First Week of June Review

I love the month of June as the days are getting longer and the trout and salmon are more active throughout ponds and rivers. The Presumpscot River has seen a tremendous amount of fish stocked and even some 17 inch plus fish.  With this stocking program there are many large hold over trout from year to year and the fun is when you finally find them. The key to this section of the river is to get there early so you can fish some of the more popular spots. Even with the crowds there is plenty of river to explore and you can find fish just about everywhere.  When I arrived to the river in the middle of the week I was the only angler there for over an hour with rising and willing fish.  The Barr Emerger in the Blue Winged Olive pattern was deadly fished just under the surface.  Fish this pattern across current and slowly strip it back to you or let the current slowly work it over rising fish.  When you have let the fly drift down below your position hold it there for a little bit and slowly begin your retrieve back to you.  You will be surprised with how many trout you can catch with this technique.  While fishing in the first pool I noticed some very large rises below me.  Never one to pass up on larger fish I moved into position.  While standing next to the pool in question I noticed many large fish holding very tight to the bottom.  The water in this section is crystal clear which makes the fish a little more skittish.  Wear drab clothing to blend into the surrounding environment and keep your movements slow.  While presenting your nymph you will need to adjust your split shot to effectively drift your fly along the bottom.  You will hang up along bottom and you will loose flies, but that is a surefire way to know you are fishing in the zone.  I hooked up with a very nice trout on a pink worm.  The mayhem that he created was awesome as fish scattered everywhere in the pool when I hooked him.  There were many bigger fish to be had in that pool.  Later in the morning I found the hold over trout working on emerging insects.  I hooked into one with the Barr Emerger and after a few strong runs the large brookie broke me off.  I saw even bigger trout swim around the pool and even one tremendous brown trout.  I will be making many more return trips to that pool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also made an afternoon trip to Sebago Lake to fish for togue (lake trout) and salmon with Dan Hillier.  We fished along Frye’s Leap without any strikes and even had a float plane come in very close to us on the landing.  We went back to a secret spot on Jordan Bay where we have always had luck with togue.  Even with fishing slow for togue we had two rods out on the side for salmon.  Each one of them had on a DB smelt lure, which has proven deadly on this lake.  Before we had landed a togue a small salmon hooked up right on the surface.  Not a huge salmon, but a very bright and lively one.  We did manage some very nice fish that we caught at 90 feet.  The highlight was making a turn to stay within 90 feet of water and the right side down rigger went off with a decent fish.  Dan started to pull the left side down rigger when he hooked up with another togue.  This is not the first time this has happened here and will not be the last.  The kicker with this day was the very nice salmon that jumped in our prop wash not more than 30 feet behind the boat.  We had pulled the surface rods due to getting ready to leave and getting tired of pulling the three other lines when one hooked up.  Lesson learned there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Range Pond was very interesting this week due to the incredible amount of alewives that were present.  While launching my boat I noticed fish working along the beach and noticed flashes of silver as they fed on nymphs under the surface.  They were in every cove feeding and they switched to feeding on emerging insects just under the surface film as the day wore on.  I only hooked up with bass on this day and a few of the alewives.  I did notice numerous bass spawning beds along the shoreline that are now vacant of fish.  After spawning you will usually find the bass in deeper water and will move back into shallower water with structure later in the month.  The usual spots that hold bass do not have enough aquatic vegetation yet to hold the bass and pickerel and are like barren flats right now.  As the vegetation grows the fish will find some nice ambush spots to hold and feed opportunistically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The month of June only gets better leading up to the summer solstice.  Take advantage of your opportunities and get out on the water.  Every day may not be successful in regards to catching a lot of fish, but make sure that you always take away something new so that you can continue to build on your experience.  The only way to gain experience in the outdoors is to get out there.  Reading a book is nice and gets me motivated, but nothing beats real world experience.