The key to snagging stripers

By Dick Pinney

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Cold, wet and windy conditions put a lot of the fishermen off the water this weekend, but good news was much more prevalent than bad, from both our fresh and saltwater sources. Ice-out in some of the northern areas came as no surprise as lack of a hard winter and not much snow cover sped up the process. In Maine now, only the most northern lakes still have ice cover and chances are that before the end of the week, many of them will be ice-free. The rest of New Hampshire's most northern waters will also probably lose their ice this week.

    Maine: "When it comes to early season fly fishing for schoolie stripers, you want to pay attention to the 'three Ts'—time, temperature and tide," suggests Chris Henson at Kittery Trading Post's fishing department.

    "The first stripers that early season fishermen will encounter are probably all holdover fish that have spent the winter here. These fish are hungry, but they also are well adapted to our conditions and know their way around. Even when the migrating schoolies come, the time, water temperatures and tides are most important and if you hit a day when all of those three conditions are favorable, you're going to have weary arms!"

    Early in the morning and at dusk are always perfect for fishing, as the low light allows the fish to be less wary of predators and makes the baitfish more vulnerable. That's a given for almost all fishing. But on tidal waters, if the tides are not right, then you need to change your times of fishing."

    "Early in the season the tides will have a lot to do with water temperatures. If you can find an outlet of a bay or river that has flooded on the high tide, it's a good bet that stripers will be waiting for the tide to change that will bring the warmer water from the bay out with plenty of baitfish. The stripers love to hang out in those outlets and let the tide bring the bait to them. This time of year we're talking small baitfish, so you need to choose your flies accordingly."

    "The outflows of power plants and some other industries that use water for cooling will also provide some great fishing that isn't tide dependent. Right here on the Piscataqua River on the New Hampshire side, those power plants release warm water and catching stripers in that warmer water is often fast and furious. Also, later in the year the baitfish will congregate around the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant's outlet that is out in the ocean. That spot can provide some fast fly, lure or bait fishing."

    "The best striper fly fishermen don't just go out without a plan in mind. They are mindful of the times, the tides and the temperature. Putting their tactics to practice yourself will make you a better angler and also bring your awareness of your surroundings to a higher level," Chris said.

    Craig Bergeron at Saco Bay Bait and Tackle has the word that those holdover stripers in his area have finally woken up and are on the bite. "We've had reports of schoolies that apparently are holdovers from the Ogunquit, Mousam, York and Saco Rivers, as well as the Scarborough Marshes and they're hitting pretty well."

    "Another surprise is that mackerel were spotted by the Marine Patrol guys last week and their presence was confirmed by a couple of lobster fishermen that had mackerel in their traps. This is pretty early for them."

    "Also, our sea run trout fishing really woke up a couple of weeks ago and there has been some very good fly fishing in a lot of those same rivers that have the stripers—especially the Mousam and Ogunquit. It's not all fly fishing, but flies do dominate. The Clouser minnow is always a favorite as are shrimp and scud imitations. For lures, Panther Martin and Mepps spinners in gold and sliver work well, as well as Swedish Pimples and Pinn's Minnows."

    Dave Garcia at Naples Bait on Long Lake in the Sebago region said that the brook trout fishing, especially on the ponds locally, has been terrific. "Apparently stocking of some real quality brookies up to a foot long had taken place. We know that Trickey Pond in Naples and Thomas Pond in Casco have been doing well and there has been a lot of those brookies coming from the Songo Locks along with some very pretty salmon—fish in the 20 to 24 inch range. There's been some good-sized yellow perch at the Locks and we would guess that those big white perch might show up there this week."

    "The Crooked River has been producing some good salmon for streamer fly fishermen, but we haven't heard of any keepers as their size limit is an incredible 26 inches! The west shore of Sebago Lake has been hot for togue (lake trout) with some catches of fish in the five to eight pound range as well as an occasional whopper. The togue are down at 80 to 110 feet of water still and you need to drag bottom. Sewed on smelts have been the best producers."   

    Dave said that largemouth bass had really started to go on the feed. On one day at Moose Pond in Bridgeton, he had caught and released five lunkers of over five pounds, using suspending jerk baits. His son Tyson had also been doing well on white or white and chartreuse spinner baits.

    Carroll Cutting was back to work at his Jordan's Store in East Sebago after recovering from some serious surgery. "Our lake is healthier, there's no doubt about it. The smelt situation here is incredible. One fisherman had marked a school of smelt that were down 100 feet over a 200-foot depth bottom. With his GPS unit, he plotted the school at being 1.75 miles long! The salmon we've seen come in here are in excellent shape and so far we've weighed a 16 and 17 pound togue. Right now, the lower end of the Muddy River would be the place to try for the salmon."   

    Dan Legere at the Maine Guide Fly shop emailed us this report. It had to be changed slightly as the ice had just gone out when we called his wife Penny at his shop in Greenville for an update:  "Although Moosehead isn't free of ice yet, it will be before long. With May 1st being opening day for Moosehead, Wilson & 1st Roach and still nearly two weeks away, everything should be open well before then."

    "The small trout ponds are going out daily. Prong & Mountain View Ponds are open. Others are half out. Some of the smaller ponds tucked in holes are still iced-in, but my guess is most everything will be open by next weekend. There is supposed to be another warm-up mid-week .The nice dry weather we have had with little snow is drying the back roads nicely. Access to the back country ponds should be good this spring."

    "Fish have been showing at the East Outlet as well as at Brassua Dam on the Moose River in Rockwood. The smelt should start running in all the right places as soon as the sun comes back out and the temperature rises again. It's rain & snow here in Greenville today. Like everywhere else, we could use some substantial rainfall, but it is the rainy season and typically we get plenty of rain in the next few weeks."

    "Life is beginning again in the northcountry and frankly I can't wait. It's been a long winter. It's time once again to make some early season fishing plans. We are open Friday, Saturday & Sunday the remainder of April. May 1st we'll be open 7 days till fall."

    There was a lot of excitement in the Rangeley Lakes Region over the weekend, as Mooselookmeguntic cleared of ice mid-week and Rangeley went out early Sunday morning, according to Jerry at River's Edge Sports in Oquossoc.

    "The fishing here started off with a bang! We had one boat that fished only an hour and a half and boated 16 salmon, with some really nice fish. We weighed the largest and it went 4.3 pounds. Streamer flies were the best bet."

    "We haven't heard from Upper or Lower Richardson Lakes yet, but we presume they are clear of ice or will be shortly. Also, Aziscohos Lake won't be iced-out for a couple more days—it's always later. Smelt are running at Mill Brook and all the regular places and the Rapid River is still doing well, but the other rivers are spotty," he said.