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Be sure to bookmark this page so you can check back regularly for the latest conditions and tips. |
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06-27-09 - Good reports are still coming in from striper fisherman that are catching bass from 10" to 48". Bait is in abundance in all of the estuaries as well as way off shore. Most of the bait in our area is baby atlantic herring, silversides, sandeels., mackerel, and pollock. Last weeks rain made many of the estuaries off color and most, but not all, of the good fishing reports I was getting were from fishermen that were fishing the ocean from shore. I fished for a few hours on Wednesday and landed ten bass between 10" and about 30". I took all of them on a guitar minnow fished with a slow retrieve. I talked to a guy who was trolling for bluefin about 20 miles offshore and he said that the sand eels were thick out there and that they couldn't keep the striped bass off of their tuna rigs. He told me that all of the bass were big and very fat and puking up sand eels. The largest striper they pulled in was 48". This is something that happens every year and with any luck big bluefin will move in on that bait and chase some of those cow bass inshore. For those of you who don't know, it is illegal to specifically target striped bass and bluefish in federal waters. Last year the federal wardens spent a lot of time patrolling those waters and caught many fishermen breaking the law and I'm sure they are out there in force this year also. I've been told that the fines are huge. Due to the high waters last week I've had no reports from trout fisherman fishing rivers, however I did get a pond report that the hex's started coming off
two days ago. If you fish this hatch give a Two Feather Fly a try, they work very well for imitating these large mayflies.
06-15-09 - Today many people came into the shop with reports of great striper fishing.
Fish of all sizes were caught along the coast and in the estuaries. Most reports had the bass from slot size up 33". Largest striper reported today was estimated at 45". One
angler landed more than twenty 10" to 12" schoolies and said there were hundreds of them in that size busting in front of him. Everyone is in agreement that the bass are fat,
healthy, and plentiful. I even had a bluefish report. Lots of them and good sized ones the angler told me. Don't forget to put some wire leaders in your packs just in case you run
into them. Small baby Atlantic herring are still plentiful and there are a lot of mackerel and pollock devouring them. Sandeels are starting to show in good numbers and I've
had several reports of silversides. Still no reports of pogies in our local waters but we are hopeful. The saltwater scene is really starting to take off so ditch your chores, grab
your fly rod, and enjoy some payback from the season past. Who knows how long this will last.
06-07-09 - I returned last night from my trip to Key West with my buddy John. We had six days on the water chasing tarpon. This was my first experience chasing tarpon in June. We fished one day with Michael Pollock and the other 5 days with Gil Drake. They are phenomenal guides and I highly recommend both of them to anyone heading down that way to fish. John and I had many shots at tarpon from 40lbs to 80 lbs and a few shots at 100+lbs. We saw one female tarpon that had to be close to 200lbs being chased by a pack of horny males in shallow water. I can't imagine what it would be like to hook one of those giants. Most of the fishing we did was from a staked out boat. For those of you who haven't done this sort of fishing it goes something like this. The guide holds the skiff in a spot that he feels confident about tarpon swimming past. It's hard to believe but they even know what direction that most of the tarpon are going to come from. The few tarpon that come from the wrong direction are called "Wrong Way Charlie's". The anglers take turns standing on the bow platform, line straightened and piled nicely in a boat basket, fly in hand, ready to fire off a cast at a seconds noticed. The notice comes from the guide and usually sounds something like "TARPON!! 3 OCLOCK ABOUT 40 FEET OUT GOING RIGHT TO LEFT CAST CAST CAST. NO, NOT 9 OCLOCK, 3 OCLOCK!!!!!. Never mind, they're past us. No shot.............. That's ok, there'll be more." Meanwhile, you're standing there feeling like a dub wondering why you're having such a hard time telling time. I mean, I've only been able to tell time for about 44 years. But when everything comes together, you land the fly just far enough out in front of the tarpon so that he doesn't spook. Your fly is moving in the same direction that the tarpon is moving and close to the same speed. The tarpon gets behind your fly and follows it for a while, your heart is in your throat, then that big mouth opens up and sucks it in. You see it all. You strip set hard and then all hell breaks loose. Tarpon fishing is without a doubt the most intense, exciting, visual form of fly fishing I've done. John and I had countless shots at passing tarpon and had about 25 eat our flies and were only able to get three to the boat. While fighting one about 60lbs near the boat, a 9 foot long hammerhead shark came out of nowhere and tried to eat it. Fortunately we were able to snap the fly off and the tarpon escaped. Very exciting! I can't wait until next year. 358 days left to wait.
05-29-09 - My old friend Chuck was in town from California this week to try and catch some stripers and hopefully his first shad. We started with the shad on Wednesday morning and had some good luck using the Shad Roach fly. Orange was the hot color but we also caught some on Yellow Roach's and Chartreuse Roach's. The Shad Roach is a simplistic but effective fly for catching shad and was developed by Eric Roach of Seabrook New Hampshire. Most of the shad caught were the smaller males but we each managed to land a decent sized female, one of which made some screaming runs and one leap. From there we headed to search for stripers. What we found was an incredible amount of baby Atlantic herring being attacked by mackerel and stripers. The bass were sucking down mouthfuls of the bait. When I find the bass feeding like this I can usually put a guitar minnow on and let it sink below the mass of bait then start twitching it to entice a bass to strike. I tried this method but the bait was top to bottom and the only thing I could catch was mackerel and foul hooked baby herring. I decided to put a 4/0 Grocery Pollock Fly on and fish that slowly and it paid off. I caught three upper slot sized stripers in about 10 casts and then the bait and mackerel and stripers moved off out of casting range and it was over for the day. On Thursday we tried for shad late in the day but they weren't very active. Chuck landed two males, lost a nice fat female, and got a striper about twelve inches long. I got skunked. I just talked to Captain Mark Drummond and he reported landing 9 stripers between 18" to 27" today. Many other anglers are reporting similar catches.
05-25-09 - Fisherman have been calling the shop all morning with striper reports from
our local waters. Large amounts of baby Atlantic herring have shown up in every estuary and the stripers are right behind them. A buddy called me about 3 hours ago and said
that they were into busting fish and that the bass were being a bit finicky. He reported millions of baby herring with slot size bass feeding on them. He started hooking up
when he tied on a small guitar minnow and fished it with very slow retrieves. All the bass he caught were between 22" and 26". Another angler reported landing two bass, one at
20" and one at 30". It looks like a great start to the season.
05-21-09 - I went to Joppa Flats again yesterday with my friend Dave and we had an
even better day than on Monday. We got there at about 5:45am and fished until 1:00pm (Dave had to leave for a golf game). We started catching fish right off on the incoming
tide and then did a little exploring during the high slack. Found a few nice fish in the high 20's up river from Route 1. After the tide started going out, we went back down to the
flats and found fish busting & swirling everywhere. Some got hard to catch in the shallow water of the flats (2 to 4 ft deep) and were very spooky. That's when we moved
back out into deeper water and the whole bay erupted. Acres of busting fish of all sizes. The fish averaged between 24 & 30 inches with none under 20 and a few over 30". My
hot fly both days I was there was the "Guitar Minnow" fished on an intermediate line.
05-17-09 - We've had many reports about stripers and blues all around the cape. I got a
report from Cape Cod Bay that a fisherman caught at least 80 stripers, 12 of which were keeper size, 13 keeper flounder, and 40 mackerel. Water temps there have been
fluctuating between 49 and 51 degrees for several days. The shad run has been going on for about a week down there and catches have been good. Locals say the run
started a week late. Closer to Maine, the Merrimac has been producing stripers for about a week. Largest stripers that I've heard about being landed there have been in
high 20" to low 30" size range. Schoolies are being caught in the upper reaches of the Piscataqua River close to the dams. I had a customer in today that caught a 26" striper
in the Mousam River. That is the first solid report from there. No solid shad reports yet for our local waters. I expect them to be here any day. Offshore ocean temps are still a
bit cool. Warmer weather is predicted for the end of this week into next weekend and that should help the water warm up a bit.
05-03-09 - It's hard to believe it is already May. This is one of my favorite months because all of ourMaine fisheries, from fresh to saltwater, start to come alive. So far there are no signs of migrating striped bass along the Maine coast yet. We've had several reports of holdovers being caught but no fresh fish yet. We've had a few reports of stripers on the south side of the Cape and in Rhode Island. I just talked to Capt. Dave Beattie and he reported that his buddy is finding good numbers of bass in the Hudson. The water temp at the mouth of the Piscataqua was 46 degrees yesterday. Alewives and herring are running in several coastal rivers so the shad should not be too far behind. I talked to some friends who have been trying for shad south of here for the past couple of weeks and they didn't have much to report. There have been a few shad caught in the MerrimacRiver but most of the shad fishermen agree that the major run there is late. The Connecticut River is rumored to have more shad but I don't have any first hand reports from there yet. All of the shad and striper fishermen that I've talked to believe that everything is running a bit late this year. I've had many reports of good trout fishing from all over southern New Hampshire and
Maine, and mid western Maine. There are still good hatches of mayflies, mostly Red quills and Hendricksons with some sporadic caddis coming off. Most anglers are
getting more strikes fishing subsurface flies. Good luck.
04-26-09 - The fishing certainly seems to have picked up with the warming weather,
and anglers have been reporting good catches of trout all around. The state has started stocking although it seems like they haven't hit all the regular spots as of yet. People
have been having luck with standard dries like elk hair caddis in black and parachute light Hendricksons, or going deeper with beaded pheasant tail nymphs and small
streamers and buggers. Black stones and Hendricksons have been the heaviest bugs hatching, however there have been some assorted caddis flies fluttering around as well.
I've also noticed some smallish beetles around the streams, but haven't tried a terrestrial as of yet. Fish have been rising sporadically considering the amount of bugs
that have been coming off. Yesterday, I fished a parachute Hendrickson with a pheasant tail dropper and had more luck on the nymph, despite a fairly thick hatch. I
think that this was due to cooler water temperatures that should be warming up with this latest heat wave. I've been having luck tossing small slump-buster type streamer
patterns in all the likely looking spots while keeping an eye out for rising trout.
04-18-09 - We are getting many reports of good hatches on local waters. Midges and small black stoneflies have been plentiful. This past week two anglers reported seeing some red quills and Hendricksons and most anglers are seeing some caddis. The catching has been a bit slow due to cold water temps but it seems to be improving daily. Within a week or two the state fish farmers should be dumping their harvest into most of the local fishing holes and fishing will be easy while these hatchery fish acclimate to a no pellet diet. Old Tom and I dug out our float tubes and had some fun pond fishing last Wednesday. We caught 1 small rainbow each on golden demons, had a few hits, and just about froze our toes off. I saw many size 16 midges hatching but the trout weren't taking them. I still haven't had any reports of stripers south of here but today a gentleman was in saying the mackerel were thick in Boston Harbor. His friend, who reported this to him, said that there were a lot of whales in close to shore and they think they are the reason that the mackerel were in tight so early. I'm not sure if any of this is true but it sure is interesting if it is. I had a report last week that the alewives were staging outside the Damariscotta River. Dip netters are still catching ocean smelt locally. We should start seeing shad in about 3 or 4 weeks. Striper fisherman should keep their eyes on the water temps. The Portland data buoy
reports surface temps fluctuating between 40 and 43 degrees with a high of 44 degrees this past week. 50 degrees is the magic number but I usually expect to start
hearing about fisherman catching stripers when it hits 48 degrees inshore. I would guess that we won't be seeing any fresh stripers for at least a month but will be hearing about holdovers in a couple of weeks.
04-10-09 - I fished with Old Tom around the Sebago area on Wednesday. Most rivers were blown out but we managed to find a couple of places that were at fishable levels. It was great to be back on the water again, the fishing was great but the catching was bad. We both got skunked. Thursday I decided to fish some tiny streams that I've had some luck at over the years. I managed to land a couple of small brookies, one on a tent style hornberg and the other on a small elk hair caddis. I saw several caddis hatching and many midges. Today reports started coming in that the small black stones were hatching in good numbers. Water temps were 40 degrees everywhere that I went. The ice is out of most of the ponds and lakes in our area. Fishing should pick up this week as all reports are for sunny days and warmer weather. Good luck.
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