MAGALLOWAY PLANTATION — Starting Saturday, ice fishing anglers can take all the smallmouth bass and yellow perch they can catch in Sturtevant Pond, state fisheries biologist Dave Boucher stated in the Maine Fish and Wildlife Winter 2010-11 magazine.

The pond is off Route 16 south of Wilsons Mills in northern Oxford County.

“These species are recent invaders to this part of the Magalloway River system, so we’re encouraging anglers to harvest all they want,” Boucher said.

Sturtevant Pond is a 518-acre water that offers landlocked salmon, chain pickerel, smallmouth bass, yellow perch and possibly a few splake left over from a previous stocking program, he said.

The pond is restricted to artificial lures only, and there’s a daily one-fish bag limit for salmon, according to the rule book. The use of live fish for bait is prohibited.

“Folks coming from New Hampshire to fish at Sturtevant are reminded that it’s illegal to transport live bait — including smelts — across the border into Maine,” Boucher said.

In other department fishing reports, state fisheries biologist Francis Brautigam in Gray said two new strains of brown trout have been stocked in select waters statewide. These are Sandwich and Seeforellen strains.

It’s part of a multi-year project to investigate opportunities to improve fishing for brown trout, which are stocked in 35 waters in the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s Gray region.

Brautigam said southern Maine lakes and ponds that would be stocked with one or both strains include Wood Pond and Highland Lake in Bridgton, Middle and Upper Range ponds in Poland, Crystal Lake in Gray, Sabbathday Lake in New Gloucester, Hancock and Sand ponds in Denmark, Long Pond in Parsonsfield, Bickford Pond in Porter and Little Sebago Lake in Windham.

[email protected]