Dr. Jim Mcully with a June Kennebec Striper caught on a 9wt. Fly rod.
2005 was kind of a blur to me. You may remember that along with guiding full time I was also the interim executive director for CCA Maine. My responsibilities with CCA ended last fall and I'm looking forward to a much more relaxed summer coming up. I enjoyed working for CCA. But I would be lieing if I said I enjoyed it as much as guiding. There is something about seeing the sunrise over a school of feeding bass that touches my soul. I would have to dig way back into fishing logs to find a year where we caught as many fish as last year. Several trips saw numbers of over 50 and 3 trips we caught over 100 stripers! If there was a down side to 2005 it was that the average size striper was a bit smaller than past years. It seems the river was full of 12-16"schoolies! I contribute this to the
"I would have to dig way back into fishing logs to find a year where we caught as many fish as last year."
water quality and mycobacteriosis issues we are seeing in Chesapeake Bay. I think the poor condition of the Bay caused an early departure of 3-year-old fish. Under better conditions these little guys would have stayed in the Bay for another year. It took a bit of doing but we were able to find some places in and around the Kennebec where we could catch bigger fish. We were able to fish deep and slow in the rips using big flies with good success. As for bait fishing, last year was the first time in many years that live eels performed better than blood worms on larger fish. Artificial lures
