Fishing 2018

[JimG.]

I had a good ski season, especially March and April.



Stoked to start fishing.

Mike and I went for a row at the East Branch on 5/6. Neither of us expected to catch much just wanted to get out. Bass were invisible save for a 6" largemouth I caught. But we did find some good yellow perch action and caught about a dozen between us:



Today we went to the controlled river section of the EB and found recently stocked brown trout:



Feisty rainbow trout:



and a few beautiful holdover browns:



Enjoyed wading in the river but damn some of the rocks were deadly slippery.

 

[bigbog]

Congrats on the browns and rainbows JimG! Love browns and rainbows so much, all we have up here in mid-central to northern Maine are brooktrout and landlocked salmon....have to drive a hundred+ miles for browns/rainbows. Yeah, aluminum studs/bars are the more environmentally friendly but I definitely need a wading staff as well. Such a PITA to need practice in wading/walking in waders...somehow my fore/aft balance needs practice, especially in the pushy currents even of many small brooks up here:angry:. Nice shortsleeves....the areas where I like to go up here....temps have yet to stabilize in the low 60s:roll: (middays).

Think everybody could use a week of bonefish in Los Roques olout88...y/n?

 

[JimG.]

Yeah wading staffs always wind up being a PITA; I just need some felt soles for my waders for extra traction. But doing that slippery rock dance in the middle of the river and almost filling my waders seems like a yearly right of passage.

Early on it was chilly but by noon it got warm and I could fish in shirtsleeves. That water is always icy cold right through summer though; fed from the bottom of the reservoir upstream.

 

[JohnBelly]

Great Memories, I'm quite Interested in Fishing as well. As I'm pretty New Hiker I haven't tried yet maybe soon going to do Fishing
By the way very Inspiring Post

 

[JimG.]

Got out on Rye Lake this past Friday for the first time this season hoping for some good early bass action. The forecast was for some rain but the weather stayed clear with some heat and humidity. Apparently the bass, especially smallmouths loved it:




Captain Steve guided us to the fish:



I was using plastic worms, both Steve and my buddy Chris used deep diving plugs that also seemed to work well:



We spotted this Blue Heron in the crow's nest scoping out bait fish; we must have landed a half dozen nice bass in that one area:



Great first full on day of bass angling looking forward to many more.

 

[JimG.]

Celebrated opening day weekend of bass season yesterday between 4-9pm. Mike and his wife Alicia joined me.
Large schools of spawning white perch made fish catching easy with a few in the 1-1.5 lbs range.
Big fish had to be hunted and were offshore and deep. Had some good largemouth fishing in deep structure off the old weed beds:

Wound up deep water trolling in 60' areas and got some walleye action going. After both Alicia and I lost a big bite each Mike tied into something that almost took the rod out of his hands. A 10 minute fight ended with the biggest walleye I've ever seen landed:

Monster fish truly a beast:

It was nice to succeed on a weird conditions day; very hot and still.

 

[Scruffy]

Nice work!

 

[JimG.]

Wow great day of smallmouth fishing Wednesday PM. First hour was a little slow but then the fish just turned on and Captain Steve and I landed several nice double headers:



Heading out on Rye Lake again in a few hours.

 

[JimG.]

More good fishing on 6/22, 6/29 and last Friday but the award for best fish over the past 3 weeks goes to my buddy Carmine with this 50lbs striper caught with a fly off the New Jersey coast:



Impressive fish!

 

[bigbog]

What a Hog! Interesting how huge fleets of stripers have taken over/invaded? the lower stretches of traditional atlantic salmon rivers up in Quebec and Labrador as well...or at least if they've been there a while I just haven't searched YouTube enough to hit on em'. Striper action has been pretty active along the mid-southern Maine coast as well. I like the size of the fly in the pic:lol:.

 

[180]

What lake is this?

Celebrated opening day weekend of bass season yesterday between 4-9pm. Mike and his wife Alicia joined me.
Large schools of spawning white perch made fish catching easy with a few in the 1-1.5 lbs range.
Big fish had to be hunted and were offshore and deep. Had some good largemouth fishing in deep structure off the old weed beds:
View attachment 23922
Wound up deep water trolling in 60' areas and got some walleye action going. After both Alicia and I lost a big bite each Mike tied into something that almost took the rod out of his hands. A 10 minute fight ended with the biggest walleye I've ever seen landed:
View attachment 23923
Monster fish truly a beast:
View attachment 23924
It was nice to succeed on a weird conditions day; very hot and still.

 

[JimG.]

Sodom reservoir also known as the East Branch of the Croton river. The spillway is where 684/84/route 22 meet.

 

[bigbog]

How about this friggin' heat/humidity... We do have Aroostook Country, that is constantly lower than everything else, but it's a drive;-)
Rather than drive up there I've chosen to grab Moment's Wildcat Tour...custom 108mm width...18/19 ski.....as a gamble on those surprise-dumps(let's all put our hands together and pray...:lol::lol::lol...
steve

 

[JimG.]

Last month has been brutal...either blast furnace temps and 100% humidity or thunderstorms.

Haven't been out in the boat much the past 4 weeks. Wading for trout has been good on rainy days.

 

[JimG.]

After getting chased off the water on 8/10 and 8/17 by thunderstorms we finally got a good day conditions wise yesterday.

Interestingly fishing was excellent all 3 days but it is far more relaxing to fish in clear weather than the constant stress of checking radar for supercells containing downpours and lightening. We got lucky last week just missing getting drenched or hit by lightening.

 

[bigbog]

I hear ya'.....have had my share of days being driven off the water to save my skin....

 

[JimG.]

So after a good Friday of bass fishing at Rye Lake we decided to try the East Branch this past Sunday. Mike and his wife Alicia joined me. The bass fishing has been really hit or miss at the EB this season so we decided to head to the river bed area where we have had good Walleye action.
After fishing the eastern part of the reservoir and catching many white perch and a even few nice bass we headed to the boulder and the Walleye action commenced. Mike landed this beauty at the boulder:

We headed to the little island and bang Mike lands another nice one:

Now I'm wondering where my nice Walleye is. Turned out it was right around that brushy point behind Mike in that last picture. After watching Mike struggle to unhook his fish in the boat I decided to keep my Walleye in the water and remove the lure there then grab it by the gill plate for a pic. Worked great I got the hooks out of the fish but when I grabbed the gill plate and lifted the fish shook violently and it was gone. Mike snapped a pic of me working to unhook the fish so I got some proof I did catch it:

Soon after that Alicia landed another Walleye. She asked me to unhook it and had no interest in holding it for a pic, she just wanted it released unharmed (as all our fish were on this day). These fish were all 7-9 pounds and put up great battles.
Great day of fishing!

 

[JimG.]

This August and September we became walleye fishermen.

These walleye were released about 15 years ago and they clearly have established themselves. ​

When reservoir levels dropped in mid Sept we learned they stop biting shallow and move back to deep water. Trolling or jigging deep produced.
An additional plus was that the bass started biting again when the walleye moved out. Really enjoyed becoming successful with a new species but as well as walleye fight pound for pound the smallmouth bass is the best freshwater fighter. Top photo is a nice 4 pounder caught at the East Branch; caught 5 others just like it in about 45 minutes at the same spot. Bottom photo is a Rye Lake smallie about the same size caught this past Friday:


About 3 more weeks of fishing and I'll pack it in so skiing is right around the corner.

 

[bigbog]

Nice!

 

[bigbog]

HA......I had made plans to,in a day or two, wet a line on Moosehead's East Outlet(Kennebec headwaters) for the season closer...that has a late closing date..end of October. Ahhhh, happily the mind & body has rapidly shifted priorities.....