The Fishin’ Hole BlogFish

The fishing season is winding down, and even ended in many locations around Maine. Stripers have moved out, and headed south for the winter, it also looks like the Tuna are doing the same.

Blues, what few there were, seem to have cleared out of the bay as well. Time to take a deep breath, tie some flies, and get ready for hunting season. Rabbit and bird season is open and we hit the evergreen cover on Saturday to see what was out there. Coyotes have wreaked havoc on the bunnies, but Charlie still found a couple, a shot was fired, but nothing in the pot.

Deer seem to be active, scraping and getting ready for an early rut.

Saturday the old man and I braved to heavy fog for a day of fishing off pine point.

We saw 2 small schools of Pogies, and a couple of blues chasing them, but failed to hook into one. We DID however hook into a 6 1/2 to 7 foot Sturgeon that kept us both busy for about 30 - 35 minutes until we could get him up to the boat. We grabbed a couple pix, un hooked the lure and promptly watched him swim away. WHAT A MONSTER for my little 18′ boat. He pulled us all around the little bay.

Pop did manage to hook into a good striper, just a hair into the keeper slot which made some great fish chowder.

We are gearing up for hunting season now, but Ryan has a new boat that we will be trying out on Tuesday. Hopefully the blues will be a little more cooperative.

on the 8th we headed out to the Locks in Sebago to hunt for Salmon. The recent rains had it all murked up and the big salmon haven’t showed up yet. We tried the pump house and the Penobscot, ryan dropped his phone in the water and we caught one little 3″ smallie. More slow fishing.

We will try again soon.

This post is a little delayed as we have been busy shipping our EBAY orders out the door. I finally have a minute to sit down and tap out the results of our weekend day on the water.

We launched at Marblehead and fished through the end of the break water, around wood and basket, and out into the bay off of OOB.

Fishing was S-L-O-W all day. I had hooked on to a nice sized sturgeon, who promptly pulled himself off the hook, but not before launching out of the water to do so. He/ she was a good 4 feet long.

We fished all over the place for the whole day (from about 9:30AM until 7PM) and finally landed one blue, and only a couple of other bites.

The silversides are FILLING the bay, anything that might resemble one or a school should yield results. The blues are thinning, and so are the stripers, but the season isn’t quite over yet. The fish count could surge within an hour and the action will be on.

We did best fishing chunk Macks, while chumming. So stock up, because the one Blue we did land took about 10 MAcks to get his attention.

two evenings of fishing out in Saco bay has seen some adventure. We started out acting on a rumor running around about blues and pogies crowding Goosefare brook.

Don’t listen to them! we got over there and spent two hours, with two boats scouting and fishing at the mouth of the brook and saw and caught nothing at all.

The islands off to the left of the camp ellis breakwater was seeing some action though, and schools of Pogies were being pushed up to the surface by blues. Without revealing the exact locations, we caught some nice blues around wood island as well.

The action isn’t yet as fast and furious as last year, but the blues seem to be nice, fat and big. The limit on blues is THREE PER PERSON PER DAY! I only mention this because a guy from Mass, was pulling out of the water the other day with a boat load of about 60! The witness didn’t think to write down his plate number so there was little to nothing authorities would be able to do.

If we all fish within the laws and limits the DMR management team has set up, there will be plenty of fishing for everyone for years to come. The unconscious slaughter of as many as 60 by one person could clean out our beloved bay in a single season. I can’t even imagine what one person would want with 60 blues to begin with.

Stripers are hiding, but can be found up into the river, holding tight to cover. The blues are certainly in, and worth pursuing.

In a final note, my new Penn CV4000 rod/reel combo was pulled overboard by a big blue near basket island. I was sad to see it cruise out into the bay, but it made for a good story.

Monday we headed out on the Saco and the bay for some striper and blue fish fishing.

We strated out down by the breakwaters, outside and inside the river. Behind UNE and up to and slightly past the Marblehead boat launch.

One bite….. just one good hit, and no fish to show for our efforts. There were a smattering of Mackerel here and there, but they have certainly slowed down in Saco bay. We tried plugs, poppers, clams, sand worms and Mackerel for bait. with and without chum.

The gates opened back up up above, so the water was roiled and murky. Fishing at the river, is just plain slow.

On Saturday evening we hit Saco bay to do some fishing.

We hit two slot stripers, two at the same time, down by the break waters, slow fishing around the islands and in the bay itself. Up in the river in the evening time saw a bunch of Eels, that we were just as happy to leave in the river. That dos mean that live lining Eels down at the mouth might be productive.

Mackerel are running hot up north, and big ‘uns too. Grab some of our fluorescent jigs and run them deep.

The Saco river upstream has lowered considerably for some nice bass, and trout fishing. Keep those flies sailing, because they are definately looking for dries in the evening.

Maine Hand Tied Mackerel Trees

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These are our premiere Fluorescent Maine Tied 4 drop Mackerel trees. Tied in Maine, with Maine mackerel in our sights. Don’t be fooled though, Mackerel everywhere will chase these rigs as hard as they do in Maine. This is how we stock our bait freezer for the whole season, and you can stock yours as well.

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Drop rig tied on 25lb test, with a black 35lb barrel swivel at the lead end, and a 40lb snap swivel at the trailing end. Other rigs don’t give you the advantage of pre-tied swivels, and looped knots in the line do nothing but weaken the line integrity.

Yes its true,

The website has seen a long overdue makeover. The shopping cart was scrapped for a more reliable, more secure  cart, we had a new logo designed for us, and everything should look and flow much more smoothly for our friends and visitors.

Shiners are in the shop in abundance now, some come get ‘em while their hot! Only $3.50 per dozen, you can’t go wrong, and EVERYTHING is slamming them hard right now, from trout and salmon to stripers!

Yesterday saw some nasty weather, but there was some time to get out and do some fishing.

Stripers are still slow to bite, they seem to be completely ignoring plugs and surface poppers. Tubes with or without worms still aren’t working out very well at all.

HOWEVER, I got out in the evening for a few hours and landed 6 nice fatties, two of which were under the slot, the rest just in the slot.

Later in the evening I landed a good sized eel, and what I think were Herring were pipping the surface EVERYWHERE. This is important because it means the stripers still aren’t very hungry, and they have plenty of food to eat.

The 6 I caught were all in brackish water toward the river area, and on worms. If you can get hold of live herring this might work as well. Sand worms still seem to be the bait of choice though.

A couple of small schools of blues have come and gone, although I have only seen one school personally, and they weren’t particularly hungry either.

The pogies seem to have disappeared for a little while, although I am sure they will be back. It looks like the late season is going to be hotter than the early season. Macks seem to have thinned out some, and I did see a porpoise blow out in the bay. So there are critters in there moving them around and out. This will make the stripers hungry again.

We will be going out to try again today to see if we can find some bigger stripers in the bay.