Fishing at Kirk Park-Fort Pond
Montauk, NY


Fishing at Fort Pond

Fort Pond is a 192 acre freshwater pond that occupies the center of town. Yet Fort Pond offers exceptional fishing for freshwater game fish like small mouth bass and walleye that are seldom encountered on Long Island.

Fort Pond contains both largemouth and small mouth bass, though the habitat favors the small mouth.

Other fishes present in Fort Pond include yellow perch, white perch, brown bullhead, common carp, and bluegill. White perch and yellow perch are very abundant. While the experimental stocking of hybrid striped bass in Fort Pond has been discontinued, some of these fish persist in the pond with anglers reporting the occasional catch of a hybrid striper this season.

Anglers seeking bass in Fort Pond should come equipped with an assortment of diving crank baits, jigs, and spinner baits. Shiny metallic spoons such as Kast masters are another good bet. In selecting lure colors, remember that the dominant bait fish are the silvery juvenile white perch and the yellow and olive juvenile yellow perch. Focus effort on points, drop-offs, and submerged boulders. Fort Pond averages 8.5 feet in depth with a maximum depth of 27 feet. Unlike most of Long Island's bass waters, it contains only scattered vegetation. The bottom is sandy with are areas of cobble and scattered boulders.

The same lures and strategies are likely to produce walleye. On bright sunny days fish deeper water to increase your chances of connecting with these light-sensitive predators. Dawn and dusk are ideal times to catch walleye. Drifting live bait just off the bottom is another proven technique for catching walleye and well suited to the windy conditions that prevail at Fort Pond. You can quickly cover a lot of lake bottom in this way. A drift sock and/or electric trolling motor is extremely helpful to control speed and course. Leeches and night crawlers are excellent baits if presented on a colorful floating jig head or hooked onto a "crawler harness" with a flashy spinner blade.).