Early June 2024 Fishing News

The three-month gap between this blog post and my last is the longest hiatus I have taken since I started this blog years ago. That is what occurs when I have a new granddaughter living ten minutes away and my daughter needs grandparent daycare help as she tries to be a new mom and run her own business (reclaimedmaineco.com). I also came down with Covid for the first time and I was battling it for the entire month of May. Not fun. Whatever energy I had went to fishing, not writing.

Well, we will see if we can’t catch up a bit. Due to the warm winter, early ice-out, and warm spring, the seasonal timing of plant and insect emergence, spawning cycle and water temps ran several weeks early. The current hot weather will probably start to send the fish into deeper water and river and stream fish into their colder water refugia

As an example, the Kennebago Lake brown drake hatch historically runs from about June 23 to end of the month. This year it started June 11th and is already winding down. Still, I got out on the lake on the 13th had the hatch practically to myselfh

Despite battling Covid, I went after a wide variety of species with my fly rod. In one ten-day period, I caught pike, smallmouth, largemouth, black crappie, sunfish, brookies, brown trout, rainbows, and stripers. Here are a few videos of the action. I will post several blogs soon to catch up.

Stripers arrived in the middle of May. I like wading or kayaking small tidal rivers for these fish. Sometimes they are there, sometimes not. On this day, they were. The best time to fish for stripers in small coastal rivers is on a falling tide, just after high tide. The push of water to high tide drive bait and striped bass up into the higher reaches of the water where it is easier to wade and cast. Then as the water drops, the bass get active ambushing bait flushing downstream.
I have gotten into pike fishing recently. I go to Sabattus Pond. This predator certainly gets your attention when they attack your fly.

My go-to fly for pike so far is a white and red streamer that moves erratically in the water when stripped. I use a type of snap swivel and a wire tippet to prevent the pike from slicing my line and for ease in fly change. Pike are not leader shy.

This fly is about four inches long

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