub. I suggest, if you’re there in late July, go closer to the dam. I stayed above the Apache campground and although beautiful, it lacked fish.

Moving away from Google Maps

Nothing lasts forever and Google Maps free accounts are no exception. They of course have a “free tier” and as long as your usage doesn’t go above a threshold you won’t be charged. I don’t like that risk, so we’re done google maps.

So where to? open street map, the open source equivalent of mapping data. When maps are free, fewer people get lost.

The journey begins. Leaflet.js is a non map specific library which is similar enough to GoogleMaps to make the transition easy. One gotcha I found was that GoogleMaps can automatically handle being resized and it will adjust the internal map center when the map element changes size. Leaflet.js requires calling “map.invalidateSize()” to realign the internal map. Easy fix. Otherwise OSM has been really great. The nice thing is, if something doesn’t exist on the map you can easily go add it.

So long Google Maps, it was fun while it lasted.

Kayak Fishing – Dundee Pond

Launch Date: 07/05/2019
Launch Site: Kayak Launch [Google Maps]
Lake Info: [Depth Map]
Fish: Small Mouth Bass and likely Trout

Dundee Pond is lightly developed and there’s no public boat launch which makes this location a perfect paddle. The kayak launch is on the Presumpscot river just below the dam at the Windham road bridge.

Fishing was sparse but, man was the lake beautiful. Since casting wasn’t working I spent most of the time trolling and that allowed me to take in the sights. Nesting bald eagles, swimming loons, and lots of sun. The water is clear and next time I’ll go for a swim.

Unless you want to hear crowds of people and screaming kids, it’s best to avoid the Dundee Park beach on the north side. The rest of the lake is amazing. This is a place worth several visits.