Eldredge

    More reports are coming in about stripers. No big numbers yet but most of the fish being caught are in the high twenty inch to low thirty inch size range. All reports are from the river mouths or up in the estuaries. Yesterday I saw a school of stripers busting on bait during our Spey Class.  A flock of seagulls drew my attention to it and the bass were on the feed for about fifteen minutes. Congratulations to my buddy Bryant who landed his first striper of the season last Thursday. It measured 32”.
    
    Freshwater fishing is also getting good. Now that we have been fortunate enough to have some rain our rivers and streams have good flows. Local pond fishing has been good too.  Blue wing olives were seen hatching this past week as well as caddis and red quills.

    I went fishing for shad for a couple of hours on Wednesday but I didn’t have any luck. I ran into two Elver fishermen that had been tending their nets. For those of you who don’t know what an Elver is, they are baby eels that have migrated here from their birthplace in the Sargasso Sea. Upon their arrival into our brackish tidal rivers they seek out freshwater rivers, lakes and ponds where they will live until reaching maturity. The mature eels then swim back to the Sargasso sea where they will spawn and then die.  One of the Elver fisherman that I ran into told me that he’d only seen a few shad caught this year and the other told me that he’d caught an Atlantic Salmon in his net. He said it was only 14 inches long so I suspect that it was a chromed sea run brown. He told me, “we also catch a few browns from time to time”. They were friendly people and I know that they are just trying to make a buck, but I long for the day that Maine outlaws Elver fishing. It saddens me to see the myriad of fyke nets clogging our tidal rivers. It seems impossible that enough Elvers could possibly make there way upstream to fresh water to continue a healthy propagation of the species. This year the season started with an  incredible, almost obscene, payoff of $2’000.00 per pound of Elvers. There are estimated to be 2500 Maine Elvers to a pound. I talked to an Elver fisherman two years ago who told me that they had caught 4 pounds of Elvers in one night. South Carolina and Maine are the last two states on the entire eastern seaboard that still allow fishing for Elvers.  All of the other states have banned fishing for them. If you want to learn more about Elvers check out the book Eels by James Prosek. It is a very interesting book.           


Jim

I had a report that Saturday night the Merrimac was fishing very well. Many stripers were caught.  We’ve just started getting our first reports of stripers showing up in our area this past weekend. On Saturday my buddy DJ landed a striper that was 32” while fishing a #2 Guitar Minnow. His was the first solid report of fresh migrating stripers of the season. On Sunday both DJ and Jeff Barnum reported catching stripers. Jeff ‘s striper was 31” and DJ’s was slot size. Inshore water temps have risen during the last couple of days so more reports should start to come in. As the stripers start to arrive they usually head for the warmer waters of our local tidal rivers and estuaries.  Blue Back Herring and alewives have been running up the rivers to spawn for at least a couple of weeks now and we had some reports of holdover bass feeding heavily on them. Baby Atlantic herring have started to show up also. No solid reports of shad locally but I’m sure that they are in the local rivers too.  Good luck!

Jim

I just returned from a week of fishing in the Florida Keys with my buddy John. We fished with Capt. Adam Debruin and had a wonderful time. Adam worked at our shop when he was a boy. Now in his 30’s, he guides in Montana in the summer for trout and carp, Louisiana for a month in the fall for redfish, and the Florida Keys in the winter and spring for just about anything that will eat a fly. I’m thinking “the life of Riley’! I was very impressed with Adams ability as a flats guide and I highly recommend him to anglers of all skill levels that are thinking of fishing the Florida Keys. I can’t wait to go back!    
Check out his web site, http://www.redhookfishing.com/

    I can’t get enough of this tarpon fishing. It has to be one of the most challenging fish that I chase with a fly.  First, you have the whole visual part of the chase. You might think that such a big fish would be easy to see in the somewhat shallow water that they cruise and sometimes they are. Many times they are not and if it weren’t for the guide, they would often swim right past undetected. When you do see them you have to get the cast off and present the fly in a way that doesn’t spook the tarpon and also has the correct angle of retrieve away from the tarpon so that you can keep the fly in it’s face. Even if you accomplish all of that, your fly has to be something that at that particular moment, on that particular day, that that particular fish wants to eat. If you are lucky enough to get the “eat” you now have to sink the hook into a mouth full of hard bones while oftentimes the tarpon is swimming directly towards you and you’re stripping in line like a madman trying to get “tight” to the tarpon. If you remember to think of it, you stomp the deck under your feet and spook the tarpon into turning away in fright. Fortunately, they seem to forget that they just ate something and they don’t spit the fly right off. Now you are tight to a big, furiously freaked out fish that is spending as much time in the air as it is in the water. Just imagine many big refrigerators dropping from the sky and plunging into the water all around you. All the while you have a pile of slack line at your feet, flying off the deck threatening to wrap around all of your body parts and yank you with enough force to pull a water skier out of the water and up onto plane. If you clear the line well, you now have the fish “on the reel”. Hopefully you remembered to tighten your drag ahead of time so that the full force of the crazed tarpon connected to it doesn’t send your reel into free spool. Now the heavy work begins and you try to subdue the silver mass of muscle with a rod that up until that moment, seemed awful stiff. In your mind you are under gunned, the fish feels impossibly heavy to fight on a fly rod but eventually you start to gain line. You pump and reel, over and over. It’s 85 degrees out and sweat pours out of you due to the exertion and the fact that you just came from a place where 50 degrees is considered a warm day. You get the fish in close and imagine that you will land it soon when the tarpon porpoises and audibly takes a gulp of fresh air, reviving itself enough to take back half of the line you struggled to gain in the last half hour. By the time you’ve regained that line again you feel spent, your arms are shaking with fatigue, your back hurts and you just want to “leader” the fish. If the leader is reeled into the tip of the rod it is considered “caught” and that now seems as good as landing the tarpon to you. If you have taken too long to fight the tarpon and it wears through your bite tippet, the fish is gone and you feel a mixture of elation and sorrow. The fish is gone but the fight is over. God, I love tarpon fishing.

I want to let everyone know that our local tidal waters have been stocked with brown trout. The rivers that have received stocking are the Mousam, Ogunquit, and Salmon falls. I don’t know the exact quantities yet but I was told that they put 25  @ 5lbs in each river. They usually stock between 900 & 1200 14”+ - in each river. Old Tom landed about thirty last week on an olive leech pattern. He said they were very healthy fish and fought hard.  Good luck.

jim

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I just returned from an Atlantic Salmon fishing trip to New Brunswick Canada where my good friends Kevin, Carter and I stayed at a place on the Miramichi River called Country Haven Lodge which is owned and operated by Byron Coughlan. Byron put us in a three bedroom cabin that was outstanding, well beyond my expectations. Each morning we met one of our guides, Kenny Vickers or Danny Coughlan at the main lodge and headed out to fish the Miramichi, Renous, or Cains River. I have to say that Byron, Kenny and Danny made us feel like old friends. Their good natured professionalism made this experience the best I’ve encountered at any Canadian Lodge or guide service that I’ve been to. They each have a life time of experience on the waters we fished. It was very evident that they all love what they do and were anxious to share the beauty of this place with us.         

            Kevin had never fished for Atlantic Salmon and really had no idea of what to expect. On the ride up I told him to forget everything he knew about fly fishing except for casting and fighting fish. The salmon are not eating and there are no hatches to match. I also told him that because of his unnatural good luck when fishing that he would be top rod and easily out fish me. He did.  I’ve been blessed with the luck to catch almost anything that swims but I’ve been cursed when it comes to catching Atlantic Salmon. I’m not saying that I never catch them just that it takes me many more days on the water to land them than even the most novice fly fisher. For instance a man from Bulgaria who had never fished before and could only cast fifteen feet (I’m being generous) out fished me. 

            Atlantic Salmon are one of my favorite species to chase with a fly. There is no other type of fly fishing that relaxes me more than swinging flies for Salmon. It has many great qualities to it. Except for the prawn patterns, most of the flies don’t look like anything natural but they are all beautiful to look at, fun to tye and some of the patterns are ancient but still catch salmon. Most of the rivers that salmon return to have no dams and are stunningly beautiful. There is a civility to salmon fishing that I’ve found in the pursuit of no other species of fish. The traditions of salmon fishing goes back hundreds of years and many of their rivers are considered hallowed and treated as such by the fishermen that love them. While fishing for salmon you fish with the knowledge that you may be just one swing away from hooking a fish of over 40 pounds that has spent most of its life in the ocean far away from its birth place of which you are standing. All of these things will keep me coming back to the Canadian rivers I love to try to catch this species that eludes me more than any other.

Jim

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A few weeks ago I overheard my friend Kevin’s 8 year old son Jax tell him that for his birthday, he wanted to catch his first striped bass on a fly. I called Kevin later on and set up a day on the water to see if we could get Jax his first striper. I admit that I was a bit nervous about disappointing Jax with a skunk.

              Many years ago much of my striper fishing was done at night under spot or street lights that are near or over the water. The lights draw in bait which brings the stripers in and offers a less skilled fly caster an easy shot at catching one. Since Kevin and Jax were supposed to arrive here the night before we fished, I decided to scout out some of my old night spots to make sure that the stripers were still there and they were. I even tied up an old pattern I’d made for night light fishing back then that I called an All-nighter. I figured we were set and Jax would have his first striper on a fly this first night. Well, the bait and stripers were there and Jax was casting with skill beyond his years, but the bass wouldn’t eat a fly. By the next morning I was really nervous about a skunk. I had to get this kid a striper. I took him to places I wouldn’t show most of my striper fishing friends. He had some bass eat the fly but he couldn’t hook up. Kevin and I had shown him how to strip set a hook on a striper the night before as well as rod placement and line retrieval. We went over it all again and then decided to try sight fishing. The first good shot was at a 30” striper that casually refused the fly. My eyes were glued on the next bass when it ate the fly, but while Kevin and I were whispering, “set, set, set” I watched as it spit the fly. After this scenario happened two more times I was having to say to myself, “relax, he’s only eight years old and he’s having fun”.  The wind came up and finding another fish seemed impossible but we found a glassy window of calm shallow water that I’d seen stripers pass by several years earlier.  By this time Kevin had taken over the casting part of the presentation, then doing a quick hand off to Jax as the fly landed. We were a team of which Jax was the only calm member. Our team’s conversation sounded something like this:

Kevin: “I can’t see anything, can you”?

Me; “I can see a little bit over there by the edge of that riffly water. We’ve got to get this kid a fish!”

Kevin: “Oh yeah, I can see a little bit over there too. Do you think a fish will pass by there?”

Me; “I don’t know, what do you think we should do? We’ve got to get him a fish.”

Kevin, “What the hell are you asking me for! You’re the striper fisherman!”

Me; “I’m running out of options and I’m not sure what else to do!”

Behind us Jax is laying on the gunwale looking straight down into the water and yells, “Cool, dad there are two crabs fighting over here! This is sooo cool!”

            Not long after a striper came into view and I pointed and said, “right there!”  Kevin was already casting and we both yelled, “Jax!!!”  My eyes were again glued on the striper as Jax started the retrieve and the fish changed course and headed for the fly. Kevin and I were both yelling, “STRIP, STRIP, STRIP!!!” Then simultaneously, “STOP!!”  Jax followed each command and the striper shot forward, ate the fly and turned. I don’t think that either Kevin or I realize how loudly we yelled, “SET, SET, SET!!!”  I watched as the striper came to a stop and started shaking its head. What followed was a lot of, “Do this” and, “Don’t do that’s” as the striper got into the backing twice and then did a fifty foot dash straight back to the skiff, completely slacking the line. We both were yelling, “REEL, REEL, REEL, FASTER, FASTER, FASTER!!”  I’ve fought many big fish but I’ve never experienced the nervousness  I did during that battle. When I lipped Jax’s first striper I can honestly say that I felt euphoric and I’m pretty sure that Kevin felt the same. Jax was aglow with kid pride.

             After photos, high fives, and handshakes we moved to a new flat. What followed was twenty minutes of non-stop shots at cruising bass, a few more missed strikes, and a hooked striper that snapped the tippet on its first run while 8 year old hands clamped fly line unrelentingly to cork. This was a day I could not have imagined and will never forget. Take a kid fishing; it will enrich your soul and theirs.

 Jim