Category: Mike’s Blog

Welcome back to another year of exploring the Belgrades!  It’s shaping up to be an exceptional season and everyone is chomping at the bit to get out and enjoy this beautiful area.  We’ve been spending a lot of time targeting largemouth and smallmouth bass on the lakes; although fly fishing the local ponds and streams is always fun too. 

Everett Day caught this big largemouth bass last week in the Belgrades.  The bass was hiding in a fallen tree in about 3 feet of water.

The smallmouth bass fishing is off the charts right now!  Because of the early spring and above average temperatures, anglers are getting to experience awesome fishing a little earlier in the season than usual.  Right now the male bass are busy making nests and are easily found up and down the shorelines.  The bigger females are often found hanging in 8 – 10 feet of water somewhere off-shore near the beds.  The tricky part is getting her to bite.  Baits like Senkos, plastic worms and tube jigs probably account for more smallmouth bass than any other options, but top- water lures can often trick the biggest fish.   If conditions are right, fishermen can expect intense strikes as the bigger bass crush slowly moving surface plugs.  Another option this time of year for the bigger bass is to use slash baits like the Rapala X-Rap.  These baits can cover a lot of water and work well when casting away from the shoreline.  Once you find a series of bass beds that have male bass protecting the nest, try fan casting out toward deeper water to search for his girlfriend.  Chances are she’s out there waiting for just the right moment to move shallow. 

As for largemouth bass like the beauty in this picture, we’ve been finding a lot of quality fish on a number of the Belgrade lakes.  The largemouth fishing has been very impressive so far.  The bass seem to be holding in traditional heavy cover, especially fallen trees and sunken timber.  They have also been stacking up near currents like culverts or dams.  We’ve been having good luck on jigs in black with pumpkin/red flake trailers.  If you catch a couple of crayfish out of the lake you’ll notice that many of them have small bright red marks down their backs.  So it only makes sense to try red flake trailers on your jigs. 

As you can see by the other attached picture, I made a few furry friends early this spring.  This was a very special treat indeed because otters are one of my favorite animals to watch.  Otters are much more active at night and like to play and feed in backwaters, so most anglers never see them.  I first spotted this group about a week after ice out.  They were very active and playful.  When you think about it, otters a very social, love to frolic with their friends, are wicked cute, and go fishing every day!  No wonder they are my favorite critter!  This group was extremely curious and would hang around my boat each time our paths crossed.  There were five otters in this group, but I couldn’t get a picture of all five at once.  They would swim like a porpoise around the boat and then stop and pop their heads up to watch us.  But as soon as I would move the camera they would scatter.   It’s amazing how long they can stay underwater – we estimated up to 4 minutes and they would cover a couple of hundred yards before popping back up for air!  Hopefully they will show up again soon so I can take some more pictures!  Good luck!

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted on the blog, but the facebook pages are up to date.  Plus, who has time to write when there are so many fish to catch!  This year has been terrific so far, mostly because the conditions have been perfect.  We don’t have a lot of snow, so there’s no slush on the lakes.  Getting around is easy right now.  We also have between 14 & 18 inches of good ice so drilling holes is a snap. 

The bigger pike are starting to move shallow now, so I think March is going to be a banner month for chasing the trophys. 

The guys at camp this past weekend had a blast and caught a ton of great fish too.  Here’s a link to the facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.3392693941472.2167430.1393374732&type=3

Good luck!

Mike

We’ve been spending a lot of time scouting for the November rifle season, getting ready for what looks to be a pretty good year.    While there’s a lot of talk about the declining northern Maine deer herd, our Central Maine deer numbers seem to be stable.  During the scouting missions I’ve noticed the deer are really keyed on apples along with acorns and mushrooms.   We have a pretty good mast crop this year and the beechnuts seem to be plentiful also.  Chance are by the time November rolls around the deer will begin to move off apples and more toward the mast, but you never can really predict that.  It’ll be based on weather – temperatures and wind.   The more the apples fall in October, the fewer there will be left in November.   Fortunately the mast crop is strong so the deer have plenty of wild foods available.

BOW HUNTING – Here in the Belgrade Lakes Region we are lucky enought to be close to the expanded archery zones in Waterville and Augusta.   There are some awesome areas to hunt and the deer populations are high.  We have some stands set up in prime zones and use climbing stands when hunters need to be mobile.  I’m hoping to get out myelf a few more times in the next 2 weeks before Nov. 1, but it’s going to be tricky!  We’ve got upland bird hunts and duck hunts already booked along with 5 more fishing trips.   That doesn’t leave much personal time for archery.

Fishing – It always make me wonder why anglers flock to the waters during ice out when it‘s freezing cold outside and the water temps are fridged, but they put their boats away prior to the exceptional October fishing.   What’s up with that?   With the exception of perhaps the June smallmouth bite, this is by far my favorite time to fish.  This time of year we catch some of our biggest northern pike and bass of the year and the foliage is amazing.  You don’t have to start at dawn either, which is seen as a bonus by some of my friends.

Foliage -The leaves are  just about at their peak now and the color should last for about another 2 weeks.  Sure is a pretty time for hiking.

Mushrooms – Speaking of hiking, the wild mushroom season for Oyster and Button mushrooms is almost here.  It’ll be interesting to see how the season goes this year with all the rain we’ve gotten and the warm October.  I know the early picking was really good for black trumpets, etc, so I think the October picking should be awesome!

~ Tight lines,

Mike

Ducks, Deer, Fall Foliage, Wild Mushrooms, Big Pike and Bass, Turkey Hunting, and the Striped Bass are in the river!  Holy Crap!  That’s a lot of options.   So you are probably wondering why I’m sitting in front of a computer typing instead of being outside on this beautiful day, enjoying all that the Belgrade Lakes Region has to offer.  That’s a darn good question.   The answer is that even guides have to put in some office time too you know!  It’s not my favorite part of the job, but a guys gotta do what a guys gotta do.

So this week duck hunting season opens up and tomorrow I’m building one more blind on the stream.  We also have limited archery season on deer right now and I’ll be spending a couple of hours scouting a new spot not far from the Snow Pond cottage.  We’ll be guiding ducks and archery hunts all the way through the end of October.  It looks very promising!  We also have some new land for rifle season that has game cameras already put up – need to take a look at those tomorrow too!  Thursday and Friday are all about fishing with some of my favorite clients in the whole world!  Check the facebook page on Saturday because I’m sure there will be some big fish caught – they always catch the big ones!

The chain pickerel doesn’t get much press. He seldom graces the cover of BassMaster Magazine or Field & Stream and certainly
isn’t the topic of conversation at the Sunset Grille during Sunday morning breakfast.   Let’s face it, he’s not the most glamorous fish in the lake, but he certainly has something to offer to summer anglers.  So, let’s pretend you are a pickerel.  You sit perfectly still in your favorite weed bed:  it’s warm, weedy, and four of your best friends are hanging out with you.  Your only concern is that darn osprey that’s overhead or maybe a big, hungry northern pike.  Despite quietly minding your own business, you are on “red alert” waiting for your favorite food to cruise by.   A few sunfish fry round your weed bed and you rocket out and
snatch one – yummy.   Life is good.  This is a good day to be a pickerel!   Then you spot it, your arch enemy, your kryptonite – a
black jitterbug is fluttering past, just out of reach.   You tell yourself not to eat it, momma said stay away from those, don’t do it . . . but in the end you simply can’t help yourself!  With two huge flicks of your tail, you rocket out of your comfy weed bed and crush the top water lure.   Three minutes later, some kid is holding you up and you are getting your picture taken.     It’s tough to be you . .

That’s pickerel fishin’.  That’s the way it works for the fish and the angler.   They are abundant, they are aggressive and
they love black jitterbugs!   Sometimes chain pickerel can save the day when the bass fishing is slow or the kids are
getting restless.   Pickerel also love 8-inch ribbon tail worms rigged Texas style with a 3/0 worm hook.  On North Pond and East Pond where the pickerel are everywhere, a purple sparkle worm works excellent during the middle of the day.

This past week saw some quirky bass fishing, but there were little complaints about the size of the fish.  The smallmouth bass were active early in the morning and were aggressively hitting top water lures.  It seems we catch some of our bigger fish on
top, but not as many numbers of smallies. That’s a fair tradeoff if you ask me. You can always work the shoreline side of the rock piles or the docks and moored boats to catch a bunch of smaller bass.  This past week we chucked a lot of Spooks and
Sammy’s before 8 a.m.  Fish them aggressively and then stop the bait for about 3-5 seconds. The bass would swirl behind the lure – one subtle flick of the bait and PRESTO!  He was on.   You have to cover a lot of water with this technique because you are searching out the biggest bass in the area but the rewards are worth it.  A good baitcaster  with decent braided line and long casts seemed to up the odds.  Depending on which lake you are fishing, you might catch a big northern pike with this method too.

Summer northern pike fishing has produced a few good fish this past week.  The water temperatures are pretty warm for shallow pike, but they come in during the evening hours.  Live bait is always a good choice this time of year, but big stick baits and spoons always catch a few.   During the daylight hours the pike move off the weeds and into 15-25 feet of water so trolling might be your best option during the heat of the season.  They seem to key on submerged alewives so imitating that bait fish with a Rapala or spoon is always a good idea.

Good luck this week!