The season should be changing soon…if we get a frost. So far, the fish still think it’s August. It is definately hopper time though on the Northern Maine Rivers and Salmon can be caught on Caddis too.

This week, I had a fly fisherman from Michigan fishing with me on the West Branch of The Penobscot River. We cast Caddis to snapping Salmon and before I could hook a fish, Mike had 2 to hand. I just was too slow! Mike and I walked the path upstream of Telos Bridge to a spot on the East shore of the river and we had just enough casting room to cover the spots where we saw rising fish. Once in awhile we saw truly huge Salmon. The sight of 2-foot long Salmon made us real excited. After lunch, we went downstream and found an unoccupied pool. Mike was on to a Salmon right away as I played cameraman and gave him “Position A” in the pool. He yelled for me to cast so I decided to try something different, even though we knew the small elk hair Caddis would take fish.

The Bugmeister is a parachute hopper with a peacock body and a deer hair wing. I tied on a size 10, and on the first cast it bobbed high and bright in the afternoon sun. The Salmon took it with savage agression.

The Northern Maine rivers are set up perfectly for fishing hopper patterns. Soon, we will get somefrosty nights and the Salmon will be smashing smelt too. The best is yet to come!