Welcome Fish Lake Winni Angler's
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(603) 731-1804 / (603) 344-8698
Took me a while to recover my notes and compile some data and observations to contribute to the board.
First, the presently nameless fishing vessel was deployed:
Boat is an '04 Alumacraft Magnum 175cs equipped with a 90 HP Honda 4-stroke I got from a guy going out of business in Tamworth last year. Great boat, but as the description of the transaction implies, I've had to figure everything out on my own. I've got a Lowrance 337c GPS/sonar with the Hotmaps premium east chip that has detailed maps of Moosehead, Winni (no Squam!) and many others. I put Canon Mag 10 electric downriggers on this year. When I've got other people aboard I run multiple leadcore rigs off a "fold and troll" device off the stern. I did not fish mor than 2 lines much at all as daughter Stephanie (8) was more interested in playing with other kids, reading and sleeping late than rising early and fishing in the cold with dad.
Fished not-as-hard-as-I'd-like about 3-3.5 hours a day from 8/13 - 8/25, usually early morning starting at 0500-0530, with the odd afternoon trip and a couple of token dusk-early dark trips of 1 hr or less duration. Hey, this was a family vacation and not only did this keep the peace but spared some time for us to visit and start work on an island property we bought on Tussle Lagoon (Lily Bay) on the east side of Moosehead late last year. I did some gruelling chainsaw work to clear downed trees on trails and we did some other field work, planning and surveying for a camp we hope to start next year. A working family vacation, so no 6-8 hour fishing trips this time up, just a standard 3-4 hour routine at most.
[Moose cows / button bucks photographed by wife Sheila in a bog near Lily Bay State Park]
As a relative newbie to specialized salmonid trolling, I thought long and hard about how I could contribute anything of value to the board given all the experience and know how routinely offered up by all the pros and serious amateurs on the board. I'm a scientist, so I thought I'd start by analyzing the data in my notes. This provided some insights and thoughts on how to improve my fishing, and how I can improve recording the fishing "data" so I can improve the fishing... I put together a pdf summary that could serve as a template for discussion and I could send it to anyone who'd like a copy by e-mail.
Basic summary: 55 total legitimate hits / releases, 41 fish boated = 24 lakers, 16 salmon and 1 nice brookie over the course of about 11 "major" 3-4 hour trips. This is not Winni; I was actually told I was doing quite well, and at least at my camp I was catching more (hard to believe) than others. Still, its obvious I'm missing something in that of three possible trolling methods (lures, flies, bait) I focused almost exclusively on lures (and certain types) which resulted in almost no early-early bite and all fish caught with the sun well up in the sky. (more on this below).
Caught several quality (for Moosehead) salmon in the 17-21 inch range, all at considerable depth. I wasted a bunch of my limited time trolling hardware shallow (8-20 ft) on advice of a local guide who swears the "actively feeding fish" come up and bite in this shallow range...despite my data (no real shallow bite, at least on hardware)...despite the thermocline being at about 35 ft... Long story, but the short of it is that had I trusted more in my own new-found knowledge, advice on this board, and my sonar data out on the lake, I'd probably have boated more fish...if I had used flies at depth early, possibly MANY more fish.
[Stephanie (8), Eric (42) and Christian (4) with best fish of the trip, 21 in female (sorry) salmon. Did not weigh, but not too fat obviously]
Best fish was a 21 in thick but not fat female. I thought it was a male, but...still having difficulty spotting some females obviously. This fish was caught on a glow wonderbread fished on a cheater line (my second line) above a mini glow NH guide fished just above the ball. My read of the regs says this is legal but counts as two lines, but I may avoid using it in the future until more certain. (I did this for 1.5 days after one rigger went down with a tangle). I generally used vertical attractors purchased from Alan Nute (AJs) on advice of Salty.
This fish came near the surface right away; I did not see the release but saw the rod had popped and I saw there was no tension. I help out little hope but reeled in quickly and eventually felt the fish on the line; it promptly broke water twice, the first a spectacular wave-hopping leap (I was in 3-4 foot chop), and fought tail-walking and wave hopping the whole way to the boat. Here, in the chop boat-a-spinning in the wind, I struggled with a rubber net in one arm. The fish jumped out of the net not once but twice. I almost lost tension on the salmon the second time, but then it returned the favor and jumped back IN to the net!!! First time that has ever happened. A real struggle but worth the effort and I was rewarded by a delicious full family meal.
Another good fish was the lone brookie I caught--a nice thick 16 in fish that was eaten down to the bones by my wife and I. The brookie came out of nowhere -- it hit a mini glow smelt lure (see pic) in about 50 ft of water down about 28 feet when I was trolling aimlessly and just about to quit. I tried in vain to find another, and probably invested a lot more time than I should have looking for them when I probably could have found more salmon. There must be another way to target these fish; they are reportedly abundant, some being washed down the Moosehead R. from Brassua Lake, but I did not run into many.
I fished hardware almost exclusively, and of the hardware mostly fished my own lures and attractors that resemble some of the hot Winni lures but feature superglow colors and my own autistic renderings. The hot / producing lures and attractors are below:
[Top producing lures. "standard" lures on top row are similar in length to standard Top Gun; "minis" on bottom row are 2-in. long].
[Top "glow" attractors. Most are designed to match up with certain lures. Dakota blade and glow bead attractors outperformed the spinner blades. I've got to learn how to "tune" the blades I think].
I don't know how to post my fishing log in a readable format; its an Excel sheet that printed to a pdf pretty well, but would be an unwieldy jpg. It provides all the data -- location, depths, speeds, lures, attractors etc. Anyone who'd like a copy is welcome, just post a note with your e-mail or send me an e-mail.
Best location was in 90 ft of water at the edge of the drop off adjacent to Lily Bay peninsula. This is at the mouth of Lily Bay on the opposite side of the gap from Sugar Is. This location was excellent and I also caught fish trolling between this area across the gap to the area just off the north point of Sugar Is. The Navionics map proved very accurate and useful for trolling this location. This was the best salmon spot I fished and it also produced a couple feisty lakers. Best location for lakers, and with potential for many more of significant size, is the "bowl" inside Kineo near Pebble Beach. There is a 240-ft. deep point in the bowl, and using riggers set from 55-86 ft. in 100+ feet of water produced consistent nice lakers once I learned how to "dial it in." No pics of the lakers, best being a couple 20-22 in pigs caught at 65-86 ft. on mini glow NH guide and brook gun lures. One of these monsters tried to bite me repeatedly...toothy *******. With consistent 3-4 foot swells by mid morning, the bowl inside Kineo is a challenging place to fish alone and I fouled up one rigger after catching a togue at 86-ft.
The findings from my 2 weeks on Moosehead appear to match up with recent trends on Winni. First, I got almost no early bite fishing lures exclusively. I did not fish flies, used riggers almost exclusively, and probably did not start out deep enough (wasted time in the 8-20 depths). There were two big bug hatches, and trolling flies could have been the ticket then as well. My lures are mostly pretty bright, and noteworthly is that they mostly produced with the sun up after 7 am.
From my review of my own data in view of the information posted on the Winni board, here's how I'd fish if I had it to do over again:
1. Fish mostly flies at first light. One leadcore, one rigger, both starting 30-ft or deeper.
2. Fish flat-colored lures early mixed in with the flies after 7 am.
3. Fish best glow lures with the sun up after 7-7:30 am and later.
4. Start in 25-35 ft range first light and move to 50-65 depths (for that time of year) after early morning.
This does not mean there are other locations, depths and ways to catch fish, in particular maybe brookies (worms on a bobber LOL?), but "the data" and the results posted on this board by many suggests that the above approach would produce more fish.
Again, the "full report" is available as a pdf. I'd welcome any and all comments and suggestions. All in all, I did better than last year thanks in large part to the posts and advice from those on this board. But I know I can do better, and I'm looking forward to fishing Winni if anyone has a spot over the last two weekends of the month...Can't tow yet as I'm breaking in a new truck.
Eric H.
