The salmon are in at the Magalloway Bridge between Second Connecticut Lake and First Connecticut Lake as of yesterday morning. The flow as of a couple of days ago was at 300 CFS, but was dropped down to 69 CFS today, so the fish may drop back to First Lake if that remains so. Hopefully the rain in the forecast this weekend will help boost the flow and keep those salmon running up the river.
“Ice out” on Back Lake was on Friday the 13th. It was the second earliest ice out we’ve seen in our thirty years at the lodge. The ice went out on Lake Francis the 15th. 
OMR fished Lake Francis Inlet yesterday afternoon and had lots of fun catching a total of 7 fish which comprised of salmon, rainbows and one 18 inch brown. They were caught on a Copper John and a Red Gray Ghost. The water temperature has come up to 47 degrees. We went back to the inlet late afternoon and Jon picked up one more rainbow and I got the big goose egg. There were a couple of spin fishermen that picked up a few fish on bait. The inlets of Lake Francis should be fishing well this weekend.
First Lake Inlet should be heating up as well. We heard of a few small landlocks being caught last week.
The stocking truck has been in town, and yesterday there was a school of brookies that liked the confines of our dock area. I guess it reminded them of Home Sweet Home.
Here are a few of our favorite “Springtime” flies.
Top; Traditional BWO, CDC Baetis – Middle; Snowshoe Emerger BWO
Well, there’s varying reports out there right now on the fishing – some good, some not so good, but everyone having a good time trying. The synopsis is that parts of the Connecticut River have been on the slow side, while some of our lakes and ponds have been pretty good. Here it is in a nutshell:
Well, we survived yesterday’s events. The less said the better on that …
Lots of reports today, from all over Pittsburg, with most on the good side. You know what the saying is: “A bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work”, and we’ve been testing that theory lately. The weather was good today, so maybe that made a difference. We’ll hope there’s more good weather on the way.
Believe it or not, our area has actually escaped the wrath of the rain god over the last few days and we’ve been spared further rising waters in our local rivers. While the Magalloway stretch is running at a nice flow currently (352 CFS as of today), the other stretches are still running on the high side. The Trophy Stretch is ripping along at 512 CFS and south of Murphy Dam the Connecticut flows at 773 CFS – that’s a lot of water, so bring along your supply of split shot and cement blocks if you fish either of these sections. Remember … “slow and low …”
I know what you’re all thinking – just another fish story, courtesy of “B.S.” – but, let me assure you that the events you are about to read are frighteningly true.
Last week, I took a trip out to Little Averill Lake, a small glacially carved water body in northeast Vermont, to check on a hex hatch that used to happen there around the same time as ours at Back Lake. Well, it turned out that I did not see any hexes that night, but there were many, many small light colored mayflies on the water (very similar to a light cahill) and they were sitting there quite contentedly. That’s because there were no fish coming up to take them. Little Averill used to be stocked with rainbow and brook trout, in addition to the strong breeding population of lake trout. In the last ten or so years however, Vermont has stopped stocking rainbows there and I’m not sure if they put brookies in anymore either. What I saw that night, with the lack of concern from the local mayfly population, confirmed that perhaps there were no brookies there, as they surely would have been gorging themselves on the mayflies.
Just when all seemed lost, and I had decided to just spend the night out there on a beautiful early summer night, I saw a rise. No, two rises, maybe even three. I quickly tied on a small Usual, made one cast toward the cruising rise, and suddenly I had on a pretty good fish. While I hooked it in shallow water, it hastily pulled me in to deeper water ( I was in my kayak – imagine a north country “Nantucket sleigh ride” and you’ll get the picture). The fight was incredible, as it was a one hour long struggle to bring him off the bottom. By now, I was pretty sure that it was a laker that I had hooked, and my suspicions were confirmed when he finally surfaced and was brought to justice. Estimates were a 21″, 4 lb. laker that was tamed on a 4 weight fly rod with 5x tippet – not bad for my first laker on a dry!