June was a challenging month to say the least. Flows were high much of the time and hatches were weak. It was a record (and not a good one) for hours spent on waters that seemed fishless even if they looked great or were "go to" spots in the past. It started to weird me out to cast in waters that seemed to have been rotenone-treated.
There were some definite highlights, however. There were no laughers, but all tough days were rewarded with at least 1 fish. Plus, with 13 different species coming to hand, the variety was sure there.
The month started out with a trip to the salt on Long Island Sound. I made it a goal to flyfish 100% of the time and I brought along only an old beater 5-weight. I ended up being real happy with the results. Any time I can up with a species that I haven't caught before in 6 decades of fishing is a highlight. Hickory shad were a scrappy surprise, hitting hard and spending much of the time in the air.
I couldn't connect with any scup or fluke, but the big sea robins were ready to play. The Medalist 1494 will give you an idea of of size of this guy, who gave a long fight when he took wing in the outgoing tide.
And the coastal sunsets were hard to beat.
Back in Maine, I took advantage of high flows to fish in some pretty small water to chase natives and small browns that had quickly moved a distance from their stocking points and colored up a bit in the tannic-stained waters.
One early high ground outing with my son revealed a lot of erosion and stream scour over the winter.
Fishing was slow, but the stealthy crouch my son is developing was nice to see (even if lower would be better
).
He was more than happy with a few natives and a small wild 'bow in the beautiful setting.
I spent just 1 afternoon chasing warm water fish in flowing water. They weren't in their usual haunts, but I found bunch hanging in the debris that had built up in an eddy at the downstream side of an island.
As mentioned, there wasn't much to the June hatches. There was one calm, cloudy evening that had enough insects on the water to have the fish looking up for an old work buddy and me. We brought numerous brookies to hand with caddis patterns, but the browns made the trip
July will see relatively little fishing time, but I'm guessing it will behave more like June normally does. Perfect for fishing smarter if not harder.
