This year my dad and I tried to do something a little bit different and tried our luck for muskies through the ice. We tried a bit this past summer with no luck, although we didn't try all too hard. Muskies aren't native to the area and a lot of people here have negative views upon them (northern Maine).
The area around us is basically all brook trout waters. No browns, rainbow, cutthroats, and a few landlocked salmon mixed in various streams. Some of the lakes have lakers in them too, but that's basically all you'll find. No bass, crappies, or any warm water type fish. Basically any brook (yes they're brooks here
) will have naturally reproducing population of brook trout. They usually don't get very big (6-8" tops in a lot of brooks), but they can get to be bigger in the larger waters. This specific area had been home to some pretty big brook trout (for brook trout standards, 2-3 pounds). Obviously that's the focus for everyone fishing wise here.
Sometime in the 90's, Quebec decided to stock muskies in one of their lakes. Not long after that in 2000-2001, there was a huge flood due to the winter snowmelt, which really flooded the water system in this specific area. Muskies ended up coming over to our area and down through the water chain system. Brookie fishing really took a hit in the affected areas, which really disappointed a lot of people (myself included).
Eventually we decided we might as well embrace them and took up trying to catch them And no, I have no idea why this part took so long either! We ended up catching 3 this winter in about 5 days of fishing. The fish I caught are about 9 pounds each. A little below average for the area. A guy caught one not far from us that was 31 pounds...that thing was an absolute monster!
It really is something else. We're hooked! Next goal is to hook one up on my fly rod this summer!
The area around us is basically all brook trout waters. No browns, rainbow, cutthroats, and a few landlocked salmon mixed in various streams. Some of the lakes have lakers in them too, but that's basically all you'll find. No bass, crappies, or any warm water type fish. Basically any brook (yes they're brooks here
) will have naturally reproducing population of brook trout. They usually don't get very big (6-8" tops in a lot of brooks), but they can get to be bigger in the larger waters. This specific area had been home to some pretty big brook trout (for brook trout standards, 2-3 pounds). Obviously that's the focus for everyone fishing wise here. Sometime in the 90's, Quebec decided to stock muskies in one of their lakes. Not long after that in 2000-2001, there was a huge flood due to the winter snowmelt, which really flooded the water system in this specific area. Muskies ended up coming over to our area and down through the water chain system. Brookie fishing really took a hit in the affected areas, which really disappointed a lot of people (myself included).
Eventually we decided we might as well embrace them and took up trying to catch them And no, I have no idea why this part took so long either! We ended up catching 3 this winter in about 5 days of fishing. The fish I caught are about 9 pounds each. A little below average for the area. A guy caught one not far from us that was 31 pounds...that thing was an absolute monster!
It really is something else. We're hooked! Next goal is to hook one up on my fly rod this summer!
