May’s unsettled weather made for unsettling fishing

It would take a lot of fishing to hook onto a more accurate description of this spring’s weather than the word “unsettled.” Anglers, however, aren’t false casting when they use the word “unsettling.” Let’s face it, when the mercury in the backdoor thermometer rises and falls like a Frenchman Bay tide, flooding to day temperatures that ranged from 60 to 90 degrees within 24 hours and then ebbing to 30-degree nights, fish tend to be uncooperative.

Accordingly, during early May gabfests at bait shops and boat landings, and while subsequently cycling the water of local lakes through my outboard, I didn’t hear of any feeding frenzies that left streamer flies frayed or bait buckets empty. Green Lake was static the day I gave a sewn-on smelt a tour of the traditional fishing grounds stretching from the mouth of the narrows to the sandbar and along the shores handy to Great Brook. To put it succinctly, if a fish gave the smelt a second look it was furtive at best. Likewise, anglers in two other boats said they hadn’t wet their landing nets. Small wonder, though; on the way home the voice on the radio said the temperature had reached 90 degrees in Bangor.

Conversely, the north wind whistled a bone-chilling tune on the overcast morning Ken Lynch and I skipped streamers through the whitecaps frothing Phillips Lake. It was so cold I had my hands shoved into my jacket pockets and my rod tucked under my arm. No rod holder for me, thank you. For my money, feeling the strike is 90 percent of the sport. But suffice it to say there was no sport that morning. When we eventually passed another boat in which three anglers were hunched in hooded snowmobile suits Ken and I allowed that the picture really didn’t fit our description of piscatorial pleasure. Shortly thereafter we stepped stiffly onto the beach fronting Ken’s main lodge.

Much more civil was the northwest wind that churned Alligator Lake into a “just right” chop when my son, Jeff, and I arrived there shortly after ice out. To practice brevity and clarity, I’ll just say the lake’s salmon and squaretails refused our invitations to participate in the sport of spring fishing. The only other angler we saw – a duck hunter, too, I judged from the camouflage patterns of his canoe and clothing – in three hours of fishing fared no better. In answer to the customary question, “Any luck?” he slowly shook his head.

So it was at Swan Lake, where, for six hours, Jeff and another fish hawk named Brian Carroll hovered over that Waldo County lair of landlocks and lunker togue without so much as a tap or a tug. Accordingly, Lloyd Robinson of Hermon reported that the august group of anglers who gathered at his camp on Upper Jo-Mary Lake were saved from being skunked by one suicidal salmon. Lloyd emphasized, however, that Gerry Rudman, Charlie Hart, Bill Lucy, Barney Silver, and Jim Rosher landed daily limits of camp cuisine and camaraderie.

However, as May reached middle age, reports of angler success increased: Word from Don Corey, who picks up his paycheck in the BDN’s computer services department, is that he and Joe Bertolaccini fooled three Sysladobsis Lake salmon into thinking trolled streamers were spooked smelts. Smelling fish, Joe and another fishing partner returned to “Dobsie” a few days later and hooked 30 landlocks on streamers. Admittedly, I find that somewhat unsettling considering my limited angling success this spring. But therein is an example of the feast-or-famine action typical of spring fishing for landlocked salmon.

It appears, however, that striped bass may provide anglers with productive fishing earlier than usual this spring, thanks to the record-heat days that warmed ocean temperatures. When May was barely two weeks old, Chris Cornell, the Down East Books editor-angler who cast the idea for my book “Handy to Home,” observed big schools of striped bass while fishing with his brother, Dave, off South Dartmouth, Mass. They noticed that, uncommon to stripers, the schools contained mixed sizes of the fish, ranging from “schoolies” to leviathan tackle-testers guesstimated at 40 pounds.

No sooner was that information landed when Steve Wilson of Bath phoned to say stripers arrived off Harpswell in mid-May. When I told him alewives swarmed into Hampden’s Souadabscook Stream early in the month our conclusion was that striper fishermen would do well to begin honing their hooks. Because water temperature was at the surface of our conversation, it crossed my mind afterward that the sale of thermometers to the sport-fishing industry might be second only to that of the medical profession.

Fishing aside, it’s likely that Mother Nature came close to suffering a stroke from overexertion following May’s 90-degree temperature tantrums. Accordingly, leaves literally burst from their buds, drawing heavily on ground water already in need of replenishing rains. When the aforementioned Lloyd Robinson and I went foraging for fiddleheads, we were surprised to find many of the plants unfurled. Moreover, the lilac bushes behind my house bloomed in mid-May, about two weeks early in spite of cool, overcast, wind-chilled days and downright cold nights.

All things considered, though, the gist of this column is hooked solidly to spring fishing. Therefore, allowing that anglers are eternal optimists and June is as fine a month for fishing that we have hereabouts, what more can be said than keep fishing? Unsettled and unsettling as it has been, it’s that time of year.

Tom Hennessey’s columns and artwork can be accessed on the BDN Internet page at www.bangornews.com. Tom’s e-mail address is: thennessey@bangordailynews.net