Travel - Crawford Lake, ME

It Ain’t What’s Below, It’s What’s Above

This is a bit of a cheat as this was the second trip to Crawford Lake, just miles from Camden/Rockland/Rockport in Union, Washington County. The first trip provided sight fishing and at least 2-3 bass a day. This year the fishing was almost miserable. If I had not found an article on white perch manhandling blood worms, it would have been a year of catching a bass every other day (I think I tagged 3, maybe 4 during the week.)

While I caught one on my go-to wacky worm senko, I invariably caught the rest on a Strike King fluke. Why so difficult? I knew the grasses, the structure from the year before, even brought my fish finder. It seems every time I turned my back I heard a noise, a plop. A chestnut or acorn from the overhanging trees. Now why did it take over a week for homo pescatoris to figure out that no fish in his right mind, in 6-9” of water is going to sit around to get bopped on the head? Yet that is exactly what must have been happening. Sure, the grass was great, but not worth a headache. So the fishing was close to ruined by what was above my rod, not by the snags below.

Since I failed to report on Crawford last year, I am going to add a bonus: Winding Trails in Farmington, CT. I had an awful time trying to manage a kayak in Maine with the winds that would pick up, so I was delighted to find one could fish from a paddle boat at Winding Trails. My first mate had her fly rod and I had two spinning rods. Even with the fish finder, nothing was happening. It was late in the day and the boathouse was about to close. In sheer exasperation, I let my line troll behind – in fact we had two lines: one pearl fluke and one june bug lizard. Best twenty minutes of bass fishing ever had. Twice had 12”+ bass hit the fluke. Again so slow to figure it out: the fluke was white, the lizard dark, but this – like Maine – was clear water. Here in DC Metro, just not used to anything but green, brown, black water. What a concept: fish light in clear, dark in dark water – just like the books say. Twice. Just so embarrassed …