Friday Squam: 4 lines (6:00 to 12:30)
7:00 Rainbow 18" lead core, 6 colors, fly.
7:20 Salmon 5lb/14oz 24.5" lead core 7 colors, fly.
7:40 Rainbow 20" lead core, 6 colors, fly.
8:40 Rainbow 18", rigger 36' fly
9:30 Runt rigger 36', Yellow/Orange Smelt Gun
9:40 Bass, 3lbs, lead core, 6 colors, fly
10:00 Rainbow 16" rigger 36', Yellow/Orange Smelt Gun

Nice to see some nice Bows for a change in Big Squam, the Salmon was one of the nicest of the season.

Squam Saturday: 6 lines (6:00 to 11:30)
7:30 Salmon 18", 7 colors lead core, fly
8:00 Rainbow 16", 6 colors lead core, fly
8:15 Rainbow 18", 6 colors lead core, fly
8:30 Rainbow 16", 6 colors lead core, fly
8:50 Runt, rigger 36', Sutton #5, Copper/Orange
10:55 Runt, Rigger 36', Ornage/Yellow Smelt Gun

Squam Monday: 2 lines (6:15 to 9:00)
6:30 Runt, 7 colors lead core, Cool Water DB Smelt
7:40 Rainbow 16", lead core. 6 colors, fly
8:20 Smallie, 4 pounds, 7 colors lead, fly

Best fishing on Squam in a month or more, fish all 3 days, hope it continues to improve for the last month of the season.

Sunday Winni: Rain all morning and pretty windy at times, fished with my son David, Craig (SLipknot) brother in law Joe Potzka. Not many boats out there, but conditions were actualy perfect most of the morning, wind picked up as the morning progressed, came in 1:00.

1st light: 6 lines, 4 lead core, 2 riggers, all flys,

9:30 6 lines early, 4 lead core, 2 riggers, 4 flys, 2 spoons

10:30 Action slowed added 2 more lines lines, 4 riggers, 4 lead core, all spoons. riggers got most of the action rest of the morning.

Fishing was fast right away, double, followed by a quad, (landed all 3) several more doubles to 9:30/10:00.

Had 20 in the boat by 9:00, 14 on lead core, 6 off riggers, all on flys. 1 Rainbow 18", 12 Salmon, 16.5 to 22" (3 runts) the rest Lakers 18 to 23 inches.

Continued to fish till 12:00, no more Lakers all Salmon from 10:00 on, quite a few Runts, but several more Salmon to 20" (mostly 18") Most fish after 10:00 were on Spoons and off the Riggers, 36 to 45 feet, very few on lead core or flys.

Biggest Salmon were just under 4 pounds (several, maybe 5 or 6) quite a few 2 to 3 pounds and of course allot of runts.
Best Laker just under 5lbs/23.5", all were keepers

Best spoons:
Orange/Yellow Smelt Gun (allot of fish) home made.
Mini Mooseluck Wobbler (caught allot of Runts late morning, had to take it off)
Coolwater Crusier DB (Purple/Orange) home made

Best fly's:
Coolwater Cruiser, single and double
Yellow Maynard, single
Red Gray Ghost, single

We now have the best of both worlds with our new trailer, being able to fish both Winni and Squam. When we have guest or friends that want to fish we can trailer the barge to Winni and have some good action. When we are alone or have a friend that wants to try for a big boy we can stay on Squam.

Observations: Past 3 trips to Winni (2 my boat and once with Salty) pattern allmost a carbon copy each trip.
Early bite: 50/50 Salmon and Lakers, all with flys, lead core, none off riggers and no Runts, 8:00 before we got a bite off a rigger.

Mid morning: Lakers stopped and runts started, still plenty of nice Salmon. Runts were hittin small spoons only and off riggers, none on lead core or flys.

Late morning, ran only DB's and bigger spoons, Runts started hitting bigger spoons too, only a couple of keepers caught, called it a day.

Fish story of the day, we broke a runt off on a Mini Moosoeluck Wobbler, took the spoon, 3 minuets later caught same runt again on another small spoon, got both spoons back. He was no sooneer back un the water and hit the very next thing he saw, talk about a bad day, hope he learned a lesson.

Kept 2 Rainbows (yummy) and 6 Salmon that were hooked bad, all others released unharmed alive and well.

Great weekend, douby I will hit Winni much more this year, maybe one more trip with the 3 Amigos.

Sorry for the long report, will have a few photos posted later today, I don't know how to do it.

John S.

Good work with those flies John. Did you use dodgers or did you fish them "clean" - the flies I mean.
-Eric H.

Clean, but we have used Flashers in the past with great success and probably will again in the coming weeks, depends on the bite, slow bite we will use the flashers.

We never use fly's mid season, only early and late, maybe I should use some fly's and lead core all year. But it could just be the year, last summer (mid-season) we didn't use any flys and caught quality fish allmost every time out.

I like AJ's flys, he ties the standards and then he imitates the hot spoons of the week, month or season.
The Coolwater Crusier fly was excellent this week as well as the Coolwater Cruiser DB, fished both side by side, they both caught fish consistanly when others were quite.

John S.

I have been fishing near shep browns and have been only catching lakers. Have you been fishing the southern end of the lake to catch salmon? Also, have you been running blades off the riggers or are you running them straight? Thanks...Joe C

We have been fishing Rattlesnake and a few Islands south of there (I think it's south) I think one of them is Moose, not really that familiar with the Lake, only been on it twice in my boat. Most times I have been with friends and they stay south, I think ?

I run Davies spinners, but most of the action has been on lead core with flys.

I tried Shep Browns a week ago Saturday (first time ever my boat was on the lake) for a few hours, "o", but went on the other side of Bear and hit 4 nice Salmon and 2 Lakers, both small in 20 minuets.

Good Luck,

John S

john,
excellent report.
maybe a dumb ? but do you use scent on flies ?

ilucas

Yes I do use scent on fly's as well as on spoons.. Not sure if it works, but makes me feel better to know it might mask any other scents, we seem to get plenty of bites too, so why not. I know some of the Pro's don't and they seem to do OK too, different roads.

Looking for a way to get it off after done for the day without putting another scent on that may be repulsive (soap, etc.) to the fish, any ideas anyone ?

I saw Jason at Paugus one day with his flys in a pan of water, not sure if it was hot water or not, it was obvious he was washing the fly's off, like a dummy I didn'task any questions. How about it Jason.

John S.

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Replying to:

john,
excellent report.
maybe a dumb ? but do you use scent on flies ?

ilucas

Nice weekend, John. How long were your fly leaders on the core? Did you stay between Church Island and Deephaven or venture off to the Kent Island area?

Been fishing Kent Bay past 2 weeks, but made a few passes at the old haunts a few times, with no bites. Seems like allot of tell tale signs things are ahead of schedule this year from what I've seen and heard, the fish are slowly moving to pre-spawn areas.

Leaders are 8 feet 8# Fluro, with 50 feet 10# Fluro, 18# lead core.

No flashers, etc. been working great on both lakes past 2 or 3 weeks since we started tying them on again.

John S.

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Replying to:

Nice weekend, John. How long were your fly leaders on the core? Did you stay between Church Island and Deephaven or venture off to the Kent Island area?