Stripers and mackerel signal start of hot fishing summer

From what I’ve seen, I’ll say that when Lt. Jim Peva of the Marine Patrol’s office in Lamoine isn’t fishing, he’s plotting a course to new pools. Last week Jim called to hook onto some information about Quebec’s Matapedia River, where, reportedly, salmon were taking something scandalous of late. As often is the case when fishermen get to gabbing, our conversation covered a lot of water.

At about the time we were running out of line on the subjects of Atlantic salmon, trout, and smallmouth bass, Jim mentioned striped bass and mackerel. A week or so earlier, he set a course for the Kennebec River’s striper grounds and, as luck would have it, ran head on into a school in the Phippsburg area. “We got ’em on flies,” said the enthusiastic angler. “They were feeding on brit – young of the year herring – and we were using white streamers, nothing but a mylar body, some white hackles or marabou feathers, and a little Crystal Flash or something like it mixed in.

“Those brit are pretty small, maybe a half inch or a little better,” said Jim, “but those stripers were after them big time. It was something to see. You could watch a striper come after the fly, open its mouth and, like a vacuum cleaner, suck the fly in from more than a foot away. We caught some nice school fish up to 28 to 32 inches or so. No keepers (36 inches is the minimum legal length for stripers) but what the heck, we release them all, anyway.”

As for mackerel, Jim said small schools were showing in the Belfast-Searsport area and in the rips running along Verona Island in the Penobscot’s estuary. Although no large runs have been reported, you know that can change as quickly as the tides. Mention of Belfast reminds me of a report that schools of stripers are entering the Passagassawaukeag River. If you intend to buy a “Christmas tree” mackerel rig or a bass plug in Belfast this summer, I suggest you put your order in early.

Speaking of stripers, Mike Augat, the head guide of “Striper Quest,” a sport-fishing business in Bath, confirmed Jim Peva’s report that the bass were feeding on brit. “There are plenty of stripers in the river, including some big fish,” said Mike, “but the school fish are more aggressive so it’s easier to hook them up.”

However, the veteran saltwater fisherman allowed there was “a ton of fish outside” feeding on brit and anglers were beginning to catch on and move offshore. “I can show you schools of brit that you won’t believe,” he said.

Mike said he had fished 44 double shifts so far this season and his clients were doing OK. I’d say so. Among their catches was a 44-inch striper taken on a fly. With all those brit around, I’d say fly rodders intending to set a course for the Kennebec’s striper grounds would do well to acquire a supply of white streamers. And as Mike says, “Fish ’em fast.”

Joe Lounsbury of Hampden returned recently from four days of fishing at the Matapedia’s Tobique Club and reaffirmed reports that there is, indeed, a mighty run of salmon ascending the river. Joe started by taking a 16-pounder fresh from the sea and his son Kip followed suit by hooking and landing his first Atlantic, a 20-pounder.

“We must have lost 10 or so salmon,” said Joe. “It seemed they were taking short and when they’d jump or thrash they’d come unstuck.”

Sharing the Tobique Club’s pools with Joe and Kip were members John and Nina Cochran of Hulls Cove. According to Joe, Nina didn’t waste any time arm wrestling salmon weighing 22, 12, and 10 pounds into the landing net, while John warmed up by winning a tug of war with an acrobatic 12-pounder.

The Cochran’s had another week’s fishing reserved, so you can understand that John didn’t want to do it all at once. From what I’m hearing, he and Nina must have been “right in amongst ’em,” as they say.

In Joe Lounsbury’s words: “There were fish everywhere. While you were fishing you’d see them rolling and splashing all over the river. What’s amazing is there were no fishermen in camp during the first week in June and the guides caught fish weighing 42, 40, and several in the 30-pound class – and they didn’t fish hard, either.” `Nuff said.

Thanks to Chris Leo, who guides at Cobb’s Pierce Pond Camps, here’s one last and extremely important cast toward the Kennebec: a public hearing regarding the Environmental Impact Statement required for the relicensing of all dams on the Kennebec River will be held at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, July 13, at the Augusta Civic Center.

There, Sport, you have the opportunity to support the Coalition to Remove the Edwards Dam. I’ve said it before. I’ll say it now. If the Edwards Dam were removed, the Kennebec River would be the finest sport fishery in the northeast.