This trip was originally supposed to be a three night hang and fish, but my bro messed up his foot a few days before and did not want to press his luck so we made some last minute changes to turn it into an over nighter.
We got to the trail head/parking area at about 5pm Friday afternoon. The parking area uses an honor system day fee drop box for parking permits, it is $3 a day or $5 for a seven day permit, my brother being the math genius dropped 6 bucks in the envelope for 2 days we tagged the truck and were on our way.
Lincoln Trail is a heavily used hiking trail, the busiest in the White Mountians by all accounts. On our way out we saw several people coming back in from day hikes, and because of our fat old guy pace were passed by several people on thier way out. The trail itself is a nice easy walk, it is an old rail bed so no crazy inclines, and it runs along the river so we had a lot of spectacular views as we walked out. It took us about an hour and half to cover the 2.6 miles to the Black Pond Trail turn off (fat old guy pace it may not be fast but we get there).
Black Pond Trail was a well marked and fairly easy trail. We were no longer on an old rail bed, but the grade was pretty mild for the most part with a couple of steep but short inclines and some nice views of a bog (Ice Pond). There were remenants of the old timber and rail operations that use be there a century ago, lots of iron scraps along some of the streams. We only found them because we left the trail to fish. The .8 mile trail took us about an hour to cover, there were two stream crossings, one (a log bridge) seemed like it could be interesting in the rain, and another (a rock hop) would be interesting in high water.
We fished the pond until about 9 oclock then found a spot to make camp and called it a night.
The pond was supposedly stocked a few weeks ago which was the reason for the destination, but it must have been stocked with fingerlings as we caught nothing of a size worth keeping. The frogs and bugs were plentiful and annoying.
We fished the pond the next morning until about 10 then broke camp and headed back out. A moose was blocking the trail at one point so we took some pictures and waited. When we made it back to Lincoln trail we bush whacked to the banks of the Pemmy and fished our way back to the parking area. We pulled out a couple of 10 -12inch brook trout and half dozen less mature brookies that were not worth keeping. We may be a little early on the fishing in the area, as the stocks that were just put in might not have fully matures in to decent size fish.
All in all the scenery was gorgeous, the wildlife plentiful, but the fishing was a little weak, but that could have just been us, master fishermen we are not, but we have fun.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks