Maine Fishing Reports

Fishing report for item #150.

Fishing Report:   May 31, 2005

Weather still played a big factor on last week’s fishing activity with unstable conditions providing both glimpses of sun and storms.
Rivers and streams are dropping slowly, but many of them are bordering on the un-fishable stage. Some of our reporters feel that these lost days and bad conditions won’t be completely made up even when the weather breaks, as the warming trend often sends the fish into a whole different mode.
MASSACHUSETTS: Pete Santini at Fishing FINatics in Everett, had a very upbeat report for us: “Bass up to 36 inches breaking 10 feet off Revere Beach this Memorial Day! Brian Scolaro of Everett had a party there using seaworms on the bottom.”
“Don’t forget the bridge nets at the Rte. 99 bridge in Everett and the North Washington Street Bridge in the North End. Three customers broke off huge bass there today on clams and chunks. Incredible action! Best in years as these bass really swarm into the harbor.”
“Aran Viera, last year’s www.stripershootout.com winner had a Boston Harbor combination plate. He started out at the BG Buoy trolling a honey mustard Santini Tube scented with seaworm juice on four colors of leadcore when he whacked a 42 inch and 38 inch striper. Aran then went off the 6-A can at Faun Bar in 19 feet of water, where fishing a Chincoteaugue Rig and seaworms, caught seven flounder to 20 inches and six cod to 9 pounds.”
“There’s been lots of boats out here hammering flounder and cod even a few cusk. The mackerel are thick off the Buoy as well as baby sea herring. Let’s hope the bait situation stays strong so those bluefin will come crashing through around the middle of next month. Don’t forget there’s less than three weeks until the striper shootout June 17 and 18,” Pete ended.
At Surfland Bait and Tackle on Plum Island, Kay Moulton said that there were a lot of stripers around, and mackerel were being caught off the jetties there. “The largest striper we’ve weighed was over 16 pounds, and we’ve seen a lot of fish in the ten to twelve pound range. There’s a lot of fish up the Merrimack under the dam at Lawrence but there’s so much water it’s very hard to fish. There’s shad, alewives and stripers eating them. We haven’t heard any word on flounder yet,” she noted.
VERMONT: John Hall, at Vermont’s Fish and Wildlife Department, emailed us this information: “June 11 is Vermont’s “Free Fishing Day”--a day when you can go fishing anywhere in Vermont without a fishing license, and it doesn’t matter if you are a resident or nonresident. June 11 also is the date for the Grand Isle Fishing Festival, a special event held so kids and new anglers can learn about fishing.”
“This is the one day in the year when residents and nonresidents get a free pass to some of the best fishing in the Northeast,” said Wayne Laroche, Commissioner of Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. “Fishing is a great way to connect with your family, and this is a perfect opportunity to discover just how much fun fishing can be when you do it together.”
“National Fishing and Boating Week is June 4 through June 12, this year,” added Laroche. “We always make sure Vermont’s Free Fishing Day falls on a Saturday within National Fishing and Boating Week to give people a chance to try fishing in Vermont.”
“The Grand Isle Fishing Festival will be held on the 11th at the Ed Weed Fish Culture Station in Grand Isle between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. The event is designed especially for youngsters and offers instruction on knot tying, fish identification, casting techniques, cleaning your fish, and other helpful subjects. New this year is a fish cookout, featuring grilled and smoked fish. Or, try your hand at printmaking using fish. The Grand Isle Fishing Festival also offers a unique opportunity for the kids to catch a big rainbow trout in a pond on the property.” (Report was edited for brevity.)
MAINE: At Kittery Trading Post’s fishing department, Dave Ganter had heard raves about West Grand Lake from two different groups returning from there. “They said that they’d experienced some remarkable landlocked salmon fishing. They were fishing the traditional way with the Grand Laker canoes and mostly trolling traditional salmon pattern streamer flies. Also, one of the fishermen said that their party had caught a lot of salmon on copper-colored Mooselook Wobblers. He said that the best luck was on a Mooselook that was tarnished and dark. Our Bill Coit had fished the Rangeley Lakes for a couple of days and had slow fishing and noted that the water there was very high.”
“There’s stripers everywhere,” Ganter continued. Chad Woodward has been fishing the Piscataqua and having a blast. They’re mostly using the Wild Eye Shads and Salt Shakers.”
Long Lake in the Sebago Region dished up a serving of brown trout that Dave Garcia at Naples Bait will not forget for a while! “You wouldn’t have believed it! We’ve never seen one so fat. The fish weighed nine pounds but was only two feet long. It measured close to eight inches deep on one side.”
Dave said the fish was caught by Dwayne Mashino on sewed-on bait while trolling with three colors of leadcore line in 35 feet of water (which would put your bait down about 20 feet at a low trolling speed).
“We also heard of some really big largemouth bass, caught, weighed and released at Brandy and Long. One person caught a five, six and seven pounder using the new Rapala X Rap lure. Smallmouths have cleaned off some beds but are not nesting yet. There had been a lot of smallie action in eight to ten feet of water by fishermen throwing crawfish colored (with orange bellies) crankbaits.”
“There’s no doubt about the salmon recovery happening over on Sebago. Although there’s not a lot of them, three and four pounders are being caught with some regularity near the surface on streamer flies--mostly black and gray ghost patterns. A lot of fish are also being caught on DB Smelt,” he ended.
“Our dams are running big time three to four thousand cubic feet per second,” reports Ray Soriano, at River’s Edge Sports in Oquossoc in the Rangeley area. One river, the Magalloway has been producing fish. The upper Magalloway at Bridge 10 has been red hot for both salmon and trout, and the lower Magalloway has also been producing plenty of action. The Kennebago River is going over the dam at the lake and is extremely high. Our ponds are really starting to produce. At Rangeley Lake on Saturday, we had a great day but it slowed on Sunday and on Monday it just turned off. Mooselookmeguntic Lake has finally started to produce some fish--lots of small ones but we did weigh a four pound brookie that was caught there.”
This info just in from the FlyFishingInMaine.com, a nonprofit group that works with other nonprofits as well as hand-in-hand with Maine’s Department of Inland Fish and Wildlife: “The online group FlyFishingInMaine.com (FFIM) is gearing up for its third annual fly fishing conclave from June17-19. This year, the group will be gathering on the West Branch of the Penobscot River at the Big Eddy to enjoy some fly-fishing, casting and tying demonstrations, camaraderie and swapping of flies and tall-tales. In addition to the good-times, FFIM likes to give back to the fly-fishing community and resources by selecting one or two worthy causes. This year we are pleased to announce two deserving causes: Casting for Recovery and Maine Trout Unlimited Trout Camp.”
“The Maine Trout Unlimited (TU) Trout Camp is dedicated to educating young folks about our cold-water fisheries. Their mission is to build tomorrow’s conservation leaders, giving teens a solid foundation in conservation, entomology and biology, while keeping it fun and interesting with fly-fishing. You can discover more about the Maine TU Trout Camp at www.troutcamp.tumaine.org. The funds raised will go toward scholarships and operations of the Trout Camp.”
“Casting for Recovery (CFR) provides free fly-fishing retreats for women who are breast cancer survivors. CFR is an opportunity for women whose lives have been profoundly affected by the disease to gather in a beautiful, natural setting and learn fly-fishing, “a sport for life.” Learn more by visiting www.castingforrecovery.org. The funds raised will go toward operations of Casting for Recovery. The funds raised will come through a silent auction and raffles to be held the night of June 18 at the Big Eddy Campground. The highlight of the auction and raffles will be a custom-made bamboo fly rod and an original Bob White painting. For more info about flyfishinginmaine.com or the June conclave visit our web site or contact kenbtrout@hotmail.com.” (End of report)
At Maine Guide Fly Shop in Greenville, Bob Duport says that the rivers are still running very high--mostly too high to wade or not even fishable. “Moosehead Lake is doing really well with salmon, togue (lake trout) and brookies. Our ponds are starting to heat up with some good hatches, mostly Hendricksons and blue winged olives.”
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Doug Grout, fisheries biologist at New Hampshire’s Region 3/Durham office emailed us this detailed report: “Haddock and cod fishing have been very good this spring; that is on the few days that the weather has cooperated. April catches were dominated by haddock with some cod, redfish, cusk, and wolfish thrown in. May has seen more equal numbers of cod and haddock. One party boat trip that Marine Division staff surveyed had each passenger catching 10-20 keeper size haddock (over 19 inches). The largest haddock we weighed was about 8 pounds and the largest cod tipped the scales at just over 10 pounds. We also have received reports of cod in the 30-40 pound range being caught this spring.”
“The past couple of weeks we have observed the first stripers being caught in New Hampshire’s coastal rivers as they chase the river herring upstream during their spawning migration. There also have been scattered reports of mackerel showing up in the coastal waters. Of course, this past week has been a bust for coastal fishing with seven straight days (and counting) of driving rains and near gale force winds. If we can just get the weather to break for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, fishing should just explode on the New Hampshire seacoast.”
“For you striper anglers, we are always looking for volunteers to participate in our Striped Bass Volunteer Angler Survey. Participants are provided with logbooks to fill out information about each striper fishing trip they take and record length measurements of all the striped bass they catch. Information collected from the survey is used in the annual coastwide stock assessment for striped bass that is used for management. In addition, each participant’s name is entered into a year-end raffle for a framed limited edition striped bass print donated to Fish and Game by the Coastal Conservation Association of New Hampshire (http://www.ccanh.org). If you would like to participate, please call or e-mail Doug Grout at 603-868-1095 or dgrout@nhfgd.org.” (Thanks Doug for the nice report. Edited for brevity.)
Jason MacKenzie, at Suds-n-Soda in Greenland, had weighed-in several nice stripers, with the largest one measuring 42 inches with a weight of 22.5 pounds, quite a light weight for the length. He’d also had several other fish on the scales that were in the 15-pound range. The largest fish had been caught on frozen chunk mackerel but Jason did note that a lobster fisherman had spotted a school of mackerel around his gear off of Straw’s Point in Rye.
“The ground fishing has been tremendous. Ricky Jones (retired conservation officer) had been out past the Isles of Shoals and came in with several big cod, one over fifty pounds. We’ve had other similar reports. It’s only been the weather that has kept this awesome fishery slow.”
Jason wanted us to remind readers that the popular All Summer Long Striper Derby starts June 1 and runs until September 30. You must sign up for the derby at least 24 hours before entering a fish.
George Taylor, at Taylor’s Trading Post in Madbury, was enthusiastic about the stripers, saying that the Great Bay Tributaries were producing some of the best fishing. “You wouldn’t believe the fish that they’re catching right in the middle of the City of Dover at Henry Law Avenue. The big stripers are up there after the alewives. They are also in the Lamprey, Squamscott and Salmon Falls.”
“Even though the Lamprey River has been high, it’s still producing some good trout fishing as are our local ponds. Barbados, Willand, Lucas and Stonehouse have all had some great days.” (Friend Dave Dawley confirmed the report about the Lamprey, adding that stretches of the Cocheco River have also been excellent in spite of the high water conditions.)
“Our white perch run in the river (Winnipesaukee) here is going great guns,” noted Jim at Martel’s Bait at Laconia. A lot of the fish are small but they’ll catch fish up to two pounds. There’s also been a few rainbow trout and landlocked salmon caught in the river, one salmon of four pound was caught right under the dam. We also had a nine-pound laker caught. This fellow was trolling a number 22 Sutton Spoon in about 35 feet of water out on the lake (Winnisquam).

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