New Year: Lots Going On

Happy New Year to my fly-fishing friends

It has been an insane two months. Lots to communicate and will have to break it into a number of posts.

First, I have just returned from three weeks in Chile. Plenty on that trip to follow in the next few months. Second, my 3rd book, ” In Pursuit of Trophy Brook Trout: The Ultimate Handbook of Tactics, Timing, and Territories is now out – sort of. Third, it is flyfishing show season. Let’s take these in reverse order.

I will be at the Marlborough Fly Fishing Show on the weekend of January 17,18,19. In the afternoon on each day, I will be at the author’s booth and giving a presentation at 4:00 with the title of “10 kiiler flies that catch trophy brook trout and landlocked salmon”. Hope to see you there. Sunday is a bit of a wildcard at this point because of the forecast for a major snowstorm.

I will also be giving presentations at the Great Bay Trout Unlimited meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on Feb. 4 at 6 pm (Tactics for Catching Difficult and Pressured Fish) and Barre, Vermont at The Steakhouse at the invitation of the MadDog Trout Unlimited Chapter on the 7th at 6 pm (How, Where, and When to catch trophy native brook trout). Stop by, all TU chapters welcome guests.

As far as my new book is concerned. It is now available as a kindle book only on Amazon. Printed copies will be available in mid-February, first at Amazon and from myself, then a week or two later at fly shops and other outlets. Contact me if you would like a signed copy and I will sell direct to you. You get a signed copy and I enjoy a better profit on the sale of my book.IMG_0838 (2)

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One technique that I had not fished much before was fishing a dry-fly dropper rig with huge flies. Big foam chenobyl-type dry flies and big rubber-legged girdle-bug type dragon-fly nymphs as a dropper on four feet of tippet. Big trout crushed these flies – especially the dropper, but occasionally thrashing the surface as they engulfed the dry.

The Chilean scenery can make it difficult to look down to follow your fly.

The Chilean scenery can make it difficult to look down to follow your fly.

This fish that my wife caught looks like a salmon but is in fact a freshwater rainbow caught in Lago Yelcho when it grabbed her rubber-legged girdle bug. She needed every bit of her 7-weight rod to land this fish

This fish that my wife caught looks like a salmon but is in fact a freshwater rainbow caught in Lago Yelcho when it grabbed her rubber-legged girdle bug. She needed every bit of her 7-weight rod to land this fish

Big browns also fell for the huge dry fly dropper combination

Big browns also fell for the huge dry fly dropper combination

More to come….

November is a Blast From the Past

The last few years, late October and early November have been unseasonally warm and fly fishers have enjoyed fishing waters still open and had reasonable success. Anglers fishing the Kennebec, Upper Presumpscot, and Lamprey Rivers, just to name a few, caught fish into December. This year, we are having a late fall that is blast from the past before global climate change warmed October and November – rain, snow, wind, and cold.

At Kennebago, we have had four snow storms in the last few weeks and the forecast for tomorrow night is for a low temperature slightly above zero F. To finish my camp chores, I have slipped and slid in the snow twice already. Recently, the lake hasn’t even frozen until after Xmas – this year it will be frozen this week.

I haven’t been fishing much because my new book deadline was this month and I have been working every spare minute finishing the details. Here is a tentative cover for it. I took it off my computer so terrible photo and you can ignore the bright candle shapes on the right side, but it will give you a sense of things.

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It also boosts blood supply to http://bananaleaf.com.ph/cialis3910.html discount cialis the reproductive organs causing erectile dysfunction. Doctors still advise the users to buy branded drugs like on line viagra , viagra. Exercise: It is vital to work buying generic cialis out at least 30 to 45 minutes prior to the person’s stimulation. cialis online What is porn addiction? Pornographic addiction can be defined as not being able to achieve or sustain an erection. I did sneak down to Florida last week for some saltwater fishing. We caught a few bull redfish and a variety of other smaller fish. While we were out on the gulf, dodging red tide (nasty stuff}, we noticed part of a roof floating on the surface. It was not doubt from Mexico Beach, just up the coast, that was devastated by the recent hurricane. A saltwater fish called a tripletail loves to hang out under topwater debris and we raced over because catching a good sized tripletail (they grow up to 40 pounds) is quite rare on a flyrod. We spotted a few hanging under the roof (and no dead bodies thank God). I caught one well short of 40 pounds (subtract a zero) on the fly rod and added a fish to my lifetime fly rod list. They fight hard, as you might expect from a fish that is a cross between a sunfish and smallmouth bass, but fatter and wider.

My first tripletail on a shrimp fly

My first tripletail on a shrimp fly

My son-in-law with good bull redfish

My son-in-law with good bull redfish

 

Late September Update

With slightly less than a week to go in the official fishing season, fishing reports are inconsistent in the Rangeley area. Some anglers, intercepting a school of migrating trout and salmon fresh from a lake do exceptionally well. Others report fishing is very slow.

This is mostly due to the fact that once again the temperatures for the  first three weeks of September were warmer than normal, with few nights dropping down below 50 degrees. Lake temperatures were also warm so not many fish were moving. It really takes water temps to drop into the 50’s before migration commences. Also, rainfall was once again below normal. A flush of water will move fish too but September has brought about half the amount of usual rainfall.

The last few days have brought colder temps, even a frost, and we expect rain today so as has been usual the last few years, the fishing will probably go gangbusters the few days before the season closes.

My own fishing has reflected the general trend in September. I fished a number of days on the Maggalloway and Kennebago Rivers and caught very few decent fish – a salmon here, a salmon there. But then on two separate mornings before sun up, found a fresh school and caught a dozen incredible trout and salmon in just a few hours. It is tough to take good photos by yourself, in dim light, when big fish are still rising, and you don’t want to stress the fish, but here are a few marginally okay photos. The longish-looking trout was about 18 inches with a huge mouth.

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One weekend last week, my daughter and boyfriend were fishing on Kennebago Lake where a stream enters the lake (in less than two feet of water) and caught only small brookies until he landed an 18 incher. Like I said, no predictability.

Hopefully, you get to enjoy at least a day or two on the water before the season ends.

September Update

First, the bad news…. It seems that for the next five years Middle Dam on the Rapid River is going to be replaced. Here is the information:

On August 15, 2018, Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners (the owner of a number of Maine dams) filed an application with the Maine Land Use Planning Commission (LUPC) to rebuild Rapid River’s Middle Dam (the river’s start from Richardson Lake). Work is already underway by upgrading roads. Actual dam work will start in 2019 and not be completed until 2023 – five years later.

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This project is similar to the replacement of the famous Upper Dam (on
Mooselookmeguntic Lake) over the last five years. This is not good news for fly fishers. Those who fish Upper Dam know that during the replacement phase, changing water channels, loud noise from construction efforts, and having to evade construction vehicles really diminished the fishing experience. The completed Upper Dam has eliminated prime fishing spots on or near the dam, concentrating anglers at the tail of the pool and reducing angler capacity. The fear is that we are in for the same situation with Middle Dam.
The plans for Middle Dam completely change the current dam configuration, including
elimination of the three fishing piers. The dam proposal has a spot on the dam labeled “Fishing Platform”, but the actual area for anglers is small and may not allow effective flycasting. It is critical that anglers make their desires known to (1) minimize fishing disruption during construction (2) not uniformly riprap the entire pool, (3) to construct usable fishing platforms so that the finished dam doesn’t eliminate fishing opportunities at what is arguably one of the best trout and salmon fishing spots in all of Maine.
Interested fly-fishing groups and individuals wrote to LUPC during the month of August
requesting a hearing. For the lasts up to date information,contact Trout Unlimited, the Native Trout Coalition, Rangeley Heritage Trust, or Friends of Richardson Lake for the latest information and how best to get involved.
Fishing during the first ten days of September was slow. Water was still warm and river and stream flows were also modest due to lack of recent rain. As a result, the fish weren’t moving into rivers or feeding on the surface. In fact, fishing was so dead in the Rangeley area that it was like a chemical spill had killed all of the fish.
But recent cold nights and over an inch of rain last night are livening things up considerably. Salmon and trout are starting to be caught. I got a report that the upper Mags is getting hot.

Of course, being out fishing is always worth while even if the fish aren’t cooperating, Check out this sunset from a few nights ago over Little Kennebago Lake.

Sunset too beautiful to focus on the fly

Sunset too beautiful to focus on the fly

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Finally, for those of you who are interested in reading more of my stuff, a reminder: I write a freshwater column  approximately every other month for the Maine Sportsman magazine/newspaper. Look for it in the September Issue available at news stands now, and also in November and December. I will also have several articles in upcoming issues of Eastern Fly Fishing Magazine.

The Mid-summer Doldrums

The weather up and down the entire east coast remained hot, humid, and rainy from mid-July to mid-August. While rivers had plenty of flow, water temperatures in rivers and right below the surface of most lakes was in the 70’s – just too warm for good trout fishing. People believe that it is the hot sunny days that heat up water temperatures, but a bigger impact is when nights are warm and humid and the water doesn’t cool from evaporation when the sun goes down.. Most of the nights in Maine during this time period stayed in the 70’ss with high humidity.

I didn’t do a lot of fishing because I hurt my back playing one-on-one basketball with my son. (My heart said yes, but my body said no). The fishing I did was in the headwaters or small tributaries of some of our famous Rangeley waters. The water was a little cooler and flow was good. The trout weren’t huge, 6 to 12 inches, but they were eager and seemed bigger on a 3-weight from pools the size of a one-car garage. And of course we never saw a soul, even though it was during weekends.

I want to go back in time to six weeks ago  because I haven’t had a chance yet to mention  a huge storm that hit the Kennebago area on evening of July 2nd. This Maine summer has been hot and humid with a chance of thunderstorms almost every day it seems. Some isolated storms have been severe with localized high winds and flooding. Sometimes a line of thunderstorms will pass over the same area again and again, a phenomenon called “training” – like train cars passing over the same section of track. This event can cause continual cloudbursts. This weather struck northern Franklin County between the Canadian border and Kennebago and Parmachenee Lakes on July 2nd.

We experienced record-setting heat at Kennebago Lake the first week of July

We experienced record-setting heat at Kennebago Lake the first week of July

During that night, a train of severe storms in Bowman Township dropped over three inches of rain in just several hours.

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Approaching storm on the evening of July 2nd

Approaching storm on the evening of July 2nd

This area has been extensively logged, reducing the forest soils’ ability to absorb water. One result:  the upper stretch of Little Kennebago River overflowed its banks and turned a thick muddy brown – imagine the color of the Mississippi River. So much muddy water flowed that Little Kennebago Lake, the western end of Kennebago Lake, the entire Kennebago River, and the part of Cupsuptic Arm where the river empties, all turned the same chocolate brown. It remains to be seen if this silting event has any longer-term effects on this critical coldwater fishery.

For the next several days the Kennebago River turned to mud.

For the next several days the Kennebago River turned to mud.

The incoming muddy river turned the west end of Kennebago Lake muddy as well.

The incoming muddy river turned the west end of Kennebago Lake muddy as well.

 

Hot Weather, Cold Weather, Drought, Flooding: What’s happening

To say that the weather has been unpredictable over the last three weeks would be a bland understatement. I have been fishing in Rangeley, the Deboullie Mountain area in northern Maine, West-Central Vermont, and southern Maine, I have experienced 90’s in northern Maine that never see those temperatures. I have woken up to temps. in the lower 40’s. I have fished rivers so low that they looked like they did during the drought of late last summer, and fished in rising waters that threatened to wash me away. This is not exactly a shocker, but the fishing during this time has been all over the place – crazy good or horrendous. For example….

In late June, the fishing on Kennebago River below the Dam was really slow for big fish. Even Grant’s Camps newsletter said that the big fish were few and far between. The river was low, at mid-summer level, so the salmon hadn’t migrated in from the lake. Then we got a little rain and had two really cold nights – mid 40’s by morning. I decided to try the river during the middle of the day – bright sunshine – and saw not a single rise in my favorite pool. No one else was fishing the river because the biting insects were persistent and the lake was experiencing the annual brown drake hatch. I had the river to myself, but so what.

Boy, did things change in a hurry, when I started prospecting by high-stick nymphing or swinging a wet fly through some of my favorite runs. Without getting into excrutiating details, the fishing started so hot that I stopped, went and got my wife, returned with her and we both continued fishing. Three hours later, when we stopped fishing, together we had landed 25 good-sized salmon and a few wallhanger trout. The only explanation I can come with is that the rain brought some fish into the river and they all moved together in one school and moved rapidly up river to where cooler water was coming in that had been exposed to the cold night air. Since, insect activity was minimal, they were hungry and in feeding mode, and hadn’t seen a fly. It is the best fishing on the Kennebago we have ever had. A picture is worth a thousand words so …

my wife, Lindsey with a strong-looking salmon

my wife, Lindsey with a strong-looking salmon

four pound plus, 23 inch female brook trout

four pound plus, 23 inch female brook trout


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In early July at Red River Camps in the Deboullie Mountains it was either way to hot to fish (surface water temps. in the 80’s) or too windy (when temps dropped from 93 to 43 in 36 hours) so I practiced photography instead..

Red River Camps Boat House

Red River Camps Boat House

Red River Camps

Red River Camps

Exploring remote pond

Exploring remote pond

Odds and Ends

Hello friends,

This entry is going to contain a whole bunch of unrelated little items. Should be fun to read but maybe a little all over the place!

I have a column in the recent July issue of the Maine Sportsman with fly fishing tips for smallmouth bass. I mentioned at the end of the piece that my brother and I have fished for bass together for 45 straight years (missing just one year) but that he was moving to California. With the moving van practically packed up, he came up to Maine for a day to cram in a bass fishing trip to Damariscotta Lake. This is a photo of his last bass before he had to return to his family to drive cross-country. It may have been the largest bass he has ever caught. What a way to send him off to the west coast!IMG-0505

In other news…Wilderness Adventure Press is releasing in early July a new edition of my first book, “Flyfishing Northern New England Seasons” with a new additional section that contains tactics and tips for catching large (trophy-sized) wild brook trout and landlocked salmon. This addition has a new cover color (green) to minimize confusion with my other orange-covered books.

Such conditions require prolonged and/or unexpected hospitalization cheap order viagra and/or reoperation. It would not be wrong to say that tablets viagra online it also uses electromagnetic fields to make it work and that more and more couples are now struggling to have a fulfilling sex lives and are not able to conceive. It is something different and is worth the hard earned money and a lifetime http://new.castillodeprincesas.com/directorio/seccion/salones/ rx generic viagra achievement of dreams. They are now thankful to the medicine for make a night http://new.castillodeprincesas.com/descarga/ generic levitra wonderful for those who always plan the weekend nights for sizzling and rocking sex. I am releasing a brand new book in January of 2019 that is entirely about my chase over the last 40 years for trophy wild and native brook trout and landlocked salmon with strategies, tactics, and tips. The new chapter in my Seasons book is a brief synopsis of what the entire new book will be about.

Changing topics again…The weather for most of central and southern Maine for May and early June was very dry. Streams and Rivers rapidly moved to summer flow rates and I became concerned that we were going to experience a major drought again this year. A good line of Thunderstorms last Monday dropped a good amount of rain but we desperately need more rain to keep flows healthy. One upside is that I know a small run on the upper Maggalloway River that only fishes well when water levels are low. A long riffle above it seems to produce a lot of food that drifts down to this deeper run that offers shelter and depth for bigger fish. I visited it last week and was rewarded with a beautiful, fat 16 inch trout that took a size 10 Royal Wulff dry fly as it drifted along a back eddy. Big trout love to sit in back eddies facing downstream.

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Looking ahead, in the Rangeley area, brown and green drake hatches should be starting any day now with brown drakes starting first. I will be heading up on the 24th hopefully to intercept them.
Continue reading

Memorial Day Weekend

How things have changed since Ice -0ut. In only three short weeks, western Maine Mountain waters have warmed substantially and rivers have dropped precipitously. Believe it or not, we need rain, or we will have a repeat of last spring and summer, when the fishing in rivers and streams became difficult very quickly. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much in the forecast for the next ten days.

The waters are still cold and the hatches just starting but the fish are looking up in the shallower and warmer waters in most lakes and ponds. My family and I found a concentration of fish in just one section of a local river and caught fish from 8 to 17 inches on a variety of flies including Soft-Hackle streamers, small dark hendricksons, and Prince nymphs.

My favorite fish caught was a very fat 17-incher that was rising just off an overhanging alder branch. From downstream, I high-stick nymphed him, saw the line straighten slightly, and tightened up to set the hook. The fish was confused at first but then figured it out and tried to run under the overhanging alder branches and tree roots before I finally crossed the stream and was able to clear the line. No photo unfortunately, but a real beautiful, fat, in-prime-of-health fish.

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Part of the family fishing this weekend
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Earlier in the week, I was at the Damariscotta River watching the alewives run up the fish ladder at Damariscotta Mills. The run looks to be over a million fish this year. Quite an increase from a number of years ago, all due to conservation efforts. See my video below.

 

 

Ice Out at Kennebago Lake

I am fortunate enough to be up at my camp on Kennebago Lake during ice out, which I believe will be tomorrow although the ice is almost gone from my part, the far northwest corner of the lake. Between snow melt and rain, water is cascading down the hillsides and the lake is up into the bushes. Weird weather. Warm and humid with fog over the cold water, then colder and humid, and then severe thunderstorms with pouring rain. Enjoy the photos.IMG_0080 (2) IMG_0085 (2) IMG_0088 (2)

I also took my first Maine fishing trip of the year to Collyer Brook in Gray, Maine. This year was by my reckoning, my 30th year fishing this local small water and if memory serves, I have never been skunked there in the Spring. I know though that a number of years I only caught one fish, I probably stayed as long as it took to catch one. Usually, Collyer is the place I go for my first trip of the year. This week, the fish were in a real biting mood, sometimes stocked fish are not. I even caught a small wild or holdover trout although I didn’t get a photo.

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Welcome Spring!

Ice Out

The recent warmer weather has accelerated ice out and most lakes and ponds are ice free with the exception of the mountains and the far north. Ice Out is any day now on Azischos, Rangeley,  and Kennebego. With rain in the forecast, it won’t be long.

While just a few days ago, water temperatures in streams and rivers were still in the low 40’s even in southern Maine, the temps yesterday in the high 80’s changed that. While water temps are warming some rivers and streams are very high. For example, most rivers in Vermont are unfishable due to continued rain and snow melt. With rain in the forecast over the next few days, rivers that are high won’t drop much.

I haven’t done much fishing in Maine because I was in Florida fishing for Spanish Mackerel,Jack Crevalle,  Redfish, and Sea Trout. All those fish pull hard when hooked, which more than makes up for the fact that sometimes fishing the salt with a fly rod is an exercise in patience and frustration.spanish mack (2)

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My son-in-law releasing a nice sea trout. No, he isn’t about to rob a bank. His head coverings are the latest in UV protection gear.