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05-11-08 - I just returned from my annual 5 day tarpon fishing trip to Key West with my buddy John. We had a great time as usual fishing with Capt. Michael Pollock. The first three days were a bit of a challenge with winds blowing from 20 to 30 knots. We still managed about 26 eats and 7 landed tarpon. One of the highlights of the trip was seeing my first adult Sawfish in the wild. I've been told that they are very rare and our Capt said it is only the third one that he has seen in his life. Here is a link to some pictures and history about them http://hometown.aol.com/nokogiri/ . I have some video footage of the trip and will try to pull some pictures from that when I can figure out how to get at them. I went after shad on Thursday morning and managed to catch one in 3 hours. It ate a #6 chartreuse Shad Roach fly. They've been in the Merrimac River for a little over 2 weeks now. I expect the shad fishing to pick up considerably during the next couple of weeks in our local waters. I've done well using a short sink tip with a short leader or just straight tippet to the fly. I usually just add a 7' to 10' fast sinking leader directly to my fly line with 3 feet of tippet off the end of the sinking leader. For deeper water you'll probably want a longer sink tip depending on the current flow. The high stick nymph method has worked well over the years and I've also seen many shad caught on a swinging fly and by letting the fly hang in the current at the end of a swing or by twitching it in slowly. I watched some spin fisherman do well reeling flutter spoons across the current while almost bouncing bottom. Reports are beginning to come in about alewives running in local rivers with a few reports of stripers being caught high up in the estuaries. Sea temperatures have really fluctuated the past three weeks and I don't expect to see a good run of stripers showing up until the water warms a bit more. The stocking trucks have done their hatchery trout drive-bys locally so the trout fishing has picked up. Young Tom reported some sporadic hatches of red
quills, hendricksons, small black stones, and some caddis. Match the hatch to catch the hold-overs and wild fish, but throw just about anything else to catch the hatchery fish. This is a good time to take the young
ones worm drowning or help them catch their first trout on a fly. Local bass ponds are beginning to warm up enough to make the largemouth bite. What a great time of year this is. Everything is starting to come
alive. We are blessed to have so many fishing opportunities in our small corner of the world. Good luck.
Remember that turkey season starts April 28th, and runs until the end of May. It may be a good idea to avoid areas that get hunting pressure both for safety reasons and for a quality experience for both fishermen and hunters. Turkey hunting ends at noon, so after that you should be fine. Avoid wearing clothing that have red, white or blue in them; as those are colors that match the head of a spring gobbler.
04-10-08 - It's spring time and the open water fishing season is here. It looks like we may be in for a slow start. Most anglers coming through the shop are telling tales of getting skunked, wading through deep snow, or no open water in ponds and lakes. With yesterdays warm weather, it was close to seventy here in Cape Neddick, I decided to poke around some of the local trout water. I went to a nearby pond and was surprised to see that half the ice was out. The wind was cranking and swirling from all directions so after about 40 minutes with no hits I decided to move on. While getting skunked at next stream that I was fishing, I met up with my buddy Chris and we decided to scout out a tiny stream we'd been driving over for years to see if we could find some native brookies. Those who know me know that this is one of my favorite types of fishing. Except for the aches and pains that now afflict me when doing this type of angling, it makes me feel like a kid again. We both had a great time and were both rewarded with a few small natives. The hot fly for me was an x caddis and Chris did well with an adams but I really don't think that it would have mattered what fly we used. The trick was using one that was small enough to fit in their hungry little mouths. Saltwater smelt are running for those of you who like to dip them. No reports of shad yet. I've had some reports of stripers south of the Cape but most anglers agree that they are holdovers. The water is still too cold for the migrating fish to be here. We've had stripers here as early as April 1st but that was an abnormally warm spring. I normally don't expect to see them until early or mid May and I've found that we usually start to see fresh stripers at about 48 degrees. Ocean temps have hit 43 degrees. Old Tom returned 10 days ago from his three week adventure in Argentina and Chile
where he had some great fishing. He'll put up a report and some pictures soon.
10-27-07 - Yesterday we had a report that stripers were busting on bait a little bit south of here. Largest fish caught was about 26" but there were lots of them. I fished Wednesday and caught 6 stripers. 3 slot size and a 28", 28 1/2", and 29". Thursday I had 2 on but lost them both. Water temps have dropped to 52 degrees and the stripers that I landed fought sluggishly compared to last week's fish. I saw a good size school of pollock feeding on baby bunker. For those anglers that have been trying to catch a striper in November in Maine, I think this is the year that you'll be able to do it. We've had reports of good fishing in the Mousam, Ogunquit, Salmon Falls, and Lamprey rivers. Several local anglers have volunteered to help the Maine State
biologists by collecting the fish survey cards from the fish survey boxes that have been placed at the Mousam, Ogunquit, and Salmon Falls Rivers. We ask that all anglers that
fish these rivers please take the time to fill out a survey card when they are done fishing. It is the least that we can do to help insure that the state helps keep these fisheries
alive. If you are to numb from the cold after fishing to fill out a card, you can stop by the shop for some free hot coffee and fill out a survey card here.
10-20-07 - What a week this has been! I can't remember ever catching so many good size stripers, day after day, for a week straight. I lost more big bass this past week than I've had on all summer. I fished all day on Wednesday with Mark D. and our tally was; 35", 36", 39", 39 3/4", 40 1/2. Marks 39" had a big bruise just in front of its pectoral fins which is something that I've never seen before. It looked like its chest got caved in. On Thursday I fished with Frank Macdonald and our tally was 2 @ 33", 34", 2 @ 35", 35 1/2", 36", 37", 37 1/2", and I lost a cow at the boat that might have gone 45". I've excluded all of the stripers that were less than 30" from the tally but there were several of them also. Almost all of the fish we have been catching this past week were on Grocery Pollocks. I caught one striper 35" on a gigantic bunker imitation but throwing that fly became too painful so I went back to the pollock and continued to catch them. From reports I've had north of here there are still some schools of big bass making their way south along our coast. Water temp this morning was 56 degrees which is what it has been most of the week. I saw thousands of tinker mackerel on Thursday and was fortunate enough to see a tuna about 200 lbs go through them 100 yards from shore. I had a report yesterday that a minke whale was schooling the tinkers up about 300yrds from shore. Another angler stopped by to tell us that on Thursday he got into a school of 30" bluefish off the beach. The sea is alive with activity and I plan on fishing it until it all goes south. Break out your liver pellet imitations, the local sea run spots have been stocked. Travis J., Carl D., John D., James and Matt B., and I helped the state do a bucket brigade with 400 brown trout yesterday. I'm not so sure that I'm cut out for that type of work and I'm not sure that I'll be invited back. While descending down to the river bank my feet somehow ended up in the air over my head. There was a brief moment of hang time before I landed on my back covered in 14" flopping brown trout. The good news is that the trout weren't hurt and most of them immediately went to feeding on baby bunker.
10-15-07 - The fishing is still good for stripers. I went out after work with Old Tom
yesterday to fish for stripers for a couple of hours and had some very good fishing. Not a lot of stripers, but some nice sized ones. The weird thing was that we didn't see much
for schoolie size bass. Not that I'm complaining, we just thought that it was odd. We both lost a fly to bluefish too.
When I came into the shop this morning there was a message on the answering
machine from Griz who said there were busting fish everywhere. Five minutes ago Will called and said "close the shop and get your butt out here, Jeff just landed a 39" and the
big bass are everywhere, I've never seen a migration like this."!!!!!! I'm glad Young Tom is here to watch the shop. Now's the time, get your butts out there.
10-13-07 - After last weeks reports from local striper fishermen I was very anxious to get on the water. On Tuesday Jeff F. and I planned to head out locally in my skiff but the forecast for strong Northeast winds kept us shore bound. We got into stripers right from the get go, catching several fish total with largest being 27" but then the action died. We both fished hard all day long and never saw another fish. We did see small pods of baby bunker happily working their way along the shoreline in several places and in one spot we found sandeels that were larger than we normally see around here. Seeing bait happily moving around along the shoreline, un-harassed by stripers or blues, can really infect me with a sense of discouragement. I like my baitfish scared out of its wits and opting for suffocation on the rocks rather than death by stripers. Even though we didn't catch much, it was a beautiful day to be outside along the oceans edge and spending time with a fisherman as talented and good natured as Jeff made it a great day. Thursday morning I woke up to howling wind and rain and almost went back to sleep. I decided to suit up, jump in my skiff, and just poke around the harbor for a couple of hours. As I pushed the skiff off the dock I was thinking that it was time to haul my skiff out and put it up for the winter. It felt like late fall. On my first drift I caught a fat 26" striper. On the second drift I hooked a bass in the mid 30"s that spit the fly and two casts later I hooked a pig that tore into my backing, then wrapped and unwrapped two lobster trap lines, and then finally came to the boat. It measured 42" and boy was I glad that I hadn't gone back to sleep. I landed one more striper that measured 29" and one bluefish that was about 27" that spit up a 6 inch herring. The water temp was 60 degrees! I've decided to leave the skiff in the water for at least another week, maybe two. Capt. Will called me on Thursday to say that the Piscataqua was still on fire and several other people have called since then with similar reports. Young Tom took his 5 weight rigged with 4x tippet to one of the local sea run spots around low tide and hooked what he thought was a searun of a lifetime. He said his little Hardy was screaming! It turned out to be 27" striper. I wish I was there to see that battle. I just received a call from a friend who is on the water and he said he's been into
stripers all afternoon, the biggest so far was 28". Another report had small tuna 300 yards off the shore this morning.
10-04-07 - Just a quick report. Today I've received 3 phone calls and one e-mail from
local fisherman that are pounding the stripers in the Piscataqua. Capt. Will Griffin said there were more bass in river yesterday than he has ever seen in his life. He said there
is a "psychotic" amount of bait there and the further inland you go the better it gets. My friend John has an office on the 5th story of a building right on the river. He sent an
e-mail saying he was looking down into the water and "there had to be thousands of big stripers feeding on 1" long silvery bait", which is either peanuts, alewifes, or herring.
Just from those reports there were 8 fish over 30" landed and countless in the upper 20" size. Is it just me or does this sound like a report that was written in the beginning of September from past years?
09-29-07 - The past several years I've believed that the striper migration revolved around the length of the day. Meaning, as the daylight gets shorter it's a signal for many things in nature to do their fall thing. Maybe I'm wrong, but this year it seems as though that is not the case. Everything seems to be late. We're just starting to see the butterflies migrating. A friend that has a large field abutting his house said he normally sees hundreds of dragon flies in the field in August and they didn't show up until last weekend. I normally start noticing the cormorants starting to migrate in large numbers earlier in September but Thursday was the first day I saw them in masse. Also on Thursday, I spooked about ten schools of laid up stripers and normally that happens from mid July through August. I can't remember ever seeing them laid up at this time of year. If everything is late, I'm hoping that stripers may be around in good numbers through October. Most fishermen are still reporting hot and cold fishing. Wednesday I fished with my friend Brian and we had pretty good fishing through the morning hours, no big fish landed but some encountered. The afternoon fishing went dead. When I say dead, I mean DEAD. We didn't even see a fish. I even stopped fishing for a while and watched Brian while waiting for his arm to fall off from casting for eleven hours straight. I really enjoyed fishing with Brian; he is one of the most relentless fishermen I have fished with. Thursday was different story. It was excellent fishing all day long. I fished with my friend Catherine from 5:30am till 5:00pm and we caught many fish in the upper slot size and also got a 27", 30", and 32". I snapped off a forty plus inch fish on a Hercules hook set with a 2 day old knot (stupid). The cow spit the fly out of her mouth and it went about 18" out in front of her. She then swam up to it and gave it a good look, then swam away. I fished yesterday afternoon with Lisa for a few hours and she picked up 6 slot size fish on a lead headed gummy minnow type lure plus a bunch of pollock. We saw more pollock than I've seen all summer. I'm seeing lots of small schools of baby bunker along the shore. When I say small I mean about 20 to 40 fish per school, although some surface activity has been seen day to day. Capt. Mark had a day off last week and picked up a nice 42" cow on 1/0 guitar minnow. I'm getting reports from north and south of here that there are still good numbers of big bass around but there are not the consistent big blitzes of years past. We've been getting most of our fish by blind casting the way we do most of the summer. Last but not least, I finally landed a bluefin tuna on the fly a week ago last Wednesday.
What a rush!! It was 95lbs, it ate a new fly pattern that I came up with a week earlier that I'm calling a guitar bunny, and I landed it on my 12 weight fly rod. It took 1 hour and 7
minutes to get in and was released alive. Sorry, no pictures of the fish, just the fight.
09-16-07 - September is definitely one of my favorite months for fishing in Maine. Every species we have is on the feed. Freshwater bass are fattening up for the long winter. Cooler water temps have the brookies and landlocks becoming more active and heading up the rivers to spawn. Stripers are in their migration mode and stopping to pig out on any bait they encounter along the way. And fishermen seem to also sense the urgency to become more active and get on the water before the snow flies. I started at first light on Wednesday fishing from my skiff with my old friend John. We started the day with busting fish under screaming gulls. It was a fish every cast if you were in the right spot. The baby bunker were thick. It was windy right from the get go but then the wind picked up, gust up to 30mph out of the west, so we decided to shore fish from the rocks. We did that until dark and only caught a few small stripers between us. Most of the busting fish were out of reach and running down the rocks to get at the onshore blitzes proved fruitless and painful. I'll bet we walked the equivalent of a few miles up and down and back and forth along the rocks. I think fishing the rocks is one of the most exciting types of striper fishing next to float tubing big surf. Unfortunately, I'm starting to feel my years. When my alarm clock went off at 3:30 Thursday morning, I couldn't move. So…no first hand reports from me for Thursday. Old Tom, John K. and I got together and fished after work on Friday. Tom got a striper, bluefish, and flounder. John got 4 stripers of slot size and caught 1 blue and donated my seventh pollock fly of the season to a bluefish. Most fishermen are reporting good fishing. Last week two fishermen came in at
different times, soaked from head to toe, saying they were on busting fish that would not eat a fly. They were both in a panic as they dug through all of our flies while saying that
some of the fish they saw were huge. Both were in yesterday at different times again, both soaked from head to toe again, and both with big smiles on their faces. One said
that he caught a ton of fish with one over 30". The other grabbed a grocery pollock and said he landed six stripers over 30" and lost the seventh fish over 30" and the grocery
fly he had been using. He said one line that I liked, "My persistence paid off".
Locally, the freshwater trout fishing has been very challenging. Cold nights have cooled
the water and the trout have started getting their spawning colors, however; the water is extremely low right now. Any trout still hanging around is either a stockie that has run
the gauntlet of worms and spinners or is a smart native that is naturally wary. Fish seem to be concentrated in pools and shallow runs. The water is so low that the pools are
almost deadwaters. I have been doing 10-20 minute stalks on rising fish and using leaders 10-16' long tapered down to 6x. This may seem crazy for a 7 inch trout, but
hooking and landing one of these super spooky fish is very rewarding. Best flies include emerger, parachute and caddis patterns sizes 18-22; however stimulators and
bead head nymphs have also worked when fishing faster, deeper water. Remember that Maine's general law waters close September 30th and New Hampshire closes
October 15th. Gorgeous trout, pretty foliage and almost zero pressure makes September a great time to hit local trout streams.
09-07-07 - I had Monday off so I took my friend Lisa fishing for stripers. She gets out a couple times a year with me and does some spin casting. Fishing was a bit slow but Lisa stuck with it and fished for 12 hours with very few breaks. We ended up catching several school bass and she landed a nice 30"+ striper on a small Yozuri popper she was throwing and had quite a battle before getting it to the boat. It was nice to fish with someone who has so much passion for the sport. Wednesday I fished alone and compared to Monday it was like I was fishing a different planet. Big fish were everywhere and blitzes were full swing off the beach with a mix of stripers and mostly blues that went on all day long. I saw 3 schools of bass during the day. The smallest bass in those schools was probably 30" and the largest fish were well over 40". The smallest school had about 20 bass in it and the largest had about 40. I wanted to try to take an underwater shot of each of them but I just couldn't bring myself to put the fly rod down. I'm sure that most of you understand. During the day I landed many schoolies, had some big follows, and had five big bass on but on three of them my hook pulled because I think I horsed them too much. Hooking those big fish really gets my adrenaline going. The largest I landed was just over 38" and when I hooked her she came completely out of the water 3 times. Each time she was going in a different direction and all those jumps happened in about 4 seconds, tops. Then she headed straight for shore and about the time she got into my backing she jumped completely out of the water again about two feet from the rocks heading along the shoreline in about two feet of water. I've never had a striper jump that much or that fast. A 30" I landed also came out of the water when I hooked up and was in the air, curled up head to tail, and did a 360 horizontally. On Thursday you can imagine how excited I was to get on the water. But shore fishing was tough. I worked several pods of fish that were sucking in small bait and caught some schoolies, but the wind came up and the waves got big, and I headed back to the harbor where I met some friends who said the river had been on fire all morning with busting fish from on end to the other. I encountered many small pods of these busting fish and tried catching them on dink poppers but only got one to take. I switched to a guitar minnow and landed a chunky bass about 30" and some slot size fish too. Old Tom has been seeing busting fish along the beach every day on his way to work. Mark had a client on his boat battling a bluefish about 24" long when a striper of gigantic proportions came up while they were about to land the blue and sucked in half of it, tail first. Mark said the big cow was shaking her head with the blue in her mouth while scales from the blue were shooting out of her gills as she was trying to suck it in further. Finally she let go and took off. Great,…… now we need to tie two foot long bluefish imitations! My buddy Kent was fishing off of the Cape yesterday and got into bluefin that were feeding on baby bunker for about five hours straight. They were close enough to shore to see people on the beach. He said there were thousands of tuna and that they were about 60lbs to 100lbs. They landed 3 on light tackle. There are more fishing stories I could tell from the past week, but I think you get the idea. Go fishing and good luck when you do.
08-31-07 - I fished the last two days and Tuesday evening and although the fishing was a little bit challenging I would still say we had very good fishing. I don't mind challenging fishing as long as we can catch some decent fish. I took my big brother Bob spin fishing on Tuesday after work. If you have ever heard the song by George Thorogood called Big Brother Bob, it could have been written about Bob and me. Bob lives in Florida and his most used fishing rod is a spear gun. He took to spin fishing easily and landed a beautiful striper that measured 33". I will never forget that fight. Old Tom and I fished hard all day on Wednesday. The action on the incoming tide was a bit slow but once it turned to outgoing the catching picked up. We landed at least 20 fish between us with the largest fish being 2 @ 27 1/2" and one that was 30 1/2". On Thursday I fished with Kevin McKay who guides for smallmouth, trout, and landlock
salmon and is the owner of www.maineflyfish.com. The fishing turned around 180 degrees from the previous day. We had good fishing right from the get go but later in
the afternoon when the tide turned to outgoing, the fish shut off. Kevin prepared for the day by sitting at his tying bench with his 7 year old son Tait and teaching him how to tie
a Grocery Pollock Fly. The first thing Kevin did when he arrived at my house the night before our day of fishing was to show me the pollock fly that Tait tied, he was as proud
as a peacock. He had every reason to be proud; the fly was tied very well, better than many I've seen tied by adults. It was the first fly Kevin tied on in the morning and it
started catching stripers almost immediately. He was still using young Tait's fly three hours into the morning when he started yelling from the bow, "Big fish!!! Big fish!!!" He
was hooked up and his fly line was leaping out of his boat basket. I could go on and on about that fight but like they say, a picture speaks a thousand words. It measured 40 1/4", check it out below.
Tait's fly
08-25-07 - I'll start by apologizing to those folks who got all juiced up to striper fish after
my last report only to find fishing a bit tough. It definitely turned out to be a "should have been there last week" report. West winds blew very hard for days and the water temps
dropped to the mid to low 50's and the striper's interest in flies seemed to drop also. This past week winds blew onshore which stabilized the water temps around 60
degrees and made for some big swells. I talked to one friend who got tumbled over backwards off the rocks he was fishing by a big wave and another guy who said the surf
pounding the rocks in front of him made him fear for his life. I felt the same on Wednesday and Thursday fishing from my skiff along the shore with my friend John. The
stripers were in tight to the rocks feeding in the wash that's created when the water from the crashing waves washes back off the rocks. It always amazes me how close to the
rocks the bass can be amongst all of that violent crashing surf. We managed to find a few places to get close enough to catch several bass in the slot size. I got lucky and
hooked one bass at the boat that we both got a good look at and agreed that it had to be at least 40", only to have her get around a rock and snap my 20lb tippet like it was
hair. On Thursday the surf was worse and so was the fishing. I had plenty of fish follow the fly to the boat but only 3 that tried to eat it. Bluefish are still being caught daily west
of the beach and 2 days ago a visiting fly angler landed a striper that was 38". A friend of mine has been consistently catching a couple of big stripers each night throwing
plugs so we know the big bass are around. We are all still anxiously awaiting the arrival of the baby bunker en masse to help stir things up around here.
08-13-07 - Here's what I've heard today. Bluefish and large bass were chasing big
bunker onto the beach this morning. Captain Steve Brettel said last week he landed 7 stripers over 40" with the biggest going 47" during a morning bait charter and all of the
fish caught were in less than 20" of water. They were sight fishing to them. Steve said he is starting to see 6" long herring in his area. Bluefish galore in our local waters the
past few days and one angler said that he landed over 60 of them. Tuna guys got into some fish that were gorging on halfbeaks way off. Captain Mark Drummond had a
charter this morning and found many seagulls and bass feeding on baby bunker that were about an inch long. Blitzing fish!!! They caught a mess of bass. Yesterday his
sport landed 2 stripers on the fly that were in the mid 30" size plus a bunch of mid to high 20"ers.
08-10-07 - I fished with my friend Florian on Wednesday and fishing was ok for me but
Florian had a tough go of it. We started inside and I was able to pick up a couple of fish on guitars. We moved outside even though it was a bit snotty and I switched to a
grocery pollock and landed several fish with the largest being 29". All fish caught were fat and healthy. We moved back inside and tried fishing around the thousands of adult
pogies that were there but didn't have any luck. I talked to one of the local old striper gurus and he said no one had been able to fool the stripers that are trailing the massive
schools of bunker with anything other than real bunker. Now there's a challenge! We had two reports today of bluefish chasing adult bunker up onto two local beaches.
This event hasn't happened locally for many years and is very encouraging. If you have ever heard the phrase "you could catch a bluefish with a beer can", this is the type of situation where it is true.
Old Tom fished last night and did well on stripers and bluefish. He even had a Mola Mola (ocean sunfish) sighting. He said it was a small one, about 30 lbs. They can get up to a thousand pounds and are very docile. Buyer Beware of the imitation pollock flies from overseas that are showing up in New
England shops. A local unethical rep took my fly without permission (as a matter of fact, against my expressed request that it not be tied overseas), sent it over seas to be
copied and is selling it at cheap prices to shops. They are poorly tied and don't work well. We've had many people in the shop that thought they were buying the real grocery
pollock pattern elsewhere and came in to complain that they don't work. I hate to end the report on this note but I want fisherman to realize they are not buying the pattern that
I am referring to as the "grocery pollock" in my reports. All of our "Jim's Grocery Pollock Fly" are tied by our fly shop!
08-05-07 - The striper fishing has been decent, with most fish getting caught along the
rocks, with spottier action along the river mouths. Day to day action has been inconsistent, with fish moving around a lot keeping anglers guessing as to where the
action will be hot tomorrow. There have been some good sized fish hooked and lost, either during the hook set or while attempting to beach them onshore. Best bets for
flies have been chartreuse/white eyed snake flies, olive/white eyed snake flies, guitar minnows, pollock flies and clouser minnows, especially in the odd "butt ugly" color
scheme. Spending plenty of time on the water seems to be the only way to consistently get into fish. There have been some bluefish of varying size around, however they
seem to be hanging around a bit too far offshore for wade fishermen to target.
07-27-07 - Water temps have been on the rise for the past 3 days and with the warmer
water we have seen the striper fishing get much better. Fisherman who have been fishing off the rocks today and yesterday are reporting catching many stripers in the slot
size and several fish in the high 20's. We are still getting reports of large bass hanging around the still abundant pogies. I've heard more anglers that are fishing around the big
bunker say "the biggest striper I've ever seen" than I can keep track of. The pogies are a very good source of nutrients for the striped bass and for that reason we love to see
them back in our waters, they belong here. Unfortunately, any dub with a weighted treble hook can snag a pogie, let it swim around wounded sending out "eat me" signals, and
catch a big bass over 40". The problem is that the majority of anglers that I'm seeing using this technique are not releasing these magnificent big bass. I'm not against
anyone keeping a fish to eat; I just don't like seeing so many good breeding size fish being killed. Well, enough of that….
07-13-07 - The local fishing for stripers has been hot and cold. Each day we'll have several groups of fisherman come into the shop saying that the fishing was terrible and an hour later a group comes in raving about how good it was. Many of the "go to" spots have not been producing while other less fished areas are fishing well. I fished Wednesday with my old friend Jeff and we had excellent fishing. We didn't get any big stripers but we caught a lot of them. Most of them were in the slot size with the largest striper going 28". I stuck with my grocery pollock while Jeff switched between the pollock and the guitar minnow and it didn't seem to matter what you used, they were hungry. Most days when I fish the pollock it weeds out the smaller fish but this day everything was eating it. At first light water temps started at 60 degrees outside and rose to 63 degrees by the end of the day. We moved into the river in the afternoon where we saw a huge amount of adult pogies. There were literally thousands of them. They were being harassed by snaggers and what we thought were big stripers but turned out to be bluefish. While trying to sink our flies below the pods; we couldn't help but snag them. After losing two pollocks and a guitar we switched to wire and landed a blue about 10 lbs. There was one group of bluefish that had to be 15 lbs or more but we couldn't get them to hit our flies after we switched to wire. We fished again on Thursday and it was a different world out there. At first light the
water was 56 degrees outside due to the strong westerly blow we had through the night and the stripers were few and far between. Many of the stripers moved into the rivers
where the water was warmer and when the tide turned to outgoing later in the day, I heard the fishing got much better. Instead of hanging around waiting for the striper
fishing to get better, Jeff and I grabbed our float tubes and 6 weights and headed to a local pond for some top water largemouth fishing. I can confidently report that the
largemouth fishing is hot right now. For those of you who have not tried largemouth bass fishing with a fly, you don't know what you're missing. My favorite craft for this type of
fishing is a float tube but if you have a kayak, canoe, pontoon boat, or small pram, you can get into many of the ponds in southern Maine and New Hampshire for some great
top water action that usually last throughout the summer. I prefer deer hair bugs over the hard cork body poppers and I think that weedless flies are a must. One of my favorite
techniques is to cast my bug into some likely looking bass structure like a brushy shoreline, lily pads, stumps, downed trees or logs and let it sit until all the rings created
by the fly landing on the water dissipate, then give it a little twitch. If you catch the attention of a largemouth when your fly landed there is a good chance that it will be
inhaled after that first strip. If nothing eats it after that first strip I'll let it sit for a while then give it another twitch and so on. Like my buddy Jeff always says, "Getting a big
largemouth to eat a fly is a lot like getting an old cat to play with a cat toy, it takes patience."
06-28-07 - I fished the York Harbor Catch & Release Striper Tournament with my friend John Kelleher on Monday and we had some good luck. John took first place in the fly fishing division with a striper that measured 35 1/4" fishing a grocery pollock fly (picture below). We saw several decent size fish but had to work hard to find fish that would eat a fly. There were many pods of large pogies (bunker or menhaden) seen that day but we saw none that were being fed on by stripers. Bait fisherman that were live lining these big baits did very well and there were a number of fish entered in the spin fishing division that were over 40". The winning fish in that division was 45 1/2" and second place was 45". The proceeds of this tournament were split between CCA Maine and York Hospital. York Hospital is using the money to help people who can't afford medical care. Yesterday I fished for stripers with my friend Dana. Even though Dana has only been fly
fishing for about 3 months he has had some great success. He has already caught a striper over 40" from his kayak and yesterday he caught about 10 fish with the largest
being 29", all on flies that he created. Pretty good, huh? We saw some of the big bunker around but not nearly as many as we saw on Monday. The picture below is one I
took on Monday of pogies. If you look close you can see their mouths are open, filtering their dinner out of the water. Water tempts along the coast were between 55 and 57
degrees. Water temps in the river were 60 degrees. The long periods of westerly winds that we have had push the warm water offshore and usually result in a drop in temps
along the coast. One thing I've noticed over the years is that when this happens you are better off fishing right tight to the rocks along the shore on a rising tide. The exposed
rocks are warmer than the ocean and as the rising tide covers the exposed rocks along the shoreline the water is warmed by the rocks. Any of the stripers that haven't moved
offshore or into the warmer estuaries will hang out very close to the rocks. Young Tom and Old Tom had success yesterday throwing Skoks flounder fly right tight to the rocks.
They caught over 3 dozen stripers and the largest fish was 28" caught on an olive/white eyed snake.
06-18-07 - Just a quick note to those of you who like to catch bluefish, our friend Dave
just called to let us know that he got into blues about 20" yesterday afternoon in the Ogunquit area. That's all, good luck,
06-12-07 - Where do I start? Fishing has been good almost everywhere. Stripers are being caught in the estuaries as well as outside. Most anglers are catching slot size fish readily and few lucky fishermen have landed fish in the mid 30" size up to and over 40". Young Tom lost a striper in the low 30's on a pollock fly while fishing with his buddy Caleb who landed a 36" bass on a big grocery fly the morning before off Joppa flats. Capt. Mark Drummond guided an angler two days ago who came into the shop afterward to report one of the best guided trips of his life. He said that he landed over 50 stripers on guitar minnows, butt ugly's, and gurglers. Mark reported birds over schools of busting bass. One of the baits being eaten were 3" to 4" herring and the other was rain bait. Water temps have been around 55 degrees to low 60's depending on where you are. I spent the first 10 days of this month camping in the Moosehead area and the fishing
was good. The most surprising thing to me was how abundant the hatches were. I've been fishing that area for 20+ years and I don't ever remember seeing so many
mayflies, caddis, and stoneflies hatching. The air around the streams was full of them. There were light cahills, red quills, blue winged olives, blue duns, caddis galore, and the
most yellow sallys that I've ever seen at one time. And fortunately, the trout were eating them. Locally, the trout fishing has held on pretty well. Recent heavy rainfalls had kept the rivers at a decent flow, although they have recently dropped in the past few days. This time of year, the streams are highly dependant on rainfall. Last Sunday evening, after going to my niece's first birthday, I stopped by a local stocky stream to see if I could catch a few trout. Once I rigged up my rod and headed upstream, I noticed quite a few large red quill spinners hovering over the water. There were also some yellow sallies around and since they were skittering along the water, I tied on a ginger elk hair caddis (the closest imitation I had) and started fishing. As the evening wore on, the sallies really picked up and the trout were making vicious rises, chasing the bright little stoneflies around. I picked up three brown trout and a decent brookie before calling it quits around 10:30. I could still hear the fish taking, but had trouble with the hook set. I have been seeing quite a few large flying ants and small grasshoppers from about a #10 down. Any flying ant pattern should pick up fish (I'm partial to foam patterns) and hopper flies like a small Dave's hopper or large elk hair caddis should pick up fish. We have also had several reports of larger, holdover brown trout being caught out of several different rivers. This is not a surprise to me, as I was catching brookies and browns on some stocked rivers on the last day of the general season last year, and a warm winter helped stop any potential winterkill; so don't be too off guard if you hook into something in the 16"+ class. With the water quickly warming and dropping in our borderline trout waters, the stream
smallmouth fishing should really heat up. I have caught several incidentally trout fishing, but am planning on hitting them hard tomorrow. I have my best luck on assorted
zonkers, woolly buggers and other streamers that have a lot of action in sizes #2-4. Deer hair poppers, Chernobyl ants and sneaky petes also do well for me when fishing
large slow pools or any kind of large, obvious structure like blow downs and boulders. Don't be afraid to dead drift these patterns either. Whatever you are going to be
fishing, rubber legs are almost a must, I'm not sure how bass were ever caught before those were put on flies.
05-26-07 - Mark Drummond had his first striper charter of the season today and his
clients landed 23 stripers. Most of the fish were slot size but while one client was about to lift his fly out of the water to cast, a fish estimated at 36" slammed it. Unfortunately he
never got a good hook set and once the bass got into his backing the hook pulled. Mark said that all of the fish were covered in sea lice and all of the stripers caught ate a guitar
minnow. Water temps were 49 degrees on the outside and 54 degrees in the river. Another fishing report came to me yesterday from a spin fishing friend who wants his
name and fishing spot kept secret. We'll call him Eric. Eric landed 16 stripers on a new jig head that he made and tied up with deer tail and schlappen feathers to look like a
herring, 10 of the fish landed were between 28" and 36". Now that is a good day of fishing in May.
As if the saltwater fishing wasn't enough, the trout and bass fishing in the freshwater has
been phenomenal. I have been catching trout on various Quigley style emergers, soft hackles, parachute ant patterns and my best luck has been on a #16 parachute dark
Hendrickson. Hatches have been heavy for this area. Last Thursday I encountered midges, small black stones, tan caddis and dark Hendricksons coming off all in the
same stretch of water at the same time. The small brookies were going wild chasing bugs; but were very spooky. I didn't manage to hook them consistently until I put on an
extra couple feet of light tippet and crawled up to them from behind. With the abundant sunshine and high temperatures, most of the fish I have caught have been in shady
nooks and crannies behind rocks and blow downs. The other afternoon, I float tubed a local pond and found some decent sized bass in extremely shallow water. I watched
several bass cruise around with their fins out of the water. They were extremely aggressive and I caught over a dozen bass up to 18" on a chartreuse/black/yellow foam
popper. The fish were all located around weed beds in 1-2 feet of water. I also got several decent pickerel around 20" and one extremely feisty large pumpkinseed
sunfish. I do not believe the bass are fully on their beds yet, but were up in the warm shallows hunting. One female I caught looked like she had a belly full of eggs, but it
could have been a small muskrat in there.
05-17-07 - I just received word from a friend that there are big schools of horse
mackerel off shore just south of the Cape and with any luck they'll be here within a few of weeks if not sooner. Bobby from 7 Rivers Bait and Tackle told me that fishermen were
hammering the stripers in the Merrimac today with quite a few of them in the upper 20" size. I also had a report of a striper 35" being caught in the Piscataqua. Yesterday I
fished with Jeff and we each caught a few stripers and two shad each on shad roaches.
05-11-07 - John Kelleher and I just returned from a tarpon fishing trip to Key West
where we fished again with Capt. Michael Pollock. Fishing was a bit slower than last year's trip but we still had a great time. We had somewhere around 24 tarpon that ate
the fly but only one small one, 30 lbs, was brought to the boat. Those darned things are hard to land but it sure is fun trying. The highlight of the trip for me was catching my first
permit on a fly, it weighted 20lbs and boy did it put up a fight. I highly recommend Michael to anyone thinking about a trip to Key West he can be reached at
305-304-5108 or Montana, which is where he spends his summers guiding from his Meadow Lake Lodge on Ennis Lake at 406-682-4976.
04-29-07- Reports indicate that the state has just begun stocking some of our local rivers and ponds. The rivers are still a little high and roily, but should fish well if they've been stocked. Pond fishing continues to be the best bet so far, with fish taking midge patterns and assorted nymphs. I got out on a small native trout brook last Thursday and did really well. The smaller tributaries drain down much quicker than the larger rivers do and the flow on this unnamed stream was perfect. Caddis and Stoneflies were in the air and I caught a couple small fish on a #16 tan elk hair caddis, but the real action came on #12 weighted muddler minnows and beaded sparkle maggots fished upstream and downstream while being twitched fairly steadily. I think that the high water pushed the fish into some of the larger pools, because I didn't catch many in the pocket water I typically do. They were stacked up in the slower water and probably due to this, were very aggressive. Many tributaries of our stocked and larger rivers contain populations of wild brook trout. Your best bet is to pull out your gazetteer and do a bit of exploring to find these gems. The fish aren't big, by far my biggest of the day was a whopping 9 inches long, but they are usually aggressive and always beautifully colored. If you happen to come across a stream with a few #12 weighted muddler minnows stuck in the branches, smile, and keep it to yourself! Remember that it is turkey season starting tomorrow. If there are turkey hunters in the
area, please make sure to respect their space both for safety and enjoyment. Turkey season lasts until June 2nd, however all hunting must cease at 12:00 PM, so if you have
an afternoon off, don't worry about it. A male turkey head has a red, white and blue coloration so try to avoid clothing that colored if fishing in the morning. Turkey hunters
are generally very experienced and know their target before they pull the trigger, however it is better to be safe than sorry.
04-19-07 - With the large rainstorm that went through the area in the past few days and
the high, cold runoff we had before that, water levels in our streams and rivers are extremely high and off colored. This has delayed the stocking of them so far, and
anglers have been reporting very little action in moving water. With the rivers high, murky and generally fishless, those who can't wait should probably head over to one of
the many small ponds in the area. Look for ponds that have no or only small tributaries running into them as runoff flowing out of them can quickly turn a pond discolored. Most
ponds that are stocked in the area receive a heavy fall stocking in preparation for the upcoming ice fishing season. With a lack of ice most of last winter, this should mean
that most of the fish have held over, in addition to any holdovers or wild fish that may also be living there. People fishing ponds have reported seeing some fish rising, and
most have been caught on golden demons and woods specials. Last night, I caught fish on an unweighted pheasant tail twitched slowly among the risers. I would also try
small woolly buggers, damsel and dragonfly imitations, possibly along with Griffith's gnats or other midge patterns that imitate what the fish may be keying on. Next week's
coming warmth should really stimulate insect and fish activity in these ponds. Although, anglers reported catching stripers around this time last year, no reports have come in indicating that any have showed up yet.
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