Mid-winter for all of the Northeast felt like autumn. Temperatures for November, December, and early January ran between five and ten degrees above normal depending upon where you live. There has was no snow to speak of. At my house in Windham, we have had green grass for most of winter so far as I write this in mid January.

I have no ice fishing report for you because except for the northern half of Maine and New Hampshire, lakes and many ponds do not hold enough ice to support the weight of anybody. Ice will form and then a warm spell and a little wind melts it. Final ice-in and ice-our may only be six weeks apart.

Rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds that remain open all year have been fly- fishable with little snow, ice, and below freezing temps to contend with. Nice browns and rainbows have been landed in the East Outlet, the Presumpscot River, the Saco, the Royal River (in Yarmouth, Maine), and the rivers of southeast NH such as the Lamprey. And those are just the ones I know about. Many of us put away our fly-fishing gear, took out our ice-fishing traps and paraphernalia, shoved that to the side, and took out our fly-fishing gear and boats again!

My vegetable garden kept producing and I harvested veggies until almost Christmas, only covering the plants on a few cold days. I remember when for all practical purposes, the gardening was done by early October with the ground freezing solid by early November.

I enjoyed catching up with long time fly-fishing friends at the Fly Fishing Show in Marlborough in mid-January. Because of Covid, I haven’t seen them much recently. I got to say howdy to Abbie Schuster from Kismet Outfitters, Brett and Sue Damm from the Rangeley Fly Shop, author Bob Mallard, guide Scott Whitaker, from Bucktail Guide Service, Brian from Pheasant Tail Guide Service, and Brian Comfort from Deerfield Fly Shop. I have to say, I enjoyed the social interaction.

Of course, I also enjoyed chatting with readers of my books, some of those made the trip to Marlborough hoping to meet me and say hi.

Will it be an early spring? Time will tell. ‘Til next time.

First, a note about my book availability: Due to issues with my publisher, Flyfishers Guide to New England is out of stock on Amazon, LLBean, Cabelas, and other major retailers. It is still available with a few smaller-sized sellers and you can always purchase directly from me signed through Paypal on this website. My other books including “In Pursuit of Trophy Brook Trout is available on Amazon and the Rangeley Sports Shop, among other specialty stores.

Lindsey and I finished our southern swing in Cape San Blas on the gulf coast of Florida where I got a chance to fly fish several days. The redfish were not cooperative on the fly rod but I caught many species including lizardfish, pinfish, rockbass, flounder, and catfish, just to give a partial list. For game fish, I managed to land ladyfish and sea trout.
I don’t know why ladyfish don’t have a better reputation, they fight hard and leap way out of the water.

A gulf-coast angler could do well without ever changing flies away from a brown and white or brown and tan Deceiver or Clouser with heavy dumbbell eyes. Eighty percent of the time they do the trick.

Arriving back to Maine, the weather wasn’t much different than in the southeast – the first two weeks of November featured many days in the upper sixties to mid-seventies with lows as high as mid-fifties, about 15 to 20 degrees above normal. It was September weather and was frightening if you are concerned about global climate change,

Water temperatures were still in the 50s in the lower half of Maine so despite my trip fatigue I got right back out there. I had a great day on the Pleasant River and raised a number of beautiful brown trout about five minutes from my house. Why did I go all the way to North Carolina in October? Per usual this time of year, the browns were hammering Cosohammer streamers with yellow marabou.

I tried other local waters such as Otter and Chaffee Pond or the Presumpscot River but didn’t do as well as I expected to. The river was really too high to fish well. I missed a few trout in the ponds even though a few were rising and caught only small bass.

I had a lot of fun recently, giving a presentation to the University of New Hampshire fly-fishing club on adventure travel fishing in New Zealand, and Patagonia. UNH is close to several rivers that are stocked with nice fish all fall by a private stocking organization. They showed me photos of some chunky rainbows, so as I write this, rivers such as the Isinglass, Cocheco, Exeter, and Lamprey must be fishing decently. This time of year, it is mostly a nymphing exercise with eggs and caddis pupa patterns.

Let’s see if the fishing will hold up until December. I will be giving a presentation on fly-fishing for trout and salmon on ponds and lakes at the Sebago Trout Unlimited annual meeting On December 8th. Anyone can attend. See Sebago Trout Unlimited Facebook page for more information.

I don’t have as much to report on New England fishing during October because I was traveling. My wife and I took our small RV and drove down the Appalachian Mountains all the way to Florida, and then we kept going to the Gulf.

Lindsey and I mostly took in the sights, enjoyed camping along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and hiked part of the Appalachian Trail for old time’s sake (we through-hiked it in 1983.)

We did squeeze in some fishing of course. We took a day and fished the Davidson River for wild browns. A “river” in the North Carolina mountains seems more the size of a creek or small stream in Maine. Gorgeous water, particularly with the leaves turning, and we managed to fool a few small browns in the morning on small streamers and nymphs.

Later on, we were sight fishing some massive wild browns that hang out in a shallow and silty section below the hatchery – the added nutrients provide a bonanza of midges and other invertebrates, I guess. I managed to hook and land a beautiful fish on a zonker-type streamer I have written about several times, including in the Maine Sportsman.

We also floated Tennessee’s Watauga River, a tailwater known for its big browns and rainbows. The dam operators keep the water levels fluctuating all day, so we really didn’t have a good chance at any of the very spooky big browns, but we had a steady day with browns and rainbows of various sizes landed consistently. Lindsey landed both a three-pound rainbow and a cutbow. I caught the largest brown.

My understanding is that the weather in New England stayed freakishly warm and folks fishing for fall-stocked trout or fishing other waters that stay open caught some nice fish because the water stayed so warm. Some rivers such as the Presumpscot River were tough to fish because of the high flows.

I came home after three weeks, expecting my gardens to be frost killed and was surprised to see that we had not had a killing frost, so I just kept picking tomatoes, peppers, beans, radishes, squash, etc. as well as fresh cut flowers such as sunflowers, glads, and zinnias. Just crazy.

In the middle of September, the rains arrived, and did they. A swath in the western Maine mountains got over five inches of rain in a short period of time. Bridges in Jackman washed out and plenty of rain fell in southern Maine as well. It was too much of a good thing because rivers blew out and remained too high to fish well. I don’t know what others’ experiences were, but even with all of the rain, it either didn’t bring many fish up the rivers and streams, or they came up but didn’t hang around and kept moving way up to into the headwaters. Air and water temperatures were above normal so perhaps they were looking for cooler water.

I can’t speak about everywhere, but in western Maine, the Kennebago, Roach, East Outlet of Kennebec (just to name a few), you had to work for every fish you caught. Hopefully, you had better luck in other places.

I saw reports from the Miramachi that Atlantic Salmon did the same thing, and didn’t stage in the usual famous pools, but just kept moving upstream.

In October I did not see one redd in the Little Kennebago for first time in my memory, perhaps confirming that fished spawned further upstream this year.

Lake and pond fishing stayed good with hatches continuing becase of the warm weather and fish looking up during the calm days. We had plenty of windy days as well though.

I hope the traditional fishing season was good to you!

September/ fall fishing was a tale of two seasons. The first half of the month felt like August. This is now the norm for this time of year as the climatologists’ study of the data shows northern temperate forests colder weather is about three weeks later than it used to be.

A sampling of the temperatures I took in the 2^nd week of September was:

 Lower Kennebago River: 71 degrees, surface of Moosehead Lake: 68, air temperature at my camp on the 10^th:  80 degrees. Most of the fish didn’t move into rivers, streams or the lake shallows because of warm water.  For example, my daughter went up to the Debouille Pond area and the trout were not in the shallows yet.

River water levels were better than the last few years, but it didn’t seem to make much of a difference.

Even by the end of the month, most places in central and lower parts of Maine hadn’tt experienced any sort of frost and many nights stayed in the upper 40s to mid-50s.

Great fishing could be found if you fished areas in lakes where fish were staging, waiting for river waters to cool. These are usually places with springs or ground water cooling the water. I did find one area in a shallow part of a pond where this was the case and caught dozens of trout in the 8-10-inch range without moving. In my defense, I was fishing barbless and kept waiting for bigger fish to arrive, (which never happened.)

Occasionally, someone caught a nice trout or salmon because a few fish always seem to move early, but that was the exception, not the rule. I caught a few nice trout in staging areas as did others, but always within half an hour of nightfall or sunrise. Then nothing.

More about later September in the next post.

Maine and most of New England endured another hot and dry summer. Many sections achieved some level of drought status. I really worry about our native trout populations that don’t have access to thermal refugia. This is the fourth summer in a row with hot and dry conditions for some sections of New England

Recently, the weather pattern has changed and we have received some welcome precip. in some areas including the western Maine Mountains. Water temps are falling through the 60’s with adequate water in the rivers. Perhaps we are looking at a better September fishing season with more waters fishing well, less crowding, and an earlier start of the fall migration.

My column for the August Maine Sportsman magazine that was all about fishing September either in the dark or during bad weather to beat the crowds has received some attention. You might want to check it out.

My summer fishing was time constrained (in a good way), because of lots of family visiting and my daughter, Mary’s wedding. I did some fun worm-dunking with my 2 year -old grandson, Noah. He has the makings of a fisherman. He claims every sunfish he catches is a “Beeg One”

I was also distracted at Kennebago because it was the best blueberry year in perhaps a decade. Everywhere you turned around was a lowbush blueberry filled with fruit. We picked gallons for the freezer and ate blueberry pancakes, muffins, turnovers, etc. constantly.

I did some local pond and lake fishing for bass and sunfish. One early morning, bass were subtly sipping dead insects from a spinner fall from the night before and were happy to suck down my popper but I missed many hook sets because they weren’t hitting it, just sucking it below the surface, so I missed several takes from good fish.

I did have a few leisurely afternoons wandering up the headwater streams north of Rangeley (where the water temps remained in the mid 60s) and catching small native brookies on my 3-weight. I think that the term “brookie” is most appropriate when landing fish under 8 inches from small waters. I don’t believe that a three-pound lunker should ever be called a brookie.

I will try to give you an early fall report in several weeks.

Obviously, the fishing season is in full swing and with relatively normal temperatures and rainfall, conditions have been good in most places and certainly better than last year’s early low and warm water. Most plant growth and flowering and hatches are earlier than normal by several weeks. At my camp north of Rangeley, we have Indian Paintbrush blooming already and I usually associate their red flowers with mid July.

My wife and I were able to try our hands at a few days of salter brook trout fishing in Acadia in early June. So fascinating to explore these unique brackish and coastal ecosystems. No wonder that brook trout historically were so widely distributed. They can adapt and thrive in widely diverse waters – deep lakes, fast flowing rivers, swampy bogs, tiny high-elevation streams, and brackish and saltwater creeks. Salters are not easy to find; they move around, populations are not high, and they mix with non-salter populations.

Salters are generally of modest size and we found them in small creeks including one that actually went underground on the beach and then the water came up through sand and rocks at waters edge. I assume the trout can actually only get to the ocean and back during very high tides, storms, and major run-off events, although saltwater no doubt mixes with the fresh water through the sand and gravel.

I always try to fish Damariscotta Lake during late May or early June and have managed it for 50 consecutive years! And after all of those decades, I might have had my best morning ever. Fishing a small popper on an early foggy morning, I hooked dozens of smallmouth and largemouth bass including at least 10 that between three and four 1/2 pounds. It was so much fun with constant action from large fish. I was in a rowboat, so I didn’t fish more than half a mile of one shoreline.

It is possible that the bass are growing bigger because of the massive alewive runs now. Baby alewives in the millions represent a lot of food.

Now is also the time of the big drake hatches – brown, green, and Hexes. In Rangeley the drakes start about the time the lupine are in full flower. Get out there and try to find them. I know I will.

The Season is Heating Up: Fishing Report

This is the time of year when fishing heats up for every species: Trout, Salmon, Bass, Pike, Stripers, Etc. in Ponds, Lakes, Streams, Rivers, The Salt. How is an angler to choose? Here is an excerpt of a column I wrote recently in the Maine Sportsman:

When the month of May arrives, almost everyone in northern New England gets a spring in their step (pun intended). And why not: days are longer and getting warmer, spring flowers are blooming, kids are counting down to the end of the school year, and vacation time is approaching. Life is good.

But not for me. I stress out during May and it gets worse every year. “Why,” you ask? It’s because this is the month when fly-fishing season gets into full swing and I can’t be everywhere at once. No drug can be prescribed that cures fishing fever.

Many Options

First of all, where I live, the local streams, rivers, and ponds are freshly stocked and the fly-fishing will never be better for the rest of the year. Further north, the native fisheries are producing their biggest trout and salmon of the year as they chase after smelt or gobble sucker eggs. In warm-water lakes and ponds, the bass are on their spawning beds (or soon will be) and they are at their height of aggressiveness towards topwater poppers. The stripers arrive by the end of the month and will not be this naïve for the rest of the summer. Pike continue to prowl in shallow water and are easy to reach. How is an angler supposed to choose where to fish?

I am paranoid about missing great fishing. Nothing is worse than heading to the water this time of year and not doing well. You lament the opportunity lost because you just know if you went somewhere else, you would be crushing it. I have sat in the car paralyzed because I couldn’t decide where to fish. This is not a recent psychosis. I was like this in my twenties.

May started out cool and water temps stayed in the upper 40’s but then we had a week with 100% sun and temps rising into the mid 80s or even 90 in spots and water temps zoomed. I took a reading on May 15 that showed surface waters approaching 60 degrees on Kennebago Lake, probably well over 10 degrees above normal. Trout started rising and we caught a bunch. My wife decided to wade a river in a tank top it was so hot.

By the way, I will be taking part in Rangeley’s Flyfishing Festival on June 4 with a table selling and signing books and chatting with folks and a presentation at 11:00 on How to Catch Trophy Brook Trout.

Back in my other house in Windham, in the early part of May, I found trout at most of the tailwaters and tribs of the Presumpscot River that are less than fifteen minutes from my house. You never know if you are going to find: nothing, stockers, holdovers, or wild trout. Click on link.

https://youtu.be/_2fyjVmo7-Q

I have also been exploring southern Maine Wildlife Management Areas, several of which have walk in or difficult access ponds with wild trout.

I will try to post more frequently, but in the meantime follow me on Instagram @mainelyflyfishing.com. Enjoy the season.