LOCATION:
Douglas and Sutton, Massachusetts, U.S.A
SIZE:
380 acre (2009 DEP figures)
CLASSIFICATION:
“Great Pond”
WATERSHED:
4,288 acres within the towns of Douglas, Oxford & Sutton
LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE
42N 5.43N 71N 45.97W
OVERVIEW
Manchaug Pond
is a shallow 380* acre great pond in the central Massachusettes towns
of Douglas and Sutton serving as headwaters of the Mumford/Blackstone
River system.
Originally about 194 acres, this state designated “great pond” takes its name from the ancient village of Native People who lived and fished her shores.
Today, the 5 1/2 miles of
shoreline bank, is home to
120 homes in which 60% are still seasonal, 3 family owned campgrounds
and a 4th at the inlet, a YMCA children’s day camp and the Waters Farm
living history museum.
Manchaug’s fisheries offer 12 species including large and smallmouth bass, bluegills and pumkinseed as well as pickerel, perch and horn’d pout. Wetland habitats
and coves bring seasonal sounds of spring peepers, bullfrogs and green
and tree frogs with sightings of snapping and painted turtles, leopard
frogs, crayfish and mussels, dragonflies, heron, cormorants and various
migrating fancy water fowl from wood ducks and buffleheads common. A tributary certified by the state as a coldwater fishery is habitat to native brook trout. Vernal pools in
the western hillside, coupled with the bordering oak-hickory forest,
bring species of special concern to the watershed: spotted and eastern
box turtles, and spotted, marbled and four-toed salamanders. Common are the
visits of ospreys and bald eagles who fish her water.
