Hopefully, with the rain we received today, the start of fall fishing will begin. It has been slow the past few weeks with no rain, warm and low rivers, and most of the fish down deep and inaccessible. In mid-August we had a few heavy downpours in the Rangeley area and when the rivers came up briefly and cooled, I caught a couple of large early spawning run brookies in the Magalloway River and a few salmon became active in the Kennebago, but since then it’s been tough.
This rain should raise the rivers and the fish will start moving, first in the Maggalloway and then in the Kennebago, Rapid, Cupsuptic, and the Rangeley Rivers. I like intercepting the fish fresh from the lake – any reasonable streamer will work wonderfully. For those of you interested in me guiding you this fall, better call quickly, my calendar is filling up quickly. Excerpt from my book, “Flyfishing Northern New England: The Five Seasons”, the beginning of the Autumn section…

Autumn is my favorite time of the year. Crisp Nights, warm days, and endless blue sky. No mosquitoes, black flies, no-see-ums, deerflies – well, you get the picture. The chance to catch the biggest fish of the year in full spawning colors. As I write these words, I remember what I believe is one moment from one trip, but is most likely a mosaic of similar images and experiences from many trips that run together in my mind…

In the half-light of predawn, as I looked down at the dark rushing water, I could see nothing but a stream of white bubbles on the surface. Upstream, at the head of the pool, the water drops over a three-foot ledge and divides around a large submerged rock. To the right, the water races in a smooth arc before straightening for thirty yards and quickening again at the tail of the pool. Underneath the inside of the arc, the current has scoured the stream bottom to a depth of 10 feet or more. For a foot or so on the outside of the arc, where the current is slower, the water is only two feet deep over gravel and the occasional large rock.

It was on that rim that I was standing, casting a streamer upstream and then letting it drift down with the current. I was peering into the water, looking for my streamer because speed and depth were critical to success, as was the way it pulsated in the water.
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About ten feet out I spotted a bright red and yellow object twisting and turning in the current. Not my streamer, I realized, but a maple leaf. The leaf was a crimson and canary yellow color that only swamp maples can achieve during a New England September. It had fallen from a gnarled old swamp maple tree that leaned out over the water about 200 yards upstream Its extended branches had snared more than its share of my back casts over the years.

Closer to my feet, under the bubbles, I spotted my streamer, a fly that we call a marabou yellow ghost. It is tied just like a marabou black ghost, but with yellow marabou instead of white, and orange at the throat instead of yellow. As it drifted by and the line began to straighten, I gave a short strip – enough to twitch the streamer slightly from its otherwise natural drift.

For an instant, I thought I saw a dim white flash. Ten years ago I would not have recognized it as anything significant, if I had even noticed it at all. I cast upstream again, mending twice this time, sinking the streamer deeper into the water column. As the streamer passed over the rock where I had seen the flash, I twitched it upstream twice, feeling the adrenaline rush of anticipation that separates fly fishing from, well -most everything else. And then I felt the thump and my hand instinctively raised the rod tip at the same time.

As I wondered whether the salmon was hooked, I made two quick strips of line and then felt the solid weight of a well-hooked fish. Then, as if a final verification was required, the glistening shape of a landlocked salmon splashed over the surface of the water. As I pressured him out of the current, giving back line twice during two spirited runs, I idly thought to myself that intercepting the salmon as they make their annual fall spawning run is the highlight of my fishing year. The trick is being there when they are.