Kennebec East Outlet

[niveker 0]

My two brothers, a nephew, a cousin, and I took a long weekend to travel up the Kennebec River to the East Outlet of Moosehead Lake in Maine.  Cabin right on the lake with a beautiful view.  Nice weather: mid 70's, sunny skies, a light breeze all day Friday, Saturday, & Sunday.  I would have preferred a bit of cloudy skies, but I'll take it.  Water flow was good at @ 1100 cf/s, making wading pleasant and relatively easy.  This is a top release dam, so unfortunately the water was a tad warm in the lower 60's.  Fishing was tough.  Fishing all day after a late breakfast, stopping for lunch, we averaged 6-8 fish a day, working hard for them.  Predominantly Salmon with a few Brookies thrown in, one brown for the whole 3 days, all in the 6-14 inch range, except for a few odd hours on Sunday afternoon where I landed 8 Fallfish ranging from 12-18 inches.  There was a steady, relatively heavy caddis hatch the whole time, although very few rises until sunset.  I was never able to key in on any consistent pattern, catching fish on caddis patterns (dry and emergers), steamers (Royal Coachman), large yellow stones, olive and black woolly buggers.  Pretty popular spot, but not annoyingly busy.  Sorry, no fish pics, just scenery.  Good to spend a chunk of time with family.  

View  from the cabin porch, I believe that's Big & Little Spencer Mountains in the background, but may be mistaken.  

Popular spots above and below the trestle bridge.

My brother at the RT6 bridge

Below the dam

 

 

 

[skeet3t 0]

We have the Appalachian strain of brook trout but don't grow near the size of yours up North. Sounds like a good day and like the photos. Thanks for sharing.

[Dave G. 0]

Hope you said hi to Scott and Allison for me lol. I've been traveling up there for more than 30 years. The water is very low this year and the Moose river is even worse. Normal flows in the East Outlet for June would be nearly double what you had which holds the bigger fish for a while and makes down river fishing more realistic ( kind of bony down there at 1100 cfs. I'm gonna say you did well considering the circumstances.

 

[niveker 0]

2 hours ago, Dave G. said:

Hope you said hi to Scott and Allison for me lol

I did speak with them for a few moments while they were training one of their dogs to retrieve waterfowl from off the docks.  Really a beautiful spot.   

I knew the water was low, but I was surprised that the water was that warm, given the northern location and size of that lake.  Even the few guys I talked to going out on the lake reported slow fishing and warm water. 

We certainly were hoping for more active fishing.  I was for driving down the logging road to hit some spots further south on the river, thinking the fishing might be a bit better, but I was outvoted.  Great time, nevertheless.  

14 hours ago, skeet3t said:

We have the Appalachian strain of brook trout but don't grow near the size of yours up North.

Unfortunately, we never hooked into any of those big Maine Brookies this trip.  Maybe next year.  

[flytire 0]

i lost a full fly box of nymphs below that damn bridge 🙁

its probably floating somewhere in the atlantic ocean 🌊

[niveker 0]

1 hour ago, flytire said:

i lost a full fly box of nymphs below that damn bridge

My youngest brother did the same on this trip, just after he fell in, LOL.

[Dave G. 0]

21 hours ago, niveker said:

I did speak with them for a few moments while they were training one of their dogs to retrieve waterfowl from off the docks.  Really a beautiful spot.   

I knew the water was low, but I was surprised that the water was that warm, given the northern location and size of that lake.  Even the few guys I talked to going out on the lake reported slow fishing and warm water. 

We certainly were hoping for more active fishing.  I was for driving down the logging road to hit some spots further south on the river, thinking the fishing might be a bit better, but I was outvoted.  Great time, nevertheless.  

Unfortunately, we never hooked into any of those big Maine Brookies this trip.  Maybe next year.  

60f water temp is still quite fishable, the biggest problem was your flow rate and human occupation lol ( what fish were there got pounded with every fly under the sun), salmon love running water. Higher water makes it a little faster and the salmon  come up from Indian pond in higher  faster water but retreat back down in slower lower water and of course warmer. And the pools will hold fish for a bit with more water. When the waters low you tend to catch mostly dinks, the river doesn't hold the bigger fish well in low water..  It's just the nature of things up there. Of course there is always the chance for the odd ball. I drifted a #16 black caddis one time in lowish water in Aug, I was just checking the drift of the fly in kneed deep water and a set of lips poked out and grabbed, it was a 20" salmon in warmer water than you had. So it does happen. That's why we call it fishing I guess.

 

[niveker 0]

Thanks, @DAVE G, appreciate your advice. 

1 hour ago, Dave G. said:

salmon love running water

The small salmon really saved the trip.  I catch a good number of salmon out here in the Swift, but they don't have the same spunk those Kennebec salmon do.  Great little fighters and acrobatics.  

 

[DFoster 0]

It looks like the Kennebec is almost heavily pressured as the Swift from your photos-

[niveker 0]

Yeah, another reason I wanted to go a mile or two downriver.  I thought it was going to be a little more crowded than what we encountered.