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Saturday, April 02, 2005
Open water fishing season begins with lots of
ice, few anglers, catches
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||||||
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It was cloudy, and cool. A drizzle was falling, but as dawn approached, a soft light faded the surrounding hills into view. The roar of rushing water was all he could bear. It was time. Opening day of fishing season had arrived. Getting up early to fish on April 1 is a ritual that generations of Maine anglers have enjoyed -- a tradition among families like picking fiddleheads, the first day of deer season, or dipping smelt. It's nearly always cold, and the fish are rarely biting, but on principal, Mainers go fishing. Bernier was ready. He gathered his gear -- a hooded sweatshirt, a blaze orange cap, Bean Boots with pants tucked in to keep them dry, and of course, his fishing rod. He began the walk that thousands of opening day anglers before him have taken -- through drifts of corn kernel snow, down a pebbly trail and along patches of pine needles to a small, rocky point of land. The water was about right -- not too high or dirty, but still rushing white and foamy to a deep plunge pool, where he hoped salmon and trout might lay, waiting for an easy meal to drift by. In the distance, mergansers and goldeneyes traded places near the edge of the still-thick ice on Long Pond, diving for the baitfish -- probably smelt -- that had gathered there. A mallard hen quacked incessantly from a distant shore. Bernier's first casts were really just to loosen his arm. He was using a fly rod and sinking line, with a small red and white streamer tied to a thin leader. "I come through here every morning on my way to work," said Bernier, of Richmond. He commutes to Farmington daily. "Today I decided to get up an hour earlier and come fish. It's just great to be out here." Talk was of spring. He'd seen five woodcock in a field near his house a few days before, and watched from a distance as 20 deer grazed on bare grass nearby. He'd heard tell of heavy rain in the forecast, and looked forward to it washing away the rest of the snow. By 6 a.m., his arm was loose, and he'd caught nothing. He changed flies once, but to no avail. "I got up this morning at 3:30 a.m. and said 'Is this worth it?', then I got here and saw I was the only fool here! But of course it was worth it -- just to see the water again." COLD WATER,SLOW FISHING And that was all most fishermen in central Maine saw on Friday -- water. The fishing was slow -- cold, high water in most places kept fish sluggish, and down in deeper water. Local lakes and ponds are still buried beneath upwards of two feet of ice and snow, and the sun has yet to warm the water. Ice-out, and improving fishing conditions, are likely two to four weeks away on most central Maine lakes. Further north, near Moosehead Lake and in Aroostook County, ice out in mid- to late-May is predicted. At Cobbossee Stream, below the dam at Cobbossee Lake, the dam keeper had opened the gates the night before, lowering lake levels for the impending rain storm. The torrent had jumped the banks and flooded the surrounding woods in knee-high water -- making it a long cast just to reach the fishable channel. At 7:30 a.m., just a half-dozen anglers were fishing. One man cast flies below the dam. Another pair fished downriver, with spinning rods rigged with light split shot and night crawlers. Down the road, two other parties drifted smelt, hoping for a bite. Word had it that one group had caught, and released, three or four brown trout. The others caught nothing. Cobbossee Stream holds a wide variety of fish -- perch, pickerel, pike, bass, brook and brown trout. Most hope to hook brown trout here, though on opening day, any hooked fish is likely to gather a crowd. Jugg Stream, in Monmouth, also ran high. Don Osborne, of Lewiston, had a dropped a long cast into the deep pool below, bouncing a nightcrawler off bottom. He hadn't caught a fish, but he had high hopes. "I saw someone catch an 18" here earlier this morning," he said. BEST FISHING TO COME In other typically packed opening day locations, parking lots were empty. Early in the morning, no one fished at Castle Island, a popular early-season spot on Long Pond. At Wings Mills Dam, in Belgrade, the beautiful pool below the raceway was empty during prime mid-morning hours. Local Game Warden Kevin Anderson, who had scouted many of these spots earlier in the week, wasn't surprised. "Given the weather, it's what we expected. The water is still way too cold. The guys like getting out though, and it's good to see them," he said. He added that the water temperature at Cobbossee Stream was just 38 degrees -- far too cold yet for good fishing. For most, getting outside again after the long winter was enough. Catching something is going to mean waiting for warmer weather -- and lower water. The stocking truck will help too. Over the next few weeks in central Maine, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife will stock 63,000 brook trout, 54,000 brown trout, 600 togue, 4,700 landlocked salmon and 7,300 splake in 97 waters. It's only a matter of time, chuckled Myron Downing, of Belgrade Lakes, who sat in a lawn chair beside an open stretch of water on Echo Lake. Downing has plenty of it. April 1 this year -- opening day of fishing season -- also marked Downing's first day of retirement from the Maine Department of Transportation. For him, this opening day had a special meaning. "This is what I intend to do for the next 30 years, if I live that long," he said, then flung his bobber and smelt into the current. Dave Sherwood 621-5648 dsherwood@centralmaine.com |
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