Fall fishing often overlooked Trout willing, scenery breathtaking

With a choice of early goose season, bear hunting and the first week of moose season, September is a busy month for Maine outdoorsmen. Add in an outing or two of pheasant hunting, some crow hunting and a few trips to the skeet or sporting clay range to sharpen the shooting eye and there’s plenty to keep a sportsman busy.

For upland bird hunters, waterfowlers and bow hunters, a good portion of September is spent preparing guns and gear, or practicing archery for the October bird and whitetail seasons, which are just a couple of weeks away.

What many sports forget, amongst all the hullabaloo over shooting, is that it’s still fishing season as well. When the humid dog days of late July and August arrive, making angling conditions uncomfortable and trout generally unresponsive, a lot of folks hang up the rods and call it a year. I’m here to tell you that if you’re not wading a favorite stream or floating the edge of a special lake, casting flies for brook trout in September, you’re missing some of the finest fishing of the entire year.

Autumn attractions

First and foremost, the wonderful weather conditions of early fall are enough reason alone to draw fishermen to a favorite waterway. Spring trolling produces fast action but the cold, wet weather and unpredictable winds are daunting. Summer outings are tempered with hot sun, dry conditions and often temperamental trout. And winter, well you can’t even find water to wet a line without wrestling an ice auger for two or three rounds. Don’t get me wrong, most of us fish anyway, in spite of the seasonal conditions. But truth be told, there’s no finer time of year, nor more resplendent surroundings, than autumn in Maine.

Mornings and evenings are cool, and the air is crisp with the smells of forest and farmland that only fall in Maine exudes. Trees are adorned in a kaleidoscope of color and a few leaves are falling and rustling along the ground, or serenely floating downstream. If it weren’t for the improved trout fishing, the sights, sounds and smells alone would be worth the outing. My Dad calls these perfect September days “shirt- sleeve weather,” because from dawn to dusk you could be comfortable in only a long-sleeve shirt.

Moderate daytime temperatures, cool mornings and evenings, and brisk nights serve to lower the water temperature, and fish respond by becoming more active and feeding more frequently. Trout leave the deep holes and cold springs and spread out into normal feeding lies and resting spots throughout the rivers and lakes.

In conjunction with these changes, the moon, stars and fall weather trigger an inner clock telling each fish that it’s spawning time. Nature takes over and as the month progresses, male and female trout seek out the gravel bottomed inlets, creeks and brooks that their ancestors have visited for hundreds of years, and the start of a new generation of square-tailed, speckled-sided beauties begins.

Fabulous fishing

All of the changes the trout undergo this month benefit the fisherman. Increased activity and appetite due to cooler conditions are complimented by the more aggressive behavior and increased protectiveness of spawning brookies. Toss a tasty looking fly pattern into the mix of fishy attitudes and emotions and action is sure to be the outcome. Add to this the fact that many of the brood fish showing up to spawn are the largest in a particular waterway, and it’s evident why some of the season’s largest trout are hooked in the fall.

Each waterway has several specific locations which trout favor for annual spawning, and once such spots are discovered, a sportsman can take advantage of them year after year. The best way to ferret out spawning areas is to float or wade along the water’s edge or walk the shoreline of a prospective waterway during midday when the high sun allows a clear view of the stream bed. Schools of spawning trout usually stand out to a sharp-eyed, slow-moving observer, but if you get too close and spook them, the flurry of fleeing fins and splashing tails will leave no doubt where they were. Then it’s just a matter of returning more carefully, and with a fishing rod, the next time.

An eight-foot, 6- or 7-weight rod is about right for fall fly casting, but a half-foot, more or less, will work. Floating, weight-forward lines in a pale color such as beige or light green are preferred and at least a nine-foot leader with a four-pound tippet will do very nicely.

Since spawning fish in clear, shallow water can be a bit spooky, longer casts and lighter, longer leaders are a benefit. Medium-weight rods with moderate action and weight-forward lines help with distance and accuracy when precision fly placement is a plus. Since some three-pound-plus fish are often hooked, the midweight gear is an added bonus for controlling big, active trout in thin water. Occasionally, a leader length of 12 feet will be necessary to ensure consistent action.

Casting customs

Persistence and proper fly presentation are very important when casting to fall brook trout. Casters need to position themselves upstream of the laid-up fish and in the middle of the waterway or in the bankside shallows on either side of the holding stretch. Boat fishermen on streams or thoroughfares will want to anchor in the same positions a wading angler would stand. When casting from a boat or canoe on a pond or lake, and presenting a fly at the mouth of an inlet or thoroughfare, the craft should be anchored near the shoreline on either side of the incoming waterway. The outcome of all these setups is to cast cross-current and get a long, slow fly swing downstream, and end up with a straight downstream line with the fly working and swaying in the current.

Spawning trout generally won’t travel a long distance to strike a fly, but when a bait comes close to their holding lie, they are very aggressive. An angler may make a dozen similar casts from the same spot with no response, but the very next swing will bring a jarring hit. Casting angles, swirling currents, rod tip motion, and the final J-shaped button hook motion of the fly at the end of each swing vary with every individual cast. Sooner or later, one will be right in front of a trout’s nose and irritate it to strike.

Remain as far back from the fish as possible when casting, change line length and casting angles, and even change to the opposite side of the flowage if possible. Location changes and casting variances are a good thing during autumn fly fishing. Frequent fly changes are another tactic that will increase and prolong the action at each spawning location.

Fall flies

Colorful streamer fly patterns seem to evoke the most consistent attention from fall trout. It’s not that bait fish imitations such as a gray ghost, black and white bucktail or black-nose dace won’t work, but bright flies seem to aggravate the fish more. Feather-winged flies seem to produce more strikes this month than do bucktails, which isn’t the case during spring trolling.

Make sure your fly box has size 8 or 10 long-shank streamers in patterns like a red ghost, Woods special, Ouananiche sunset, and a Barnes special. Bucktail favorites include a red and white, little brook trout, magog smelt, Mickey Finn and a rainbow ghost.

In very shallow pools, spawning fish can be agitated into striking flies that create a noticeable surface disturbance as they float on, or just below the surface. To experiment with this method of fishing, tie on a muddler minnow, green machine, Letort hopper or a troth bullhead. All of these flies will push a small wake as they swing downstream, but are just as effective when slowly retrieved back upstream through the pool.

A final style of streamer that may be used for deeper spawning runs will get right down near bottom, especially when a sinking tip fly line is used. Buggers, which imitate leeches, and sculpins, which imitate small bottom-dwelling fish, are very effective at this time of year. Black, olive and dark brown are popular colors for these patterns. Stretches of water with a slow current are best suited to this style of deep running flies.

Whatever fly you select, since it is spawning season, crush the barb down to facilitate quick, easy releases. Limits are reduced at this time of year to one fish daily in most waterways, but I recommend releasing all the fish unless you’re lucky enough to finally catch that trophy of a lifetime, and even then, if you’re not going to have the fish mounted, carefully let it go.

Area sportsmen have a lot of irons in the fire this month, and most of them have something to do with hunting, but don’t put that rod back in the rack just yet. September is a great month for fishing, too. The weather is wonderful, the trout are willing and the scenery is breathtaking, so take an afternoon and visit a favorite waterway. A few hours of autumn fly casting this weekend will help you see September in an all new light – this is the month that spawned the term Cast and Blast.

Outdoor feature writer Bill Graves can be reached at graves@umpi.maine.edu