The old adage about the month of March “coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb” certainly got turned around this year. With April 1 being the premiere of open-water fishing season, for anxious anglers it really lived up to its April Fool’s moniker.
After turning the clocks ahead, we enjoyed longer, warmer daylight hours and several days in the 50-degree range that erased most of our snow in the Crown of Maine. Then about mid-month, ole Mother Nature pulled the rug out and it began to snow every two or three days. Nights all dropped well below freezing and days seldom topped 32 degrees, with incessant brisk winds making it even colder.
A couple of the larger rivers that had opened up during the thaw kept running, but grew flood-level high and full of ice chunks. Smaller streams began to form ice cover again on stretches of slow-moving water.
Early April fishing spots will be few and far between thanks to the backsliding weather, but determined Aroostook anglers will be able to find a few open runs to visit. As always, casting worms or night crawlers is the most productive style of early ice-out fishing. It’s also the safest, most comfortable option, because fishermen can stand on shore and cast. Wading in hip boots or chest waiters in the fast, murky, debris-filled waterways is treacherous and frigid.
Trout and salmon won’t be laid up in the heavier current anyway, opting for coves, eddies, backwaters and bogans where they don’t have to work constantly against the flow to stay in one place. With a spinning or bait casting rod and reel combo, it’s possible to cast worms or even lures from the safe footing of a stream shoreline. Even this effort requires care when moving about in the snow and mud, as well as warm stockings and thigh high, insulated, waterproof boots.
The bait, bobber and bucket brigade are mostly seasoned spring anglers who know where the low-flowing backwaters, bogans and brook inlet eddies are located on neighborhood streams. Fish school up in these warmer, low-flow pools where folks can cast a worm and bobber out, sit on a bucket that holds their bait and extra tackle and comfortably wait for a fish to bite.
Fisher folk who need more hands-on action can stand on shore or carefully wade shallow, sedentary eddies and cast a worm and sinker rig out, then do a slow, bottom- bouncing retrieve. Brooks are very cold and the trout are lethargic this month. They won’t chase a worm, lure or fly like in the summer.
I use a pearl or silver spinner above my bait to better draw the fish’s attention in the off-colored freshet water. Whatever you cast must drift right into their narrow feeding lane to elicit a strike. It usually takes many casts and a deep, bottom-hugging retrieve to hook up, but slow action is better than no action.
There will be precious few pools with little or no flow, like below dams or large islands, and wading and casting a fly will be possible at these locations. I prefer colorful streamers in the tea colored, debris-filled runoff conditions. Fish pick up the vivid colors easier and might even be a bit more aggressive toward brightly hued flies.
The old favorite standby Mickey Finn, or a red and white bucktail, ouananiche sunset or a little brook trout are proven spring patterns. Use a sinking tip fly line or weighted fly. Conehead nymphs, matukas and leech patterns all sink when fished slowly in light current.
Perennially open and productive April locations include the pools below the Mars Hill and Robinson dams. Another spot is the large eddy and backwater formed at the confluence of Presque Isle Stream and Aroostook River above the Route 1 bridge on North Main Street. It’s easy to reach with plenty of off-road parking. Anxious April anglers in Caribou might consider tossing baits along the slow-moving shoreline run below the inlet of Little Madawaska Stream into the Aroostook River.
Up north in Fort Kent are a couple of easy-to-reach pools on the Fish River, one just above the old Fort Kent Mills bridge and sawmill as well as the inlets of Daigle and Perley Brooks. A stretch of Fish River near Soldier Pond also opens up early to allow shoreline casting even when ice still covers much of the waterway.
Further south near Houlton, a portion of the Meduxnekeag River along a big bend at Carys Mills generally offers early April wading or bankside casting. The stream actually crosses Route 2A near this location and casters enjoy the added excitement of hooking a fairly rare brown trout as well as brookies.
Each spring’s ice melt on regional rivers and streams varies from year to year depending on weather conditions, so eager anglers need to check every day or two on streams they like to visit. Fish are as enthusiastic about open water as fishermen, and while slow to react, are still hungry and ready to eat. Often, casting into an open run no bigger than a Volkswagen bug will provide some action.
It’s been a long winter. At last it’s time to gear up and get out to a neighborhood fishing hole before all the good spots are taken.
