|
Date: April 15, 2024 Body of Water: Upper Range Pond - Poland, Maine Boat: amybaby22 With: A! Target: Trout Time: 9 AM - 12:30 PM Moon Phase: Waxing quarter moon Conditions: Clear and bright; calm to mild southerly breeze < 10 mph; 50 - 60 degrees. Water temperatures 44 - 46 degrees F (+/-); very clear water. With the day off (Massachusetts and Maine both celebrate Patriots Day!), A and I arrived at a quiet ramp just before 9 AM. It was great to have some help launching the boat, and we were soon setting our first line near a rocky reef along the lake's northeastern shoreline. It was sunny, calm and peaceful; a great way to start the third day of our long weekend. I'd just placed an orange Thomas Eel 150 feet behind the boat and placed the rod in the holder when it bucked heavily and the drag slipped aggressively. A kept both her calm and the rod bent, and a few minutes later I scooped up a beautiful, 19-inch rainbow. Nice! I turned the boat around to reset lines over this same water, and this time I was able to set all three without interruption. With some eating fish obviously high in the water column, I offered the following: top-lined small orange Thomas Eel 150 feet back; orange and black DB Smelt off two colors of lead; and an emerald shiner DB Smelt spoon off a single color of lead. I deferred on adding a fourth presentation to avoid tangles and provide a more relaxing trip for A and myself. Targeted speed was 2.0 - 2.2, but I bumped between 1.6 and 2.5 mph while also adding many twists and turns to activate our lures. We continued our search through known productive waters, focusing on about 20 feet of water adjacent to rock structures. Nothing happened for a half hour or so. Instead of continuing along the shoreline break, I turned towards the main basin with the intent of searching that while returning to our original starting point for more of the same; it had worked the previous two days, after all! The boat had just touched 38 feet of water when the top-line rod bent over again; A landed her limit rainbow (it was released, of course), a cute 14-incher. I circled around and re-set lines, and now the rod with two colors of lead jumped, hard! After the apparent swing-and-miss, the fish came back almost immediately and buckled the rod over. I was hooked up with a tenacious brown trout that surprised me with its modest size (16 inches or so) when it hit the net. This fish and a subsequent pair of hard strikes on this same set-up kept us in the area for a while as I bounced between about 20 and 40 feet of water. A couple of rocky hillocks provided some interesting structure in this basin area, too, and in my mind provided another reason for the fish to be concentrated here. When the action had obviously slowed, I picked up lines and ran to the lake's south end. We completed our day with a leisurely troll along the lakes western shoreline and adjacent basin, all the way through my favored inside turn at the north end. Despite changing everything up and rotating through a bunch of spoons (while also maintaining the same basic presentations), I could find no other biters. By 12:30 PM we were hauling the boat, on our way to a nice lunch at Pineland Farms! Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways
0 Comments
Date: April 14, 2024 Body of Water: Upper and Middle Range Ponds - Poland, Maine Boat: amybaby22 With: AD Target: Trout Time: 8:30 AM - 3:15 PM Moon Phase: Waxing quarter moon Conditions: Clear and bright for the most part, but with some clouds and squirrelly wind, backing from NW to SW; about 50 - 60 degrees. Water temperatures 41 - 44 degrees F (+/-) and generally a couple of degrees cooler in Middle Range as opposed to Upper. The previous day's quiet launch was just a distant memory as I arrived to a crowded and chaotic ramp. Still, I was in place and with enough time to re-rig a pair of rods with two or three colors of lead core before my new acquaintance, DA, arrived for a morning of trout trolling. Between the crowds and the weather, conditions had obviously changed a lot from the previous day. We couldn't rely on yesterday's tactics for any success, and I gave DA the option of Middle vs. Upper Range. While Upper offered more familiarity, the allure of quieter conditions for different fish on Middle proved to be the allure. Our initial four-rod spread included the following:
We set lines and trolled Middle's eastern shoreline, moving north, and bouncing between about 8 and 30 feet of water. I noted the cooler water temperatures, but the additional prospect of togue from this lake offset my opinion of this development. We blanked in the first hour as I rotated through some baits while preserving the approach. We were coming off a 12-foot flat when DA reported that the one-color rod had been hammered. It looked quiet to me, but I checked the line for weed or debris. I then felt some weight and caught a flash; and realized we'd broken our skunk. I handed the rod over, and soon enough DA was gazing upon his first Maine rainbow trout, and his first-ever trolling fish. It wasn't too exciting, but it was something! After another half-hour of searching, we decided to try something a little different. We moved over the lake's basin and exchanged the Jay Fair system for a spoon off the downrigger. We moved nothing while scratching bottom from about 50 - 70 feet of water, but definitely pulled a few fish off bottom when I pulled the ball up 20 or 25 feet. All rejected the spoon, however, even while I changed this presentation out several times. They were just too cold or too lethargic to pull the trigger and eat! By 11 AM, we were headed into Upper Range Pond, where DA wanted to try throwing a large swim-bait over rocky structures for bass. We tried several spots (and I enjoyed a half-dozen casts with his beautiful equipment), but raised no interest. Returning to the ramp to drop DA off, we noticed that just about all the trollers and many of the bassers had already left for the day. It was proving to be a tough one for many! I intended to save the day with some trout from Upper. I began my search with a top-lined spoon and a DB Smelt behind two colors of lead core. As I traced my productive path from the day before, the lead core rod got buried, and I happily landed a mature, egg-spewing rainbow trout of 16 or 17 inches. I continued looking for more with some optimism, but I'd almost run out of time before I got my next hit. Despite changes in lures and locations, I was almost immediately over the waypoints of the previous day's double when the two-color rod jumped again; and I was pleased to finish with another bright, 15-inch brown trout. What do I have to say about this? It took a bit more perseverance than expected, but it turned into a great day on multiple accounts. Sharing a buddy's "First", even under modest circumstances, is always worthwhile, as is having three nice trout swung over the gunwales. A tough bite makes one appreciate easier times, and it was satisfying to have the "extra" time to explore some new water and presentations. It just wasn't quite as "fishy" a day as the previous, but I was already looking forward to the next, Patriots' Day! Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways Date: April 13, 2024 Body of Water: Upper Range Pond - Poland, Maine Boat: amybaby22 With: Alone Target: Trout Time: 8 AM - 1 PM Moon Phase: New Moon plus five days Conditions: Mostly cloudy, but some sun and ending with a heavy rain shower. Calm to 10 mph SW wind; 45 - 50 degrees; water temperatures 43 degrees F (+/-) and a little cloudy from lots of recent rain. A large group of swallows was dipping the water's surface near the north end of Upper Range Pond, and so I started my search for trout in this area and near the surface. I started with an S7 Rapala (silver/green) on one rod and a "Jay Fair" system-presented green metal-head fly with the other. Working from about 6 to 25 feet of water, I had put in a solid 20 minutes without a hit. I rotated through some new baits (flatlined Trout Whisperer spoon 150 feet back, DB Smelt on two colors of lead, blue S7 Rapala, white Arctic Fox fly behind an action disk) and covered some water over the main basin (where the swallows were most active) as I continued my search. Speeds ranged from about 1.8 to 2.4 mph. Between 9 and 10 AM I found a group of very active fish. All ate spoons fished over 15 - 22 feet of water but immediately adjacent to a weedy boulder reef. It might have helped that the wind was pushing any "warm" water and midge larvae/pupae/adults into an inside turn. I ended with just 3 browns landed for 6 solid strikes in this area, with a couple of lost "doubles", including a lost rod and reel, pulled from the holder as I landed the nicest brown of the bunch at about 18 inches. I had a couple of brief drive-by's, too; I barely capitalized on this opportunity, but was still grateful for the first three trout of the season! The hot baits here were a top-lined 1/8 ounce Trout Whisperer spoon (green and blue) and a gold/black/purple DB Smelt on two colors of lead. Flies and plugs remained untouched, as they would for the remainder of the day. I seemingly lost my mojo along with that favored rod and reel. I tried to scrape the depths with the downrigger where I'd lost the rig; but the bottom proved dangerously sticky and after ten minutes or so, I resumed fishing. I tried to locate another pod of trout and covered lots of water, generally concentrating on edges (especially with rocks!) I donated a couple more favorite lures to the bottom, but scratched out the final (and perhaps best) fish of the day on a small, top-lined, gold Thomas Eel. This scrappy rainbow hit hard, pulled drag and was vividly colored during the fight. It had an interesting spotting pattern, too, and capped off my better-than-pretty-decent day of fishing! I continued my search for the next hour without a hit, but still looking forward to the next outing! What do I have to say about this? Maine 4 California 0 Traditional Maine tactics and spoons produced all my bites and fish, while the "California" presentations went untouched. I'd spent a good chunk of the winter day-dreaming about fly-eating trout on the troll, and I was enthusiastic about trying some new-to-me tactics. A small streamer behind an action disk is just something different (here), but I was most excited by the "Jay Fair" trolling approach. Developed at California's Eagle Lake, this involves a streamer presented off a floating fly line tipped with 15 or 18 feet of lead core; the fly will be just a couple of feet below the surface while the fly line provides a lot of visibility as to where the fly is. The no-stretch presentation also allows one to "pulse" the fly with a simple roll of the wrist; I was excited to try this locally! FYI, I'd run across a video (TV show) in the mid-1980s where Mr. Fair illustrated this technique and featuring some beautiful rainbows on his flies. I thought that'd be a fantastic approach for shoreline Lake Michigan Spring Browns, but without access to the flies (and with nobody apparently using such techniques in Michigan), I instead learned to troll for trout with Rapalas and then spoons. I found this same video this winter on You-Tube, and cross referencing other interests, decided to give it a go. While California took the defeat on this 2024 "Opening Day", I am sure it will provide some victories in the future. Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways |
Steve LachanceRI --> NH --> MI-->MA-->ME Archives
June 2024
Categories
All
|
Proudly powered by Weebly