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Summertime in the BelgradesContentsfor Printing Article Summaries |
Bloody Knees and Big Bass
By Mike Guarino This past week I had the opportunity to spend some time with my good friend Pete, who actually hails from Merry Old England, but now lives here in New England. It always amazes me how many people from other countries visit our area to fish and how fishing in general is so popular all over the world. Pete was telling me that in England they have fishing clubs where members purchase a "ticket" to fish off a specific dock or piece of shore land for a predetermined amount of time. What a difference between there and here! My biggest concern is having to wait a few minutes at the local boat launch on a busy Saturday morning. Sometimes I forget how lucky we are to live and play in this beautiful State! In addition to talking about fishing in England and how they "bait" carp there and fish for northern pike, we also talked about our kids and how much "fun" it can be to take them fishing. It got me thinking about when I was a kid and fishing meant an old beat-up rod and worms and bobbers or maybe something radical like a daredevil, jitterbug, or mepps spinner. My friends and I loved to hike into a specific small pond to fish and it felt like we were the only people who'd ever been there before. In the process of hiking in, we'd get so dirty and so smelly it was hard to identify which kid belonged to which parent. We'd have skinned up knees and broken fishing poles, sometimes returning soaking wet and frozen to our core. But more often than not, we'd have some fish for dinner too. I miss those days! Nowadays, with satellite maps and Global Positioning Systems, there are no more secrets, but for adventurous youngsters they can still feel that same sense of solidarity, that same sense of being cool. I remember one time I was leaving the house with my buddies and my mom stopped me and actually grounded me before I left. She said she knew I was going to be home late as usual and I'd be filthy, so she grounded me for the next afternoon, just to save herself some time later. She still let me go fishing though and not being allowed to watch television the next afternoon didn't really mean squat to me or my friends anyway. We laughed all the way to the pond, talking about how cool my mom was. Back here in Belgrade the fishing hasn't been too shabby lately. You can really feel fall in the air now, especially in the evening and the fishing has certainly picked up as the water temperatures have cooled. Anglers have even been catching some striped bass in the Kennebec River this past week. There have also been lots of reports of bigger northern pike moving up into the shallows again, giving unsuspecting bass anglers a thrill. Speaking of bass, now is the time of year when some of the biggest largemouth are caught. You've heard the old adage that big bait catches big fish? Well, there is some truth to that when you are talking about late summer largemouth. Last week big Senkos and 10" plastic worms produced some nice 4 and 5 pound largemouth. You still need to fish your offering slowly, but the fish are much more active than they were a few weeks ago. The smallmouth bass are still keyed on crayfish, so working tubes and jigs off rock piles is the way to go during the middle of the day. Early in the morning however, you'll find more big bass close to shore. I didn't get a chance to do any trout tolling this past week, but I have a feeling that with surface temperatures hovering around 70°, the trout might be higher up in the water column now. This time of year I always like to fish with dodger and fly combinations with a black ghost or jerry's smelt. You can't go wrong with those two fly choices in my opinion. I hope you have a great week and perhaps find yourself a new adventure or better yet, follow some dirty kid to a remote pond and skin up your knee. That's good livin' and a heck of a lot more fun that watching TV! Good luck. Mike Guarino can be contacted at | ||
