Get Ready Mainers

[kennebec12 0]

I've been watching the water temps for my favorite rivers from the USGS water data and most of the smaller rivers have held 55 since May 6th, AKA the red quill/Hendrickson hatch and the Quill Gordon hatch should start picking up in the evenings from this week until early June. Looking like rivers south of Route 2 (except in Aroostook)) should be starting, maybe even this afternoon from Augusta south. And streamflows are way down from the lack of rain recently so everything should be easily wadable and starting to clear up.

 

I'd expect size 14 and 16 hares ear in brown and gray to be effective when duns aren't out this week or in the mornings, and size 16 dries when there's an emergence. If the hatch isn't producing switch to size 18 or smaller griffiths or black gnats, lots of midge activity going on right now that could get masked, especially if the trout are still keen on midges.

[wschmitt3 0]

Been seeing a few hendricksons here and there here in Vermont. Got my flies all ready for Hendricksons. For the nymphs i tied up a variation of the Hendrickson nymph from Thomas Ames' "Hatch Guide for New England", I made up a blend of rusty colored rabbit dubbing and olive squirrel SLF I really like the looks of them. Ive also got some Light hendricksons I tied for the females, for the males I have some rusty colored dries I tied with turkey biot bodies and some red quills I purchased a few years ago. I also tied up some Rusty spinners with snow shoe hair and some rusty parachutes for spinners that could come in handy soon.

 

 

Also for New england hatches dont forget about the Pale Evening Duns. I noticed some hatching the afternoon and last night I found a half dozen spinners on my screen door.

[kennebec12 0]

I use a hares ear variant made with gray, brown, and red dubbing blended for some of my nymphing, plain gray and plain brown for most of it though.. For most places I fish I don't normally see PMDs until the first week of June. There was a small shower yesterday afternoon, and the water looked like it was boiling afterwards with rises, mostly after midges I believe. I have some Hendrickson's I've done not with turkey biots, but with feathers from the back of the turkey, they look pretty good. Hopefully I will be getting out into the backwoods on Saturday to fish some better trout water and maybe take a few pictures, and then maybe the Kennebec River on Monday, should be real good activity then considering what was on the water yesterday.