March Ice Fishing

March is undoubtedly one of the best times to ice fish as far as the weather goes, and last week that was clearly evidenced by our day on the ice.  I managed to get a sunburn in March!  We planned a long overdue fishing trip last week to coincide with my sister-in-law Amelia and her boyfriend Brent being home from college.  We were very fortunate that the weather was sunny and the wind was minimal.  To top it off we caught fish!  Brent and I arrived at the lake and there was not another person visible on the white expanse.  We quickly found what I think discouraged most of the would-be anglers when we stepped on the lake and went almost to our knees in a slush/snow mix.  Slogging out to our desired location proved to be no small feat, but we quickly got an area packed down and formed our "base camp".  From there we spread out and drilled our holes.  We hadn't waited long before a flag signaled that the fish were there!  My wife Heather and sister-in-law Amelia showed up a little later and braved the slush with us.  We had a great day landing 9 brook trout with two of them topping the 14" mark, the rest ranging from 9-12 inches.  We released most of them, but were able to catch our limit of two trout each for Brent and I.  This was the first day I have limited out this year ice fishing, and in quite a few years to be honest!

Lake Empty of Anglers

"Base Camp"

Tidy Cats Buckets Work Great for Bait

Baiting Up

Setting the "Flags"

Battling the Slush

Flag! - The Beloved Exclamation

Small Trout in the Hole

Brent Pulling in a Trout

Brent With His Limit

Heather Fighting Slush Back to Base Camp

A Nice 14 Inch "Brookie"

My Limit

Heather and I

Brent and Amelia

Both Limits

The Invasive Threat of Northern Maine

There has been a rumor flying around Fort Kent lately about a muskellunge (Musky or Muskie) being caught in Eagle Lake (the one in the Fish River Chain).  This is not the first of such a story to come out; in fact I have heard of a couple of others in the last couple of years.  Everyone has their own speculation on their origin and I have heard every kind of idea from they swam over the Fish River Falls during the flood of 2008 to someone stocked them illegally.  I have listened to all of these ideas and read countless biologists reports and in turn have formulated yet another idea to put into the countless theories out there.  In the following I am not trying to upset anyone or flat out tell them they are wrong because in all actuality no one knows.  I am just trying to encourage people to think about another possible scenario.  For anyone who has ever hiked the short trail down to the popular Fish River Falls you may have noticed that below the falls is a nice deep hole cut into the river.  It would stand to reason that there are years when a musky would over winter in this nice deep hole.  In the spring of the year, after ice out, this musky would then make an attempt to spawn.  In this attempt, a musky could (in my own opinion) swim up and over the falls on years with sufficient flow and continue it's search for a suitable spawning area.  It would cruise through the Fish River and Soldier Pond areas, without finding a mate and continue it's journey to Eagle Lake.  Without a sufficient population of musky to breed, this fish would resign itself that the spawn is over, and would enjoy this new found location without need to defend a home range from other musky.  Content with a well-stocked food supply, and no fishing pressure, this fish would have the ability to grow to a large size.  Again this is a just another possible scenario, but I want to touch on a couple of other factors that in my mind weigh against the other arguments.  If this was a typical spread of invasive species, people should be seeing all age classes of fish, and one would think that you should see more of the younger fish, since they typically make up the majority of a fish population.  The only reports that I have heard of, were of very large fish estimated to be over 20 pounds, which goes against the traditional thinking of seeing the younger fish first.  Another popular belief is that someone illegally stocked the fish.  When it comes to that argument, I would like to remind people that in order for a fish to reach the reported sizes of 20+ pounds this has to be a fairly old fish most likely over 8-10 years of age.  Transporting a fish of that size would be extremely difficult, considering you would have to keep the fish healthy enough to release after getting to a desired location.  A smaller fish would be much easier to transport, but would have had to be released over 7 years ago to even have a chance at reaching the 25+ pound fish that was last reported.  As far as the statement issued by the State of Maine that musky couldn't possibly navigate over the falls early in the year because their metabolism is too slow, I would encourage people to think about when they hook a musky in that early spring fishing.  My experience has been that they fight valiantly for the first few minutes and then tire rapidly.  In those first few minutes after hooking a fish, the acrobatic displays and hard pulling they put forth, in my mind could easily navigate the couple hundred yard stretch of "rough water" at the falls.  Again, my only objective for this post was to get people thinking.  I am an avid musky fisherman, but I also greatly enjoy ice out fishing for togue on Eagle Lake or chasing "brookies" on Square Lake, as well as my hardwater excursions after the giant landlocks of Long Lake, so I don't feel that I am overly biased one way or the other.  Another thought, does anything in nature ever stay the same forever?

Small Musky - Traditional Thinking These Should Show Up First?

NAFA Fur Auction

The NAFA fur auction just concluded and the clearances as well as the prices were above anticipated levels!  This is great for all of the trappers who got their fur in on time.  I completely forgot about the drop off date, so hopefully the prices will hold for the next auction!  This is definitely a boost for a struggling fur market.

NAFA Auction Report

7th Annual Long Lake Ice Fishing Derby

Just a friendly reminder to everyone that the 7th annual Long Lake Ice Fishing Derby is this weekend.  I will be on the ice and I look forward to seeing you out there.  Check out the link below for details.

Long Lake Ice Fishing Derby

Ice Fishing

Let the hard water exploration begin!  January 1^st marked the opening of ice fishing in my neck of the woods.  The ice conditions were sketchy at best on opening day, so I had focused my attention on finding moose antlers (to no avail if you haven’t read my previous post).  By the second weekend I had confidence that the ice thickness was sufficient to plan an expedition.  I made arrangements to go with a couple of friends to a favored location on Long Lake.  Arriving before daylight, we had all of gear lugged onto the ice and were getting the auger warmed up as daybreak struck.  Making quick work of drilling 15 holes, we proceeded to start setting our tip-ups or “flags” as they are frequently called.  After setting roughly ¾ of our tip-ups, we were rewarded with a flag.  For anyone who doesn’t ice fish, this means that a fish has taken line, and triggered the flag to go up.  As I approached, my friend had already set the hook and almost had the fish to the hole.  The fish was a good one, a salmon probably around 3 pounds.  The lake has a one fish limit over 16”, so we opted to release the fish and hope for a bigger one.  Not removing the fish from the water (a key to successful release of a fish in the winter), we snipped the hook off close to the mouth and sent the fat, silver-sided beauty back down the hole.  We re-baited that tip-up and finished setting the rest of our flags before settling down to wait.  Luckily we hadn’t waited long when the action started.  It was non-stop, with the salmon offering us little rest before chasing yet another flag across the barren ice.  The fishing was the best I have ever seen, with a total of 19 salmon being caught!  The largest was a beautiful 25” female that weighed in just shy of 5 ½ pounds.  The second largest was a ridiculously fat 22” female that weighed in over 4 ½ pounds!  That was truly a “football fish”.  We had seven others that were in the 2 ½ to 3 ½ pound range, and 10 fish that were from 11-15” and in the neighborhood of 1 pound.  The majority of these fish were released, with us keeping only the two largest, so there should be lots of fish to grow for next year.  All in all everyone I talk to says the lake has been extremely slow, but for some reason we hit it just right that day, and reaped the benefits of a great day on the ice!

Moose Antler Hunting

It is the time of year when the ungulate residents of Northern Maine begin shedding the excess bony weight on top of their heads that we refer to lovingly as “sheds”.  Due to the diminished deer herd, I am predominately talking about moose antlers.  I have had “shed fever” for over a month now, but despite my best efforts and hundreds of miles riding snow covered roads I have not a single piece of bone to show for it.  The moose antlers have been dropping, as several people I know have been finding a few antlers, but all in all I have found the results to be very poor.  I think one of the primary factors is the sheer amount of people out looking for the antlers.  In the past there were always a few people that went out and scoured their favorite roads, but there was lots of opportunity to find a road that not a soul had traveled for at least a couple weeks.  On my most recent excursions I was struggling to find a road that hadn’t been drove on in the last week.  I will continue the hunt, but I am afraid my results will be limited by snow depth soon.  Below are a couple of pictures from other “shed hunters” in my area.  Take note of the one showing an antler hung up in a tree.  This was the first time I had ever seen that happen!  If you would like to book your own moose antler hunt, there are a couple of local guides that I recommend for your chance at success: Allagash Guide Service and The Legend Guide Service.  See the page of recommended guides for links to their websites.

I'm Back!

I apologize to all of my readers for my extended holiday hiatus!  Despite my lack of an on-line presence, I have been out in the outdoors a lot trying to succeed in something to give everyone good new about.  Christmas treated me very well, with lots of new gear to try out and write reviews about.  I will be adding another page with my personal opinions on gear that I use.  I have a wireless electronic caller by Johnny Stewart, a tote sled by Viking, two Wii games by Cabelas, a Wii game by Rapala, a slew of new lures by Rapala and a variety of other products that I will inform people of what I think about them.  Stay Tuned!