As you probably know, our beautiful Belgrade Lakes all come together and eventually flow into the mighty Kennebec River. The river is a true success story involving improved water quality, shoreline restoration and renewed fisheries. This week I had the luxury of playing on the river for 4 days in a row. What more can a guy ask for?
The flowage rate on the river is really excellent right now in the Waterville through Gardiner sections, making for safe and easy wading, kayaking and canoeing, along with fishing out of flat bottomed boats with smaller motors or jet engines. The introduction of jet style motors has revolutionized river fishing. The joy of the jet motor is the lack of a prop, so you don’t have to worry about busting your lower unit and propeller on the rocky bottom. For those of us who run motors with propellers, it’s always a good idea to bring a spare prop and a couple of extra shear pins just in case. At the very least, make sure you have a set of oars or an electric trolling motor as a backup.
The first day down the river was with a couple of good old boys from the Belgrade area. They are good friends who like to fly fish, and we were hoping to find some striped bass on this trip. The stripers run up the river starting in late May and hang out until the blue back herring leave and the water gets too warm. Unfortunately on this trip we didn’t contact any stripers, but the boys did manage a bunch of river smallmouth on streamer flies which is always a thrill. When you fish the Waterville – Sidney stretch, it’s best to leave a vehicle at the Sidney launch and trail the boat and anglers to Waterville. Then drift down and shuttle back up to get the boat trailer. It’s nearly impossible to motor a boat back up stream once you get past the mouth of the Messalonskee Stream near Thomas College.
The next evening the 14-foot PolarKraft Jon Boat was loaded up again, equipped with a 50 pound thrust trolling motor and a 6 h.p. outboard. For the next three days I floated the Sidney stretch of the river and experienced better fishing and a few striped bass as a bonus. The stripers were caught on top water Chug Bugs and WOW did they put up a fight. These fish were definitely fresh from the ocean and were extremely aggressive; however it’s pretty obvious that the major part of the striper run is over until the fall. The smallmouth fishing was definitely better too and my friend Chuck from New Jersey caught quite a few nice fish on small tubes and curly tailed grubs. He fell in love with the river and decided to go back the next day to try again! He kept commenting on how clean the water was and how beautiful the eagles were. We saw lots of eagles on his trip along with a few jumping sturgeon. If you’ve never seen Atlantic Sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrhynchus) leap out of the water it’s truly a sight to behold. No one really knows why they jump, but there are lots of opinions based on very little fact. The bottom line is, if you float the river this time of year, be prepared to catch a glimpse of a 3 to 8 foot long fish come rocketing up out of the water near your boat! Good luck.
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