 The sucker spawn is over in the mountains, but fish are sloooooowly transitioning to looking up. Nymphs are the game right now, and being at the bottom of the water column will keep you hooked up. We've been loving pheasant tails, stonefly imitations and small bwo nymphs. Hendrickson hatches are sporadic, and the fish will come up for them, but not as willingly as normal. It's been a strange, late year and the fish seem to be taking their time. Any day now, hendrickson dry patterns will be a good bet with caddis dries not far behind. Drop a small emerger off of there and fish pockets that look fishy. The later part of June and into July are looking sweet, so get out there and tie strong knots!!
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 We've had a great past two weeks in Rangeley. Spring came late, but the suckers came and are pretty much done doing their thing at this point. We've seen Hendricksons on the water that past few days on the Rapid River. Fish are in the rivers, and they're also starting to look up. The usual nymphs will start working, and having an emerging pattern on your nymph rig or your dry fly as a dropper will work great for you in the coming weeks. We have some trip dates now in July, but June is pretty much booked up. We do have some smallmouth trips available in the Portland area. It's time for topwater smallmouth fishing, which you can't beat. Enjoy some of our pictures of Rangeley from the past couple of weekends!         We'll be posting some future reports on our Facebook and Instagram pages. Come like our page on Facebook or follow us on Instagram to keep up on the fun we have throughout the season!
Fall in Maine is spectacular. It's the best time of the year to be surrounded by great foliage and the opportunity to catch a colored up brook trout or kype-jawed landlocked salmon or a fat smallmouth looking to fill up for the winter.. Here are some photos from the end of September.  It's that time of year when the water is cooling, and fish will be more active than they've been since June! Streamers and nymphs are the ticket, but dries have been still producing. There have been lots of small fish in the river, and they're willing to take many different caddis patterns in every pocket that we fish. If they don't come up for dries, we go to nymphs and almost always find that somebody is home. As we get some rain and the nights become cool, smelt patterns will start attracting the bigger fish who will start moving around the rivers a lot more. We don't have any September dates available, but we still have a few October dates. Give us a call if you'd like to get in a great day surrounded by the fall foliage casting to trout and salmon or smallmouth bass!  On the mouse pattern!   Summer smallmouth action has been great as usual. We've been taking lots of clients out who are new to fly fishing or just want to do some plain old, good fun spin fishing. Father-son trips have been a big hit this summer. It's always great to see kids who haven't been to a remote area or been fishing for fast action smallmouth on a boat before. It can be just as fun to watch the kid in Dad come out on these trips, as well. We have a few more dates available before Labor Day. I only have a couple of trout trip dates on weekends left in September. We have a few available dates for smallmouth trips on weekends in September and October. You can catch some of the biggest fish of the season in the fall and be surrounded by peak foliage. Give us a shout if you'd like to get out for a trip before the snow flies!    It seems like Groundhog Day. Hot sun, great scenery and awesome smallmouth action. The fish are hitting topwater still at times, and have moved more towards the quick water. These recent rainstorms have been great and have kept the fish very active. Let's be honest, it's cool to hookup subsurface, but no freshwater fish beats the topwater takes of a feisty smallmouth! We have some openings for August available, but are very limited to certain dates. Let us know if you'd like to get out there before summer is over. August is a great month to chase smallmouth bass. We'd also like to welcome our newest member of the team. Meet Joy! She had a test run on Vince's boat last week and passed with flying colors. We can foresee many lazy summer days on the boat for this girl!  Those really hot summer temps are hopefully come and gone. The fishing has held on through all of it. The smallmouth fishing is at its peak and it's a great time for a trip. We have several openings still for July during the week and more in August. Fishing for smallmouth is fun, challenging and rewarding. Floating in the sun, wearing shorts and sandals, bumping Bald Eagles, eating great food and fighting strong smallies are all in a day's fishing!  We're still taking inquiries for trout fishing trips, but I'll only do half day trips from 2 to 8 pm right now as not to stress out the fish too much. You'll get 6 hours for the price of 4, so if you're around the Western Mountains (about 2 hours north of Portland) let us know and we can get you on the water. I don't have many dates left for September, but give us a buzz and let us know if you're looking for a great fall foliage fly fishing trip where brookies have brilliant red bellies to match the trees!
 It's caddis time! Caddis are all over the water column from the bottom to the top. This can be the best time of the year to catch a big trout or salmon on a dry fly. Find some shade or low light periods (early am or late pm) and skitter a tan bodied Elk Hair Caddis and you're sure to be rewarded. If you're having trouble locating fish then fishing a small caddis in some low riffles can be a good bet. You won't catch the biggest trout, but as the water warms up they'll be holding in quicker water which holds lots of oxygen. Soft hackle flies dropped 24" below a dry are deadly when you see caddis coming off. Just because you see caddis or mayflies in the air doesn't mean they are smashing dry flies. When we see lots of bugs in the air, we're finding that a big nymph like a Pat's or a Prince nymph with a soft hackle emerger at the end will work if you present it correctly.  While Caddis will continue to fool, it's inevitable that as summer continues on that they'll take smaller and smaller patterns. However, if you're fishing in the morning and you see lots of stoneflies on the banks, it's time to throw on a big dry pattern like a Bugmeister or Kaufmann's Stimulator and give it a twitch. If you hit this hatch just right, you can put 40+ quality trout in the net in a morning's fishing. Even on a slower day, this tactic will work from the last week of June until the end of July.
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Headin' North just always feels right