Complements of The Kittery Trading Post

Activity for the 3rd week of May, 2001

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May 21, 2001

            Last week's Winni Derby, held on New Hampshire's largest lake--Winnipesaukee, saw thousands of anglers vying for over $50,000 in prizes. The salmon, lake trout and rainbow trout didn't disappoint the fishermen.

            As it often turns out, Saturday's largest fish was the overall winner of the derby. A beautiful 4.98 pound landlocked salmon caught by Paul Hood of Berlin enabled Paul to take home the top prize of a boat, motor and trailer.             According to George Malloy at River's Edge General Store in Berlin, Hood had pre-fished the derby on Thursday and found that the salmon liked orange and white colored lures. He purchased a Top Gun spoon in that color and at 8:30 am on Saturday; his prize catch was taken on that lure!

            Paul and several other anglers from Berlin, including Dave Brodeur, producer of the exciting DB Smelt, had been chasing this prize for years, without success. Brodeur had boated nine salmon during the contest, all on his DB Smelt lure. But Hood beat his good friend out of the prizes. Our hats are off to those persistent Northcountry fishermen.

            Malloy's report revealed that he'd taken some family members across the border to fish one of Rangeley's Lakes--Upper Richardson. Also trolling a Top Gun, his son-in-law Brian Pilchat boated a lake trout over seven pounds, his first fish caught trolling.

            Rusty Harvey at River's Edge Sports in Oquossoc in the Rangeley area, reported that the fishing had really heated up there: "There's about a twenty day time frame when the big brookies are caught here at Mooselookmeguntic Lake. And it's started! This week we weighed the largest native brookie that I've seen since I've been in business, a 5lb., 13oz. monster that was 20.5 inches long. The fish took a junior size, copper Mooselook Wobbler. We've seen several other big brookies in the four-pound range. We also weighed a salmon from Rangeley Lake over four pounds that was caught on a copper Mooselook Wobbler. The fish are from 30 feet down to the top, and besides the Mooselook Wobblers, they're hitting Yo-Zuri lures, DB Smelt lures and streamers. The local ponds are still doing well on brook trout, and the Rapid River has turned on for landlocks. The lower Magalloway River also had produced some trophy-sized brookies," he ended.

            Dan Legere at the Maine Guide Fly Shop in Greenville, provided us with a detailed report of his area, and feels that the cooler weather has put things back to normal, and the hatches should be starting before the weekend.

            "The Moose River in Rockwood is full of fish due to the high run-off and the great smelt run. There is still a flush of bait coming through the dam at Brassua Lake--it's common to see salmon slashing the surface after smelts. Streamers are the answer there. When the Hendricksons (may flies) start to hatch, this should be a hot spot. The small ponds east of Greenville, especially Salmon, Secret, Rum, Indian, and Brown all have special trophy fish regulations. Salmon Pond has catch and release, while the others have a one brookie over 18 inches regulation. At the beginning, the mayflies will start to hatch mid-day--around noon and they'll last until 4 or 5 pm. Make sure you have plenty of blue dun, black gnat, and Adams dry flies in size 12-14 for some of the fastest fishing of the year," Dan suggested.

            Central Maine fishermen have found that some of the hot days had driven the fish down a bit, according to Regional Fisheries Biologist Bill Woodward. "The fishermen that started to troll deeper found some splake and salmon on Messalonskee Lake," he noted. "Some of the usual early season brown trout waters such as Biscay, Pemaquid and Damariscotta were producing some decent catches.  The few brook trout ponds in the area--Bowler in Palermo, Kimball in Vienna, Ross and Upper in Bristol, Little in Damariscotta, Peters in Waldoboro, Puffers in Dexter and Halfmoon in Searsport all have had reports of limit catches. Long Pond in the Belgrades produced a couple of brookies in the two to three pound range. Bass are close to spawning--the fishing should be fast in the next couple of weeks," Bill enthused.

            The Sebago Region was seeing a lot of action, according to Dave Garcia at Naples Bait on Long Lake. "The bass are in and out, but the largemouths seem to be starting to take their bedding efforts seriously. Last week, we had a white perch run at the Songo Locks that was great, until they slowed the water flow.  And out on Sebago, the salmon are starting to hit streamers--lots of action on average-sized fish in the 16-19 inch range. Lakers have dropped into the deeper water--80-90 feet.  We've seen some serious brook trout, some in the two to four pound range coming out of Pleasant Lake and Coffee Pond in Casco. Here on Long Lake, the browns have started to hit pretty well, and salmon trollers out in the middle of the lake are hitting fish, mostly down about 20 feet," Dave ended.

            "Biologists have made smelt transfers from Bryant Pond in Woodstock to Sebago Lake to help rebuild the smelt population there," reports John Boland, Regional Biologist there. "We've made two other smelt transfers to establish new populations of smelt into ponds which may serve as donor waters in the future for more smelt transfers."

            Boland also mentioned that the new rainbow trout introductions are doing well, with good success at the Little Androscoggin River in Mechanic Falls. He also singled-out Lake Auburn, Trickey Pond (Naples) and Moose Pond (Bridgeton) as other lakes where salmon fishing had been good. To Dave Garcia's list of hot brook trout ponds, Boland adds Jaybird Pond (Hiram) and Long Lake (Denmark). Sebago togue fishing remains top notch, as catches of up to 11 fish have been taken.

            "The salmon have started to hit streamers really well," added Carroll Cutting at Jordan's Store in East Sebago. "We're seeing more and more action on the salmon spreading out around the lake. Early morning has been the best," Cutting said.

            Kittery Trading Post's Dave Ganter experienced some fast smallmouth fishing in the shallows of Saponic Lake in the Enfield area last week. "They looked like they had started to bed. We also had some decent smallie fishing in the nearby Penobscot River, but we noticed the river water was quite a bit cooler, and the fishing wasn't as fast as in the lake," Dave noted.

            Fellow KTP staffer RJ Mere had just come back from sampling the fine fishing in Connecticut's Farmington River, where brown, brook and rainbow trout were all hitting the flies well. Another Kittery Trading Post fishing enthusiast, Chris Henson, noted that while things had slowed a bit from an earlier "blitz", the sea-run brown trout fishing on the Ogunquit River has remained very steady, with fish to 18 inches being quite common.

            Although much of the Granite State's fishermen's attention was centered on the Winni Derby and on the improving striper fishing on the coast, the Northcountry was producing some exciting action. "We went out on First Lake (Connecticut) last night for only two hours and boated six lakers, the largest was a four and a half pounder," noted Tom Remick at TR's Bait in Pittsburg. "We've seen lakers to seven pounds so far this week. Most of us are still-fishing with live sucker minnows in 30 or more feet of water. As the season warms, we have to go deeper. When it's windy, we'll anchor, but when we can, we prefer to drift. You catch more fish because you're covering more water. At Lake Francis, there was a surprising amount of fishing pressure this weekend, and they caught a ton of nice rainbows and a lot of average-sized salmon, with a few salmon going up to 20 inches but most of them in the under-legal to 17-inch range. There were a lot of rainbows in the 20-inch range. Both Round Pond and Moose Pond in Pittsburg have been producing some excellent brookie fishing," Tom reported.

            "We're pretty close to things here on Back Lake, and actually the fishing has been almost too good," enthused Cindy Caron at Tall Timber Lodge in Pittsburg. "Brown trout averaging about two pounds are hitting nightcrawlers fished near bottom, and some of the fishermen have really zeroed in on them. The Connecticut River had slowed down around the inlets, but we got a good rain last week.  The water came up and brought some of the trout and salmon back into the river. We've had a hatch of blue winged olives (may flies) on the river and a fly similar to a Hendrickson here on the lake. There were a lot of rising trout last night," she ended.

            Cedar Pond in Milan and Sessions Pond in Dummer had been good spots for brook trout, according to George Malloy at River's Edge General Store in Berlin. George also mentioned that there was a lot of action on the Androscoggin River, where hatches were pretty scarce of yet.

            Bill Martel's voice was hushed by a bout with bronchitis, but he was able to relay the fact that the white perch run on the Winnipesaukee River, right at Martel's Bait on the river there, was in full tilt. "I'm watching a dozen anglers right across from the shop, and they're having some great luck," he rasped out. He also noted some nice rainbow trout had also been caught from the river and that the trout and salmon fishing on Winnisquam Lake, as well as the bass fishing, were very good.

            Trout fishing in the southern parts of New Hampshire seemed to be dependent on when the stocking truck had arrived. But George Taylor at Taylor's Trading Post in Madbury said that he'd seen some outstanding rainbows from nearby Barbados Pond and some nice brookies from Stonehouse Pond in Barrington. "Some of the best news is that we now have a new trout pond, Willand Pond in Dover. The state built a new ramp there recently, and they've started to manage Willand for trout, along with the fine warm water fishery there. The rainbows have been hitting great there," he said.

            Chris Henson at the Kittery Trading Post, reported that anglers on the Lamprey and Isenglass Rivers had experienced some fast fishing, but in between trout stockings, the rivers could be quite slow. Chris also mentioned that New Hampshire's free fishing day had been announced--June 2nd. Both resident and non-resident anglers could fish for the day without any license required, but that other laws had to be faithfully followed.

            Saltwater news from all three states was very enthusiastic. From the Saco River in Maine to Boston Harbor, striper populations were building, and fish were getting larger. Pete Santini at Fishing FINatics in Everett, MA said, "We're killing 'em! Stripers, flounder, codfish--you name it. Flounder and cod are hitting in the North and South Channels and at Nixes Mate. Flounder are being caught off shore at the Sugar Bowl in South Boston and at the Swampscott Yacht Club Pier. The mouths of the Charles and Mystic Rivers are hot for stripers, while the trolling in the harbor with the Santini Tube and Worm combo has been best around Lower Middle (off Logan Airport) and at Nixes Mate," Pete ended.

            At Surfland Bait and Tackle on Plum Island, Kay Moulton was just as excited: "There's lots of stripers, mackerel and baitfish. This morning the big mackerel and stripers were blitzing on sand eels at the mouth of the river (Merrimack). We're starting to see stripers up to 35 inches and lots in the 24-26 inch range. Outdoor writer Roger Aziz has had some great shad fishing below the Lawrence Dam, but it's slowed as the water levels have dropped. The fish have moved down to the North Andover area. We've had no reports of flounder yet," Kay said.

            Jim MacKenzie, at Suds-n-Soda in Greenland, NH said that stripers were on and off both in Great Bay and in the Piscataqua, but said that the fish were getting larger. Mac also mentioned wonderful reports of groundfishing on the offshore ledges, but no reports of flounders in his area yet.

            A phone call from New Hampshire Fish and Game Commissioner Richie White revealed that big mackerel had made a feeding run into the lower Piscataqua River this weekend and that the lower river was full of small baitfish, in the one-inch range. The mackerel were feasting on them.

            Dave Ganter at the Kittery Trading Post and Cal Robinson at Saco Bay Tackle revealed that shad fishing at the Saco River dam right in town was fabulous. Ganter said that one of his customers, fishing chartreuse colored shad flutters, had some very fast fishing there. Robinson recommends hitting this area at either high or low tides, when the water flow is slower, and he's had reports of good luck using shad darts.

             According to Robinson, stripers were into the Saco Bay region in force with a lot of fish up to 29 inches, both in the river and in Saco Bay. He doesn't expect any mackerel in his area until the first of June.

          Past Fishing Reports 2001

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