Finding the fish in Maine on opening day is not easy and it can be even harder the week before. If your not from Maine, let me boil it down for you. Basically, all rivers and streams are closed except for the tidal rivers and a small handful of others. Trout fishing in the sea run rivers takes some getting used to. There is allot of water to deal with and the structure is always changing because the tide is either adding or subtracting water. Things can often seem bleak when prospecting for trout in the sea run rivers. Here would be the best analogy I could make. Imagine showing up to the ocean in the winter with an indicator and a size 20 nymph. You might feel a bit overwhelmed. Well, the reality is not that bad but not that far off. Anyway, the air temperatures were up and it was still a week before opening day. Just as I was entering the fly shop, my buddy Tyler is leaving. We shoot the breeze for a bit and next thing you know I am following him to his house to get his fly rods and gear. He said that he had a spot that might produce a Brown Trout or two. We showed up and tiny midges were coming off the water. The Brown Trout were, of course, eating the emergers. I tied on a Copper John followed by a size 20 Zebra Midge, long leader, light tippet no weight. I caught a trout in no time. He took the Zebra Midge. Tyler switched up to a double Stonefly setup. Both big. One Black and the other brown. It worked. He hooked up with and landed a nice 18″ Brown Trout. Tyler took off, the tide dropped and the fish shut off. Of course, I was there this morning. I just knew there was a bigger fish waiting for me. I tied on a huge nasty looking orange and redish maribou buggy type thing with tons of rubber legs. I cast it way upstream and stripped it slowly back towards me. Slow and low was the tempo. I saw a flash. I quickly stripped the line in and threw it back in the same exact spot. This time I use short quick strips. Bang! A beautiful Brown Trout hammered the fly. He jumped out of the water a couple times and made a couple nice dashes. The tide started to bottom out and the fly fishing did too. I am always learning something new here in Maine. Always. Partly because there is so much water and an endless amount of learning opportunities, but mostly because of good fly fishing buddies like Tyler.
Nice Job jeremy! Good to see you catch some fish, i have to say i’m living vicariously through you guys cuz the conditions for fishing here stinks!
Great that you guys found fish…and so early. Early April I used to venture out to fish Shawmut if the flows permitted, but I rarely, if ever tried to fish with small stuff. The water was still too cold to excite very much bug activity.
Instead, I went looking for big fish that lay in wait in slow-moving water. This is the time for the sink tip line, the short, stout 0X leader and the giant conehead Madonna. My favorite kind of fishing…..savage takes from large fish!
I’d often use a big #4 leech-like bugger, or a rabbit strip behind deer hair collar and a cone. The Big Bite fly! I fished it slow and low, probing the best of lairs for the top Brown Trout preditor.
My theory was that he’d only be coaxed to move by seeing a meal worthy of his expending energy to chase it. And, Oh Baby, sometimes the reward for the cold water wading was worth it!
If I went out in the cold, I wanted to spend my time fishing for the ONE quality trout.
Here’s a tip:
When you’re retreiving the heavy fly low and slow, you might feel a slight tick, like a semi-strike. Keep the fly moving, but slower….don’t strike and remove the fly, leave it! That “tick” was the big Brown slamming into the fly to stun it! He did NOT intend to eat it at the first strike, he just wanted to stun it. What he’ll do is quickly return and actually EAT the fly after he stuns it. So, you have to think about this next time out.
Good luck, and I hope this tip helps.
Marshall
Nice job!! I knew there were bigger fish in there. I might make a run there this week and try the big nasty tactic. Honestly, I can’t beleive the way things have been producing so far this season. Of the 6 fish I’ve seen caught or caught 4 have been over 16″ and three (I’m counting the one your holding as one) are over 18″… Pretty amazing for March in Maine. I thing guys should be getting pretty motivated about this season. I know a lot of guys I work with either didn’t ice fish at all because of poor ice or had lousy seasons. I get to talk to quite a few fisherman and that seems to be the word on the street. Places that get runs out of lakes like Rangely and Moosehead should see some good river fishing because the fish didn’t get pounded in lakes on live bait all winter.
I’ll leave a tip for anyone who cares:
Rubber legs on stone nymphs…
I started tying and fishing rubber leg stone nymphs a couple of years ago and I swear they catch more fish…
Leave the legs long so they can flutter and add movement. Give it a shot, even experiment. Fish a biot leg (or legless) stone in tandem with a rubber leg stone just for fun to see what happens. I’m a believer…
Ciao,
Tyler
Tyler – we’re gonna have allot of good Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursday’s this season —- private message me your phone number, i forgot to get it from you. thanks…
Great story, we used to hit the creeks on Cape Cod for salters, usually would pick up some schoolie stripers and small trout, never any 16 or 18. Cool!!!!
thanks shaq — i thought about your stonefly article when tyler pulled up a nice brown and i saw his set up — 2 big stone flies – one brown and one black… I guess the title was right “march browns love black stones”:) — looking forward to reading your fish-tale about your steelhead trip this past weekend – i heard the internet whisperings that you tied into a few … and landed them.. sweet:)
Headrush999 posted a good question in the chat and i moved it over here .. he asked.. “hey jeremy, are those sea run brown trout..” … this is a topic that even is a little gray for Mainers — you hear some guys call them sea run brown trout, and other guys say that they are NOT REALLY sea run browns… and then you hear these legendary stories of huge silver browns caught while striper fishing in the tidal rivers… and then I HAVE SEEN THIS FOR MYSELF… JOE-M has a mounted brown trout from a few years back that he caught on a tidal river here in Maine… I tell you what – I HAVE seen the mount and the fish looks like no other brown I have seen and it is huge… That fish of joe-m’s and some of the other pictures and stories i have read lead me to believe that a SMALL percentage of browns do, in fact, go out to the open ocean and return to the rivers.. or at least spend some time swimming in total salt (not just brackish).. but I am by no means a biologist and nor do i have any credentials to say for sure one way or the other… but it does make for interesting discussion….
ANYBODY GOT ANY THEORIES??? DOES MAINE IN FACT HAVE SEA RUN BROWN TROUT? AND HOW WOULD THEY BE DISTINGUISHED FROM BROWNS THAT LIVE IN BRACKISH WATER BUT NEVER REALLY GO OUT TO SEA… ????? WOULD BE COOL TO AT LEAST COME TO SOME SORT OF AGREABLE POINT OF VIEW..
PS – here was my chat response to headrush
headrush — they would be better called “Tidal Browns” … A small percentage DO go out to sea and back into the river.. but how far they go is negotiable… and most just stay in the brackish water tidal systems… it is kind of a long debate in Maine as to whether they are TRUE sea run browns.. my theory is this .. if they TRULY went out to sea.. you would know it cuz they would be HUGE!!! So, bottoom line: No, I don’t think those Browns are LEGITAMATE sea run browns by any stretch of the imagination
This may be apples and oranges but Lake Superior and Lake Michigan they have a giant strain of Brookies known as Coaster Brook Trout or “Coasters”. They are absolute giants and spend most of their lives in the depths of the great lakes only returning to the tributaries to spawn. Lake Nipigion in Ontario has been able to bring their strain back from the brink of extirpation.
I believe they have sea run browns in Europe and Great Britian. Sea run brookies in the Gaspe and PE Island, so why not sea run Browns in ME?
i grew up in se mass on the water and in some of the streams there were salter trout, brackish water brookies. the biggest one i ever saw was 22″. as a kid it was a the size of a salmon. my parents have sinced moved and i have no idea if they are still in some of those waters. they ran at wierd times ie summer and early fall.
This might be interesting…
The week before Scott Overbey and myself were fishing this same spot (you may have seen the photo in the newspaper…I won’t say which!?). Any way, an MPO (Marine Warden) stopped by and chatted and we asked him whether these were in fact sea run and he said no, he beleived they dropped from the headwater lake… I wonder though, it is certainly conceivable that there are some sea runs there, although I would expect them to be really silver almost like a salmon, unless they had been in the river for some time.
Case in point, on the Sheepscot any brown over 25″ must be released. I would guess that this is because most of us would have hard time distinguishing between the two. Remember, browns are Salmo trutta, salmo because of their close resemblence to Atlantics when they both come in from the sea.
It’s interesting to think about runs of monster browns that go out and crush massive amounts of Gulf of Maine shrimp and come back Argentina size…