Fresh striped bass are now available in New Hampshire and Maine and for the linesider-obsessed yesterday is now irrelevant! For those who prefer their spring with liberal doses of trout, rainbows up to 5 pounds are making their presence felt on Lake Winnipesaukee while brown trout have been chasing down shiners in a number of Southern Maine water bodies!
New Hampshire Fishing Report
For a solid chance of getting that first “fresh” striper of the season in the Granite State, the Hampton River appears to be a best bet! From a number of different sources I’ve heard of bass ranging from micros to low-20” schoolies! According to the Suds ‘N Soda folks, choice baits are swim shads and small Daddy Mac Vipers. While the white perch run in the Exeter River winds down, the winter flounder bite should be heating up in Rye Harbor, Hampton Harbor and Wentworth Harbor. The low to mid 40 degree water temperatures are less than ideal but if there’s enough flounder around than competition is the catalyst to them chowing down. If you have chum then anchor downtide of muscle beds, ledge or mixed rock and bubbleweed. Without chum you are better off drifting until you find the fish. If inshore groundfish doesn’t do it for you than the mixed bag of haddock, cusk, hake and redfish awaits you on Jeffrey’s Bank! The top of the ledges is still “tops” but drop-offs can very effective too! My friend Richard Wolfe recently emailed me an account of some incredible groundfishing he and friends enjoyed while aboard Eastman’s out of Seabrook. What was most impressive was the plus ratio of keeper haddock to shorts! Richard runs New Hampshire’s own Sea Wolfe Tackle Company and found that his green, red and chartreuse teasers and cod flies were real difference makers. Harold of AJs said that the most impressive catches he knows of recently were two 5 pound class rainbows a guy caught at the Mills Falls inlet on Lake Winnipesauke! The guy caught them on power bait and he had an interesting way of presenting the bait to the fish. He rigged the floating power bait with a sliding sinker rig, would cast the combo into the current and allow the power bait to float to the surface where it got croaked by the big bows! Chad from Dover Marine said that smallies are stirring among shoal water in Wolfeboro Bay. Anglers targeting them with small “crappie” tubes are not only catching the bass but surprising numbers of landlocked salmon as well. Fly fisherman are catching a mixed bag employing nymphs as well as streamers.
Southern Maine Fishing Report
While it sounds more like something out of the realm of mixed martial arts, Scotty of Dag’s told me that anglers are getting black and blue over bronze and brown. Big smallmouth bass, largemouth bass and brown trout have been pummeling shiners slowly trolled over points jutting out into the “Ranges” and Hobbs Pond! Halls Pond is a better option for brook trout and brown trout. A better bet still regarding brook trout is upper and lower Richardson Lake, which is in the Rangeley Lakes region. Managed as a trophy trout fishery it is not unusual to catch trophy brook trout there of 18”, 19” and even 20” long! Of course not all in Maine is classic trout fishing as Great Pond is living up to its namesake with some impressive pike prowling in shallow water and willing to take a streamer!
Peter from Saco Bay said that stripers are starting to make inroads in Southern Maine. The last stages of the ebbing tide in the Saco, York and Kennebunk Rivers are beginning to produce schoolie stripers up to 24”! The fish are not fussy and will hit all manner of soft plastic baits plus small plugs. There’s also word of shad in the Saco! Brandy of Webhannet is getting requests for shad darts, a slam dunk indicator that they are in rivers such as the Webhannet, Saco and Mousam. And just in – soft plastics have been catching 20” to 24” stripers in the aforementioned rivers as well. Sand eels are present as well: birds have been observed picking them off. Requests are coming in for mackerel which is also a surefire sign that bass are around! Brandy and Scott marked fish the other day in the river which they surmised were alewives. Once past the nasty Nor’easter next week is looking peachy for both weather and better fishing!
Fishing Forecast
Finally there are salty options to go along with the splendid sweetwater ones. Take it to the river for that first schoolie striper of the year! They have been found in the Hampton, Webhannet, Mousam, York and Kennebunk Rivers and they are falling for soft plastic shads and sand eel imitations. Many of those rivers are also featuring an improving shad run. That’s not to suggest that freshwater fishing is yesterday’s news – quite the contrary – as big rainbows stir in Winnipesauke and eye-popping brookies are the real deal in the Rangeley Lakes region.
i work at the shipyard,any stripers showing up there
I went from Hampton, to Portsmouth, to The Greater Bay area, No birds, No sight of fish, have fished hard the past 2 days, but they say they are Here? tight lines, Great place to fish at PNS is the back bridge.
I am going saltwater shore fishing in New Hampshire. Where are the best spots to fish and best bait and lures to use?