The boat launch is unimproved but wide and provides lots of parking space. Drive for about 1 mile and turn left on Wint Road. The unimproved boat launch is located at the end of this short gravel road. Plenty of parking is available next to the launch. The lake was all mine except for a paddle boarder and kayaker. Stearns Pond is quite pretty! It is moderately developed and surrounded by multiple deeply forested hills.
The State stocks this pond each fall with to inch brown trout, which results in a sparse stocking density of about 1 fish per acre per year. The data show that Stearns Pond has a narrow warm-to-cold water transition layer located between 16 to 20 ft.
The underlying cold water on the bottom also experiences a severe dissolved oxygen deficiency, which is a specific feature I always look for when trolling for salmonids in the summer. The reason is that all the brown trout living in this pond are forced to hide in the thermocline between July and September, unable to spend any time in the oxygenated but overheated water above or in the cold but oxygen-deficient water down below.
That makes it so much easier to target them this time of the year and removes much of the guesswork out of the catch equation! This pond has a maximum and mean depth of 47 ft.
Click here for a depth map and more dated fisheries information. Open-water angling at this location occurs under the general fishing laws applicable to the south zone , except that fishing is allowed between October 1 and November 30 using artificial lures only and all trout must be released alive and at once.
