February Fly-fishing Blog

First and foremost, I am giving a presentation to the Malden Anglers, a fly-fishing club, on March 7th. I will be talking about tactics and fly patterns for pressured (educated) fish with videos and photos. Even if you aren’t a member, I am sure they will welcome you. The address is 227 Main Street, Saugus  MA  01906. I will be presenting at 720. For more info contact Kalil at
downrivercharters@comcast.net

The Maine February 2023 weather was all over the place. Cold and snow was followed by days that seemed like late March or early April with temps in the 50s to near 60. Snow quickly melted and pond edges with southern exposures lost their ice. Ice fishing derbies were canceled, and we resorted to planks to bridge the gaps to more solid ice. I am sure that the northern half of Maine still had plenty of ice.

Early February was cold with thickening ice.
In mid -February, it looked like an early end to ice fishing season.
In north Florida, spring had sprung with Azaleas blooming everywhere.

My wife, Lindsey, and I escaped to warmer climes in northern Florida and the Georgia mountains. I fished for stripers and bass at a Florida tailwater.

I don’t usually think largemouth bass in dam tailwaters, but in Florida they are here.
This is the most obese striper I have ever caught. It was gorging on spawning gizzard shad. on the Ochlockonee

We then traveled to Helen, Georgia to hike streamside trails thick with rhododendron. We caught hand-sized rainbows and had a blast. Check out the following YouTube link for a video to get a sense of what it was like.

https://youtu.be/p8pZdQScYVk

‘Till next time – pray for spring!

July Rains Keep Fishing Productive

What a difference a year makes. Last year, July marked the continuation of a deepening drought with low and warming water. This year, almost continuous thundershowers have kept rivers so high as to be unfishable at times. This in turn has  brought landlocked salmon into many rivers from the lakes where they usually spend their summers. These salmon will  now stay in the rivers all summer. Some anglers believe that salmon only run up rivers in the spring and the fall, but during high water, salmon will enter and move up the rivers regardless of the calendar.For example, fresh salmon moved into both the Magalloway and the Kennebago Rivers in early July, and anglers who intercepted these fresh salmon did well.

My wife and I actually had a LLS double, both fighting leaping salmon at the same time, but not in the river. We were dry-fly fishing Kennebago Lake during the evening around July Fourth. We saw no sign of any of the drake hatch from the week before, but trout and salmon must have memories that last at least a week because for several nights, they were coming up and nailing a Quigley’s green drake cripple (emerger). The best trout was a fat 16 incher that gave quite a fight on my 3-weight rod.

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Here is a few photos with various family members holding up typical schoolie stripers. I highly recommend getting out there and giving it a try even if the water is warming up and the fish are getting a bit more difficult to come by.IMG_4469IMG_0996 (2)IMG_0965