Maine Fishing at LEEN'S Lodge

Maine fishing is at its best at LEEN's Lodge. Nature has blessed the Grand Lake area with many lakes, streams and an abundance of fish -- truly a fishing paradise. West Grand Lake, offers some of the best Maine fishing for landlocked salmon, lake trout, and for smallmouth bass. You'll be fishing to your heart's content in the many lakes & streams in our area. The area also has one of oldest salmon fish hatcheries in Maine, located right on Grand Lake Stream, where fly fishing for landlocks on this 3 mile stretch is world class. Our season starts in early May with trolling for landlocked salmon and lake

trout in the cold waters of West Grand Lake. Later in May, the smallmouth bass start to set up on their spawning beds and the smallmouth fishing starts to heat up. In early June, a fisherman can pursue both landlocked salmon and smallmouth bass as the prime season for these fish overlap. You may want to view the Map of Lakes & Streams near LEEN'S to help plan your Maine fishing vacation.

Maine Fishing Boat Rentals are Available:
LEENs has 14' and 16' boat rentals with 9 or 15 hp motors available for vacation and or fishing use on West Grand Lake, Maine. The rental fee of $ $75-$80 per day includes the fishing boat, motor and gas. Canoes and Kayaks are available as rentals as well. Fishing boats are also available for rent on Big Lake. Please let us know well in advance if you would like us to reserve a fishing boat for you.

Fishing in
Grand Lake Stream and Princeton Area

West Grand Lake: Home of LEEN's Lodge Sport Fishing Camp

LEEN’s Lodge vacation cabin rentals are located on West Grand Lake in Grand Lake Stream, Maine. West Grand is a large body of water all by itself at slightly over 14,000 acres. When you consider that from West Grand Lake you can access Pocumcus Lake, Junior Lake and Scraggly Lake, you have over 30,000 acres of water providing Maine fishing for landlocked salmon, lake trout, and smallmouth bass fishing.

West Grand is managed primarily as a cold-water fishery lake. It is one of the original five lakes in Maine that was home to landlocked salmon. Today it is still considered one of the best, if not the best landlocked salmon fishing in Maine. Stocking of hatchery-reared fish primarily supports the salmon population and fishing. An occasional native salmon is caught and is easily distinguished by the experienced angler.

West Grand Lake, Maine, also supports lake trout fishing. These fish need only rocky shoals on which to spawn and rear young. West Grand has an abundance of this type of fishing habitat that an experienced guide can locate.

Even though the lake is not managed for bass fishing, a good to excellent fishery does exist. With it’s over abundance of rocky shoals and boulder lined shore it is a classic Maine smallmouth bass fishing lake. While smallmouth bass can be fished most anywhere on the lake, the best habitat and the most productive fishing can be found on the northeast end of the lake and the three adjoining lakes, Pocumcus, Junior, and Scraggly Lakes.

This end and the three lakes contain large areas of grass that will hold baitfish shallow throughout the summer months. On the main body of West Grand, landlocked salmon and lake trout fishing anglers report catching large smallmouth bass during the summer months. These larger bass in the main body of the lake key in on smelts as a food source which go to deeper, colder water in the summer months. This makes fishing in Maine for smallmouth bass during the summer months a little iffier, as you must find the smelts and be able to follow them with sonar and deep jigging spoons.

While West Grand and its tributary lakes do not support a large population of smallmouth bass fishing, the average size of the bass is larger than found on the other area lakes. Fishing during June, it is possible to have a two-pound or better average size by days end.

Fishing on Big Lake

Big Lake is considered by many to be the best smallmouth bass fishing lake in Maine. This may sound like a large claim, considering some of the other waters that we have in Maine. However, if you spend a day fishing on this lake with a knowledgeable guide and the right tackle you will soon be convinced!

Good guides routinely average 8 fish per hour during the peak period of June for their clients. The average size fish at this time will run around 1.5 pounds. Later during the summer months, 4 bass per hour is considered normal but the average size will push the 2-pound mark.

Big Lake is a little over 10,000 acres itself. From Big Lake you can access Long Lake, Lewey Lake and Grand Falls Flowage. All of these lakes will total over 19,000 acres of smallmouth bass habitat. Each lake is a unique fishery unto itself. Each contains a slightly different habitat making each lake a little better than the other during certain times of the year.

Big lake is still the lake that most smallmouth bass anglers concentrate on and rightly so. It has an average depth of 14 feet and the mid lake shoals and shoreline are a mix of pea gravel for spawning and large boulder fields for rearing areas. Big Lake is considered a bass factory by the regional biologists and is intensely managed for quality fishing in Maine.

While Big Lake does contain some 20 to 40 foot water this is not where you will find bass during the heat of the summer. The lake contains very little dissolved oxygen below 22 feet. The key to finding concentrations of smallmouth bass during the warm months is to locate the large eelgrass and cabbage grass beds that exist throughout the lake. Here you will find huge schools of yellow perch that attract the larger bass year after year.

Grand Falls Flowage is another “go to” lake for some anglers. This Maine fishing lake is laden with stumps and submerged standing timber. Some grass does exist in this lake but it is spotty. The bottom of this lake is primarily silted in and does not have a lot of spawning areas. Old roadbeds and railroad beds cross through this lake. An angler familiar with fishing this type of structure does well on this lake.

Tournament weights and biological data shows that while this lake is connected to Big Lake it is not the fishery Big Lake is.

The Grand Lake Stream, Princeton area is dotted with many other lakes. When somebody chose Pickwick Lake in Alabama as “The Smallmouth Capital of the World”, they had not fished in the Washington County area of Maine!