Region A- Southwestern Maine

If trout and salmon are your game, this is the time to get out there and wet your fishing line! The hatcheries’ trucks have just about finished with

their stocking, so there are plenty of fish out there to catch. How many you ask?

According to our records, the hatcheries were scheduled to stock out the following number of fish this spring in Region A alone:

* 56,800 brook trout

* 35, 925 brown trout

* 2,300 lake trout

* 8,275 landlocked salmon

* 4,350 rainbow trout

* 1, 575 splake

Quite a feat, considering the hatcheries’ staff couldn’t get started until late April due to weather delays! These recent stockies aren’t the only fish out there. Wild fish, holdover fish, and unscheduled stockies will also contribute to your catch.

Anglers have been reporting some excellent stream and small pond fishing in the past couple weeks. The Little Androscoggin has been particularly good, and anglers have been complimentary on the exceptionally large

size of the rainbow trout. We have had similar reports of good fishing on the Little River in Gorham, the Pleasant River in Windham, and the

Presumpscot River in Windham.

We just received a call from one of our regular voluntary bookkeepers, and he reported the trout fishing has been quite good on many of our small ponds. He has had some good fishing for rainbows on Jaybird Pond in Hiram and has even picked up a

few holdover brookies there as well.

Things have changed up a bit for those targeting salmon in the past few weeks. Now that the smelt run is over, the landlocks and lakers are more evenly distributed throughout the lakes. Although the fish may still be on top, water temperatures

are warming up. The good news is that salmon are apt to give you a much better fight. You can up your trolling speed, and lures/streamers can be

just effective as the slow troll with live bait. The bad news is that the summer doldrums for trout and salmon are around the corner, so get out

there today and enjoy!

For those that like bass fishing, the long-awaited spawning season is just about here. We’ve had a number of calls from out-of-state anglers trying to target their fishing trips around the spawning season, and all have reported how fabulous their bass fishing trips to Maine have been for both size quality and numbers. According to many, our bass

fisheries are among the best anywhere.

Speaking of bass, Region A staff is gearing up to sample several regional bass waters with our e-boat beginning this week including: Thompson Lake – Poland, Thomas Pond – Casco, Worthley Pond – Poland, Otter Ponds – Standish, and Horne P – Limington. Although this night-time effort can be demanding, it provides us good information on the quality of our bass fisheries, and we also hope to use the information to assess how bass predation may be impacting our trout stocking programs. We’ll keep you posted on what we

find, and wish you the best of luck with your fishing adventures.