I'm just back from a week and a half of camping and fishing. Boy, what a time! I stayed at Rangeley State Park for nine days. Rangeley State Park is truly a beautiful State Park. It is located in the western mountains of Maine. Its proximity to the Appalachian Trail makes it handy for hikers as well. Rangeley State Park also has a very nice marina and an abundance of in park trials. A boat slip is included with your campsite.

My focus was fishing. And fishing for Rangeley Lake Landlocked Salmo can be tough this time of year! So, I spent as little time as possible hiking the Rangeley State Park trail system. But, with all the trails so close, it's hard to resist a hike in the middle of the day.

Rangeley State Park's Marina is managed on a first come first serve basis. With ample slips, I found it relatively easy to find appropriate berthing after fishing for Rangeley Landlocked Salmon. This brings up another good point. If you have a cuddy cabin, you can even sleep on your boat if you desire. There is no water or electricity available, but the Rangeley State Park Marina is serviced by a full service out house that includes toilet paper! There are regular latrines in the camping area with flush type toilets for those of you with an aversion to out houses. But you really should try the out house if you haven't already!

The fishing on Rangeley Lake for Landlocked Salmon last week was extremely slow. I only spoke with one other party that was picking up Landlocks. And they were small.

I started out the trip by trolling sewn on dead smelt. The use of live bait is illegal on Rangeley Lake. I have been using the pickled variety of rainbow smelt this year. These pickled smelt worked great on my trip in April; they are firmer and hold their shape well. This trip, I just could not seem to hook up with the use of this bait.

I switched to trolling a small silver and blue Williams spoon and a white DG Minnow with red dots. I started hooking up with barely legal Brook Trout (10") and Landlocked Salmon (14"). Some of the fish were so small they didn't even trip my Roemer downrigger releases. Now that is small. But I was boating fish!

My lake side campsite was windy and some nights down right cold. But my half truck load of campfire wood came in handy as I built well stocked fires upon coming off the lake.

The Western Mountains are known for their variable weather conditions. While the rest of Maine may be experiencing clear skies, the Western Mountains will usually be seeing rain squalls and variable cloudiness.

For those of you with a special fondness for yellow perch, I heard of one fisherman picking up a twelve incher. This is not my type of fishing. To say the least, the fishing was slow. But I did get to catch up on some much needed reading!

If you're planning a trip to Rangeley State Park, bring warm clothing no matter what the time of year. I ran into one camping party that was complaining about the cool fall temperatures the Park was experiencing. They had on summer shorts and T-shirts. I expect they left the chamois shirts at home. One morning I wore two!

To sum it up, Rangeley Lake produces larger Landlocked Salmon when trolling dead sewn on smelt. The larger the better - five inches in length if you can find them. Troll them at the depth that you are marking the majority of bait at; do not troll faster than 1.5 mph, at times, the slower the better. Rig them with a number 8 or number 6 treble hook dangling loosely from the anal area. If trolling spoons, pick the speed up a little, 2.5 mph is not too fast!

Last week the thermo cline on Rangeley Lake was around 38 to 39 feet down. The thermo cline is where the upper warmer water is separated from the deeper cooler water. This area can be very productive. If you have a way of measuring water temperature at different depths, try targeting 51*F. This is the magic temperature for Rangeley Salmon.

Good luck fishing and be save by wearing a life jacket!

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