Saturday, late start (getting up early lately hasn't produced for me, so why bother) no bites "Squamed"
Sunday, Cal Preston was nice enough to keep me company, nice day on the lake for a boat ride, 7 hours, 4 lines, not even one green fish, Squamed again.
So that's it, 3 days of (light) fishing, 1 Salmon, fishing has got so slow on Squam it's hard to get up early and fish it hard for 8 hours or more like normal. Having a hard time getting partners lately to fish Big Squam, I can't blame them, fishing is SLOWER THAN SLOW, but if you hit em right it can produce.
One of my friends boated a nice 20" Bow Sunday, 4 colors on a Winni Smelt. So even though we see 100's of fish down deep (80 to 90 feet) sitting under house size bait pods, the only fish we can get to bite are at 20 to 25 feet (mid 60 degrees) Salmon or Bows. Never saw it like this before this late in the season, normally we are fishing twice that depth this time of year, but the water is "finally" warming up a little, maybe fishing will soon as well..
Surface day time temps are about 71/73 degrees now, have to go down 42 feet to find mid 50's, but fish are not there.
Another first for us is to have tandem Streamers the ticket this time of year. Red Grey Ghost have been the hot fly all season, ice out til now, so much so that we used our last one Friday, the fish are destroying them when you can get one to bite. Alan at AJ's has come up with some very interesting "new" versions of Red Grey Ghost for us, picked them up on the way home Sunday, look "super" can't wait to try em next Friday.
These new versions were not solicted by us, Alan knew they were doing well for us so he came up with a few new ideas, that's the kind of a guy he is. If in AJ's ask about them, Alan will custom make any fly you want..
So if fishing Squam, fish tandem streamers, Red Grey Ghost our favorite, fish top 20/25 feet of water and be prepared for a long day, but remember "good things come to those that wait".
Big John
Who may be calling a wrap soon, shoulder is getting really BAD, hope I can make it to October.
