Wow summer is over already! What a year I had. I fished just about everyday this season and did more trips than ever. My first year as a full time guide and I’m very happy with the results. I want to thank a bunch of you. Some days I would get a shout on the VHF or a phone call “Trav we are wacking em come on over” this can be a huge help as the pressure is always on when you have paying clients on the boat! A couple guys from the site booked trips and came out to fish on the Cool Water I hope you all enjoyed yourselves and learned a thing or two. Yet others recommended me to family or friends. Thanks a million all of you have helped me make this dream come true!

Fishing this summer was good. We caught lots of nice healthy Salmon and boy are those two year olds plump! We did catch our fair share of hook wounded fish that were skinny and suffered with a torn deformed mouth. On every occasion we harvested these fish so they were out of the lake and not eating forage that our nice chunky fish could eat. As far as the bait in the lake goes WOW the lake appears to be as stuffed as I have seen it in a long time. Many of the fish boated are coughing up YOY smelt or Perch Frye.

Aboard the Cool Water we have started Jigging for Laker’s and are having some greats results. This past Saturday we boated two fish in the eight pound class and ten fish over five! The Lake trout quality seems to be up at least that’s what I seem to be noticing.

One thing that is happening this year and I’m not sure what to make of it is I have caught more shallow Lake Trout than ever before. I have caught them in seventy degree water down only twenty feet trolling at 2.5 mph??? This will be a good one for our Biologists friends? I’m not sure if it’s because we have so many Trout in the lake or if the bait is higher or what is going on???

I would also like to appologize from my lack of posts I was just slammed all summer feel free to pick up the phone at anytime and give me a shout or on the water channel 12!!!

Here are some pics that I have not had a chance to post!!! Please Enjoy!!!

Lines Tight see you on the pond...

Cool Water

Sounds like you had a great season Travis - congratulations you are living the dream. I've often considered the life of a guide but the pressure of having to produce every day for paying customers scared me away - I'm just not consistent enough.

As for lake trout, I definitely agree with your observations. I never targeted lakers in the past because I didn't like risking my DR gear and chamberlains going down deep for them. However, this year they came up for me and I caught lots of them. We noticed this beginning with the derby where we caught loads of lakers while trolling shallow for salmon including the 4th place laker on Friday. I've also noticed lakers picking up bait that was moving fast - especially lures on the outside of my turns which had to be moving 3-4 mph at the time because they were outside and my speed was 2.4. I'm wondering if oompitition down below is forcing them to go out of their comfort zone to get bait or if maybe the bait is just not down deep so they have no choice but to follow the bait.

I also noticed a lot more rainbows this year than in previous years and caught my first tagged bow ever this spring that was a chunky 20 inch fish (he went back for some lucky Winter Derby fisherman to pick up)

Glad to hear the dream is working out for ya buddy, I too agree with the lakers, all season I've been catching lakers over on sebago high in the water column except for maybe once or twice. This past weekend we caught 8 lakers and 1 runt salmon (the salmon came at 85' on the rigger??????) and one of the lakers was a 6# at 6 colors of lead, and another was a 5# at 27' on the rigger in 70 degree surface temp water. Also we were trolling at 2.4 mph gps speed. Weird to say the least but fun just the same. Take Care God Bless LOL Dave

Caught one this AM at 22' 2.4 mph while catching salmon as deep as 36'... Go figure?

Trav

Really nice slide show with some beautiful fish !

Glen

Perhaps it had to do with the weather and how long it actually took the lake to stratify? It seemed like we were a month behind as far as water temp was concerned when compared to last year. Maybe all the rain in June had something to do with it? Who knows, but I think it is interesting that Dave found the same thing in Sebago.

I've had a good year fishing as well, not as much opportunity to get out as I had last year but a good year anyway. I had fun out there pushing fish your way (still have to figure out how to stop that!) and talking on the radio with you. Had a great time out on your boat for the charter as well. I'll be up next week a few times trying to keep my lines in the water as much as I can.

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