Before I get to the fishing, I want to take a moment to remember all those who fought and died for our freedoms. We owe them eternal gratitude for the fishing, boating, BBQ's, etc. that we'll enjoy this weekend and beyond.
As it always is, May was a month of transitions. Cold to hot and back to cold again. High water early, then dropping to the near record flows that seem to be the new norm rather than the exception. The early high flows had water up into the brush in places and a few salmon hanging on in the tail waters and near shore areas.
As flows receded and things started to green up, I made it a point to hit some foothill flowing waters before the stocking trucks showed up. This early fishing is rarely fast, but I managed to come up with a few holdover browns and decent native brookies (especially for south of Route 2).
Around mid-month, It was time to chuck streamers to aggressive smallies in the spawning mode. My timing wasn't top dead center, but I did entice a few chunky bass.
The most notable highlights of the month came during a chance trip to NY. In addition to visiting family, I was able to sneak in a fair amount of fishing on the small waters of Northern Oneida, Oswego, and Lewis Counties. I can't say enough about the quality and variety of trout waters out there. They ranged from very small brooks where you need to entice trout from undercut banks, to bigger water where debris stranded in trees showed how fierce things can get, and everything in between.
This stretch of water below with a meadow bank and riffles produced some of the fastest action.
The fish weren't big, but they kept the 3-weight with mainly dry flies plenty busy with an average of 30 fish a half day, with an outlandish 50 plus at the meadow and riffle spot. Wild rainbows dominated the catch and their colors went from silvery, to impressive, to downright crazy as I worked my way upstream
A few nice native brookies showed up in the headwater areas.
Browns are not all that common in the waters I fished in NY and they eluded me, but the daily "hat trick" was rounded out by numerous juvenile salmon, that I believe are cohos.
No road trip would be complete without pics of those other sights, sounds, and smells that show up. Some of the waters are Lake Ontario tribs, and this spawn sack rig I pulled from a tree is testament to the seasonal pursuit of big migrant fish.
And I guess this a sign of how abundant lake trout are in Lake Ontario this year. This pile of leftovers from a fish cleaning was beyond ripe on a 90* day after being dumped at a DEC access area. I used a measuring tape pulled out to over 30" to show fish size. I took care not to contaminate my clothes or tape to avoid the need for incineration
Returning to Maine, I found flows low and slow. Not much for trout, but perfect for fast action on crappie, white perch, and some smallies.
As to variety, May certainly was a great one. With the shot in the arm from NY, I logged 16 different species.
On to June. In closing, thank you to all veterans for their service
