This past fall my brother and I hit a local Maine lake that has a good population of both smelt and splake. We were trolling smelt patterns behind our canoe in 30 – 40 feet of water. The fishing was little slow for the first 45 minutes, until i marked a good school of smelt on the sonar and told my brother to get ready for a hit. As soon his fly got over the school of smelt he got a hit and soon brought his first fly caught splake to hand. After the first fish we trolled for quite a while with only deteriorating weather and very little signs of baitfish or trout. My rod was the next to get hit unexpectedly and of course i had gloves on so i couldn’t strip in the slack and the fish threw the hook. Well, after some more unproductive trolling he hooks into a fish that slams the pole over and starts screaming drag! I get my fly rod out of the way and get the net ready to land the fish. We get close enough to the fish to find out its just an average splake that swatted the fly and got hooked in the tail. What a let down. However we both had had enough of fly fishing for the day and more than enough wind andcold. So, we decided to leave. This was not the most productive fly fishing trip ever, considering the day before 5 splake came to the boat. But, my brother caught his very first splake on a fly which made the trip a success.
Awesome! Been a long time since there has been a good Maine fish tale on the site! And, this is a great fish tale! Great to see young guys like yourself and your brother getting into the world of fly fishing. And, for your brother to have caught his first fish on a fly .. definately makes this trip a success. I have only done a little bit of trolling flies in Maine and just this past summer I had my first little bit of success when fishing with my 4 year old son at our camp on lake sebago. I thought it was going to be an easy endeavor – boy was I wrong. I never realized how much goes into trolling flies. Fortunately my friend Greg at Jordons store let me borrow his rod/reel with color coded lead core line. And, I think I fished tandem black ghosts and grey ghost smelt patterns. I did not have any electronics or anything like that .. so I just went by “feel” and the instruction that I was given about letting out somewhere around 11 colors of line. My son and I fished for a while as I scratched my head, not knowing if I was in the right area or on “the ledge” that I was told to troll over. Then, low and behold, the fly rod starts to bend and bounce. My son and I took turns reeling in the fish and after some time .. we brought his very first lake trout to hand! It was very fun and relaxing .. and now I know why it is such a Maine tradition and why I see all of the long canoes on Moosehead lake in the early morning hours. I plan on doing more of this type of fly fishing on Sebago lake this year with my son .. as its a great way to spend time together, fish the fly and search out some fins! …
In Maine, this time of year when the lakes are a big block of ice, its great to hear a fish story like yours. Five fish to the boat is a good day of fishing in my book!! It is great that you and your brother could spend your time fishing and he caught his first Splake. This is a really nice story for an old guy to wake up to.
Thanks
Greg
Zario,
Your article has brought back so many memories for me. My first experience with a flyrod was trolling a streamer behind a 12 foot boat with my father at the tiller. My father was the ulitimate streamer fly troller. He knew the exact speed to troll to make the fly look like a smelt, how close to shore depending on wind and temperature, the perfect leader lenghth etc. As I became more interested in fishing I left the trolling to my dad and went off to cast my flies to holding fish on rivers and ponds. There came a time when trolling to me meant not really flyfishing. Your article has reminded me that if a fish is caught on a fly and flyrod it is still flyfishing. I think I know which pond/lake you were on. I can tell you that a gov. aikens streamer works extremly well there
thanks for the memories
cool story. trolling can be a deadly technique for sure…you cover vast amounts of water and increase your chance of sucess. The old timers here in the finger lakes actually hand troll big tandem streamers on copper line and it is deadly. nice work
Zario –
Thats killer. First fish on a fly!!! those fish hit those streamers like a freight train. I used to troll streamers in the spring for whatever would eat it. Somedays were better than others but it is always fun to be on the water with good people. Great fish tale hope to see more.