Search for the Elusive Blueback Trout (Pt. 2)

After my brief morning jaunt alone, Noah and I set back out after having some breakfast to explore a bit more of these lakes. We had just barely scratched the surface of these waters on our first afternoon, but we certainly had made progress.

We made more progress on day two, at least in terms of catching fish. We found Hexegenia emerging over most of the larger mud and sand flats, and brook trout and yellow perch eating them. Though I might have caught a fish or two on dries, I was rigged with a heavy sink tip and a small silver Kreelex was working... like, really well. So I kept doing that. Many fish took on the ascent, which told me they were likely keyed on emerging and swimming nymphs more so than duns. The Kreelex is also a wicked bright fly. Those fish could see it from a long way off, so I think it may have been better than, say, a dull hex nymph. Since I was using a tip with such a rapid fall rate, my line bowed significantly and my take to hookup ratio was not exactly ideal. I missed a lot of fish. But I caught a lot of fish too, and I don't know for sure if I would have had I fished a floater or slower sinking line. When I trolled, which was every time I re-set my drift, I hooked every fish that took. But trolling isn't particularly fun so I didn't devolve to just trolling. 

The fish weren't particularly large. Some got comfortably into the low-mid teens. These were classic wild Maine stillwater brook trout though, something I've not done a whole lot of, so it was fun. I didn't photograph more than two of them, which I somewhat regret because not only did I not photograph most of the biggest ones, but somewhat don't because honestly, as brook trout go, these were pretty dull. 

We caught a fair number of yellow perch, which, if big enough to be worth the effort, came back with us for dinner. We ended up with a pretty good meal, though we could easily have taken more and probably should have some days. The fresh meat is very much worth the minimal effort it takes to obtain in this wilderness. We left the bigger lakes pretty early after being beat down by wind for a few hours. We spent most of the rest of the second afternoon not fishing for salmonids, actually, though we did go back out in the evening. It didn't really produce much though. We got some new species right by camp, which did keep things feeling productive. A weather change was coming. It rained a bit overnight, and the east wind that had persisted since we got out switched to a west wind. I wasn't sure how it would effect the fishing, but we were on to our third day and I knew we needed to make stuff happen if we wanted to catch a blueback. We decided to cover new ground even further from camp, but still on the connected lakes. Basically, we continued to find fish in the same sorts of places we had the days before, but not in the exact same places. Given that the fishing in the lakes was pretty slow now, we spent as much time exploring as we did just focusing on fishing. Our surroundings were far more grand than the fishing was at that time. So, naturally, we wandered. And wondered.

Eating peanut butter off an ultralite

We ended that session with a handful of brook trout and perch each, and realized we really ought to make a somewhat more drastic move, leaving these connected, easier to access ponds for greener horizons. 

Until next time.
Fish for the love of fish.
Fish for the love of places fish live.
Fish for you.

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