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Summertime in the BelgradesContentsfor Printing
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Pikeby Mike Guarino 
Recent fishing reports have been excellent. Traditionally, this time of year offers good fishing for largemouth and smallmouth bass along with northern pike. The browns, salmon and brookies start getting aggressive again and during low-light times of day the fish will move up in the water column, too. This is the time of year when some big browns are caught just as the sun starts setting. Many of the bigger smallies are still spending most of their time suspended out over deeper water, but are moving onto sunken rockpiles early and late in the day. This season we've been catching some big smallies on the edges of weed beds, too, which is a nice change of pace from jigging on rock piles or trolling. The remnants of Katrina rolled through here on the 31st and brought a ton of rain. The storm cooled the water temperatures a bit and slowed the fishing down for a few days, but over Labor Day weekend things started picking back up. Unfortunately, we didn't see as many boats on the water as usual, perhaps due to gas prices. The folks who didn't visit really missed out on some fine fishing. This past fishing season we've spent a lot of time fishing weed edges for largemouth on just about all the lakes in the chain. The bite has been better than year's past, and the fish are feisty, too! Many of my friends have commented on how hard the bass fight here compared to other places they've fished. Throughout the season, we did notice a neat coincidence on occasion. We'd start by working a weed bed that had been producing good fishing when suddenly the place seemed to be devoid of fish. It wasn't long before a northern pike would either be hooked or seen. We experienced this on Messalonskee Lake over Labor Day Weekend. While fishing an awesome weed bed that had produced some big bass that morning, all of a sudden the place fell silent. We continued casting for a while, when my buddy Mike shouted, "Look at that." Right behind his spinner bait was a huge northen (not the one in the photo). I guess it makes sense that if a major predator were in the neighborhood it would discourage smaller fish from feeding. The same thing happened in 2004 on the last trip of the year. We were bass fishing on Halloween when I caught about a 2-pound largemouth. We'd been catching quite a few up until that point and it was just a great late October day on the water. Well, while I was getting this bass to the boat a really big pike shot out from under the Lund and destroyed that bass. He killed him in one massive flash, removing the skin and tail. It was an amazing sight! After the pike mashed that largemouth, we didn't catch another fish in that spot. There are two different ways to view this coincidence. First, people who dislike pike will say this proves why pike are bad for our lakes. They can eat just about anything at any time — very true! On the flip side, perhaps our game fish are getting better at hiding from the beasts and therefore the fishing will continue to improve. Pike have created a learning curve for both anglers and fish alike. This season did offer some of the best bass fishing I've seen in 10-years, so I'm hoping the later scenario is true. As a final note, here's a photo of a big pike we found floating on Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend. The fish weighted 18.2 pounds, but upon closer observation you could tell it hadn't been feeding. Its stomach was caved in and its days were numbered. We took the fish home and I gave it to a friend who is a taxidermist. The fish will make a beautiful mount for someone's office or home. I thought you would like to see the photo of this beast, just to fuel up the excitement as the pike fishing picks up this fall. Good luck. Mike Guarino can be contacted at 465-4333 or www.mainewildernesstours.com. | ||