fishing

Maine Outdoors is participating in Smartbox this year. What is Smartbox you ask?

This morning I went smelt fishing with Captain George Harris of Superfly Charters. Our party was made up of George, my son Noah and friend Don. It was a very cold morning here around 3 below zero at 6AM when I thought to check. Not as much wind as the last couple of days though.

I will be offering a session at the LL Bean spring fishing event again this year. My presentation is scheduled for Saturday March 20th, at 2pm in the Maine Store in Freeport. This is always a well attended event with lots of interesting presentations and individuals. Below is the listing for my presentation that will appear in the LL Bean promotion.
Hope to see you there!

Maine Smallmouth Fishing: A World-Class Secret

Maine Professional Guides Association

Late Monday morning I received an e-mail asking about a quick fishing trip to shoot some video for a web project. Since the weather was sunny and warm I agreed and loaded my fishing equipment. Once at the boat launch on Megunticook Lake in Camden though I was nervous. It is getting late in the season and the water temperatures are getting low. Maybe the fish would not cooperate.

I had today off after a stretch of guiding at Libby Camps up north, fishing trips locally and a couple days of meetings. Meetings will be a big part of my life now that I have started as the executive Director for the Maine Professional Guides Association but that is another story.

Fishing this afternoon under a cloudy sky was a good as the last few trips have been for bass and pickerel. The fall foliage is fast approaching peak and the colors were exceptional on the still water as you can see in these pictures.

This has been an excellent fall for fishing and today continued the pattern. This morning dawned cloudy and gradually cleared. The afternoon was cloudless and sunny with a pretty strong breeze out of the southwest. The fall color is getting brighter every day making for some stunning scenery.

One of my early memories of fishing was a trip to a small pond in October loaded with pickerel that were eager to bite on our lures. I have no idea how many we caught or even what lure we used so long ago but I clearly remember catching lots of them. Over the last few days the number of pickerel clients have been bringing to the boat has been on the rise. But yesterday was a day like I remember from (dare I say) forty years ago.

The weather today was perfect. A clear blue sky without a cloud, little breeze, high temperature right around 70, fall color is really starting to show in the trees. A brilliant red maple here and there sprinkled onto the green hillsides.

In the last few days clients have had more to see than just great weather and beautiful scenery. The critters have been showing up more than usual and in unusual ways. One afternoon on a perch fishing trip we were anchored in a cove out of the breeze. I heard a splash and looked up to see a young osprey about twenty yards away, nothing unusual here. Except the young bird was floating on the surface of the pond, wings outstretched, rather than launching himself (or herself) back into the air.