Complements of The Kittery Trading Post

Activity for the last week of April, 2001

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 April 30, 2001

There's good news from many of the mid-state and southern parts of our reporting areas, with ice clearing from many of the lakes and some pretty good early season fishing to be had. Even though the brooks, rivers and streams are cold, high and dirty (except for coastal areas), some exceptional fishing has been experienced.

The big news has to do with Maine's second largest lake, Sebago and New Hampshire's largest lake, Winnipesaukee.

Sebago cleared last week, according to both Dave Garcia at Naples Bait at Long Lake and Carroll Cutting at Jordan's Store in East Sebago.

"We've seen some outstanding catches of togue (lake trout)," reported Dave Garcia. "There's been a few salmon mixed in with the togue, which the fishermen are really hammering! The salmon are running smaller than the lakers, but still are pretty respectable, up to 20 inches--not fat but still in good shape. I think that the lake is still a bit too cold for the salmon to be hitting well. We also have seen some very nice brookies coming out of the North West River--fish to 18 inches which is a bit of a surprise to us. The smallmouth have been gathering around the rivermouths and the largemouths have been hitting stick baits and Sluggo-type soft bait. The thing with the largemouths is that you want to be on the windward shoreline, where the wind piles up the warmer water, which in turn attracts the baitfish and the big largemouths," he instructed.

Dave also noted that there had been some substantial runs of smelt in the area and that as soon as the smelts start up the Songo River from Sebago Lake, the fishing around the mouth of the Songo would be the best of the year.

Carroll Cutting had also seen some pretty good action in his area. "We've seen some luck coming from the lake here and also from some of the tributaries. A brown trout of three and a half pounds was taken by a flycaster at the Muddy River. This same fisherman had caught two salmon in the twenty-inch range. The brown is an unusual catch, as the river isn't stocked with them. This fish probably came down from Long Lake, which is managed for browns and supports one of the best trout fisheries in the area," Carroll noted. (A late received call from Cutting came after he'd interviewed a couple of the local wardens. Cutting said that some of the fishermen that the wardens had check had been experiencing very fast action on landlocks--some of the best they'd seen in years. There were a number of salmon just under the sixteen-inch size limit, and most of the legal-sized fish were from 16 to 20 inches and in good shape.)

Other local trout ponds were a bit slower to clear of ice than Sebago, but Carroll said that they'd all be cleared out by the end of the week. Trickey Pond in Sebago had cleared out, but fishing there had been very slow. Lake Auburn still was mostly ice covered, but could have cleared as of this report. The Belgrade Lakes were in the process of clearing, but no up-to-the-minute information was available.

From Maine's far northern county of Aroostook, Kurt Lane and Pete Koch reported that the lakes had considerable open water at the inlets and outlets, but were still mostly ice bound. The rivers had cleared of ice, and were cold and high but still fishable. The big Aroostook River, especially the stretch above Presque Isle and the stretch from Caribou to Fort Fairfield, had some good opportunities to hook brook trout by trolling lures or streamer flies. Ice-out in the lakes was not expected for a week or ten days.

"Some of the Bangor Area lakes, such as Branch and Green, have cleared out, but we haven't heard much about the success yet," reported Gayland Hachey at Hachey's Rod and Fly Shop in Veazie. "The river here (Penobscot) is still closed to Atlantic salmon fishing, and a portion below the Veazie Dam is closed to all fishing. We've heard some reports coming back from the Mirimichi River in New Brunswick that the fishing for black salmon there has started to produce. One of our customers had one day of fishing where he landed four salmon, one grilse and lost twice that many, so it looks like we could expect a decent spring's fishing there," Gayland said. (He's anxiously awaiting news from the huge Restigouche River, where he makes an annual pilgrimage to fish for the outsized Atlantics that this big river is famous for.)

Danny Legere's Maine Guide Fly Shop will be resuming its regular hours tomorrow, so information regarding the Moosehead Lake Region was not available, but we did have a chat with Rusty Harvey at his River's Edge Sports Shop in Oquossoc, the center of activity in the Rangeley Lakes area. "There's not very much open water up here," Rusty laughed. "Except for some small areas, especially at Cove Bridge, the lakes are still icebound. We're looking at about 10 days for ice-out," he said. No river fishing pressure had been seen.

"Little Ossipee Pond in Waterboro has been producing some pretty steady salmon fishing, along with some decent white perch," reported Dave Ganter at Kittery Trading Post's Fishing Department. "The local York County ponds are also providing some excitement for the bass fishermen. Stick baits and soft jerk baits fished in the shallow, warm coves, seem to be the best method. I've also run across a lot of small, native brookies in my travels looking for shed deer antlers," he said.

Chris Henson at Kittery Trading Post had reports that Ell Pond in Sanford had been producing some pretty good rainbow trout action, a new program instituted just this spring.

"We're still seeing most of our trout fishing pressure coming from the sea-run brown trout rivers, especially the Mousam, Ogunquit and Steven's Rivers," reports Craig Bergeron, at Saco Bay Tackle. "Some of the trout we've seen were in the 16-17 inch size range. We haven't heard of any real monsters caught yet. There's been a lot of fishing pressure on some of our local smaller brook trout waters, such as Cascade Brook. The brookies are hitting, and conditions aren't that bad. Groundfishing has been excellent. Timmy Tower's boat, the Bunny Clark out of Ogunquit, has had cod to 35 pounds and a lot of real nice haddock," Craig said. He also noted that they had been selling a lot of sea worms to would-be striper fishermen, but had yet to hear of the first striper caught.

New Hampshire fishermen that left Lake Winnipesaukee early on Sunday missed the ice-out, which occurred later on in the afternoon. We welcome a new information source here for reports on the southern part of the big lake and on other local lakes. Paul Garland, owner of Hot Spots Outfitters at 10 Depot Road (just off Rte 11) and his staff member Jay Ramsey, will be providing local reports starting today.

"Yesterday morning, the open water extended only out to Sandy Point at Alton Bay at Winni," Paul told us. "By later on in the afternoon, the only visible ice that could be seen was across the Broads, in the Wolfeboro area. There's been some good success on landlocks at Alton, with most fish in the 20-inch range. Merrymeeting Lake (New Durham) had cleared of ice yesterday, and except for a few ice cakes floating about, is good for fishing, and a few salmon have already been taken. The rivers and brooks here are still pretty dirty and high, but stocking should be starting this week, " he thought.

Rick Lavoie at Nute's Trading Post in Wakefield, had some good news for anglers in that part of the state. "The lakes all seem to be clear, from Ossipee Lake down state. Province, Lovell, Great East and all the Milton Three Ponds are either partially or all ice-free. Duncan Lake in Ossipee had a lot of fishing pressure on opening day Saturday, but little pressure on Sunday, indicating that the fishing had been slow. I think a lot of our trout ponds hadn't been stocked yet because of the late ice-out," he said.

Rick also reported that salmon at Winnipesaukee in the five-pound range had been taken around the Long Island Bridge, and that most of the landlocks seen from around the lake were in the 16-20 inch range and action had been hot. White perch were also seen schooled up in Salmon Meadow Cove--located on the north east side of the lake in the Meredith area.

Veteran landlocked expert, Merrill Harper from Hooksett, had fished Winni from Ames Farm in Alton with his daughter Haley and friends. They had taken four nice salmon using two colors of leadcore line and live smelt.

Dave Ganter and Chris Henson, both at Kittery Trading Post, had some good news from the Winnipesaukee area. Dave reports that their staff member Chad Woodward caught two landlocks, one 19 and the other 22 inches, trolling a small white bucktail jig. Chad also has had luck trolling a muddler minnow fly/spinner combo. Chris stopped to check out the Merrymeeting River where it enters Lake Winnipesaukee. He'd seen several landlocks over sandbars upriver towards the dam.

Bill Martel at Martel's Bait in Laconia, reports that fishing on Winnisquam Lake had been pretty active, with some nice landlocks being caught. "There's no sign of the white perch run here. The water temperatures in the river are running around 42 degrees and they need about 50 degrees. There have been a few smallmouths showing up. We're also hearing of some good landlock and lake trout action at Winnipesaukee. The Governor's Island area has been the best bet so far," he noted.

Trout Unlimited activist George Foster of Epsom greeted opening day at Sky Pond in New Hampton. Although there were a few remnant ice floes, there were several fly fishermen having some pretty good luck on brook trout to 16 inches. As the day warmed, fishing pressure and success increased.

The word from New Hampshire's most northern town was a bit bleak. Lisa McKinnon at Tall Timber Lodges on Back Lake, said that all the local lakes were still icebound, and there had been very little action on the Connecticut River, where conditions were cold, high and muddy.

In Berlin, George Malloy at River's Edge General Store reported that high water conditions on the nearby Androscoggin River had improved during the week, and some hatches of small black stone flies and caddis had been noted earlier. All the area ponds were still iced over, but Cedar Pond in Milan was showing signs of melting.

The Merrimack and Pemigewasset Rivers Atlantic salmon fishing areas were not seeing much fishing pressure. Delayed stocking, cold, dirty and high water was the cause, according to outdoor writer and salmon fishing addict Bill Carney. "I don't expect to see any stocking until the end of the week, as the river is still pretty high. There has to be quite a few fish from last fall's stocking of about 1,500 Atlantics, but there are just not many people out yet. We'll be out there just as soon as the prospects look a little brighter," he enthused. (Bill has been spending many hours a week at the New Hampshire Legislature, lobbying for many of the sportsmen's interests.)

Jim MacKenzie, at Suds-n-Soda in Greenland, wanted to pass the word that the Annual Special Needs Kids Fishing Derby is scheduled for May 18th at Ted Johnson's (Greenland Redi-Mix) Pond on Portsmouth Avenue. You can get more information by calling Jim at 603-431-6320. Jim said that although a few anglers had been out trying for stripers, none had been caught yet, to his knowledge. He also reported lots of rainbow trout to two pounds coming from the Winnicut River nearby.

George Taylor at Taylor's Trading Post in Madbury, reported slow fishing of trout for opening day at local ponds, but did say that Exeter Waterworks Pond had produced some nice catches of rainbows to 18 inches, Bow Lake in Strafford had started to produce, and a few shad had been taken below the South Berwick Dam on the Salmon Falls River.

Massachusetts fishing had heated up, especially in the Boston Harbor area. Pete Santini at Fishing FINatics in Everett, was especially happy about the cod fishing. "The inner harbor has taken off! They're hauling-in limit catches from the Castle Island Pier and from the Triangle (off Deer Island between the #8 and #10 Buoys). The fish are running to 15 pounds. The cod are coming in close to shore, chasing the herring and are even being caught off the beach in the Winthrop area. Our flounder season opens tomorrow (May 1st). We're looking for a great year," he ended.

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