Just got back from four days of fishing, where we experienced everything for weather. Sun night, Monday cold and wet. Tuesday - sunny but cold and then boom, break out the shorts and t-shirts! The water was way up and all the dri-ki made for some interesting trolling.
We picked up a total of 40 salmon and probably missed just as many. Tuesday and Wednesday were our best days as the surface warmed with 12 and 16 fish respectively. Not too bad but that represents a lot of hours in the boat. A lot of 10 - 14 inch fish, 6-8 15 - 19 inches, and a four pounder as the best fish. All the fish looked great. We didn't keep any but some of the regulars at the campground did and said they were full of smelts. If you guys want to catch some salmon then head on up. I bet this weekend will be prime there as the bugs just started to come out last night. Speaking of campground, the people at Allagash Gateway ( Bill and Jan) were very nice.
We used just about everything with the exception of bait. Although we picked up a few fish on traditional streamer patterns, we had our best luck on brighter weeping willows, #61 suttons, and gold/orange speedy shiners at 2.7 - 2.9 mph.
Man, had I forgotten how big that lake is. We never made it more than a third of the way up and actually had too calm conditions most of the time if you can believe it about that body of water.
One last thing - If you guys haven't bought that Cortland trolling line, go get some. I ran my flyrod spooled with that out the back and had more hits on it than both the two lead core poles combined.
If you want some salmon action, nows the time. Good luck.
