Maine is cold-water America's attic: landlocked salmon named for Sebago, togue in glacial depths, wild brook trout ponds beyond counting, and a striper coast that runs to Canada. We start where the salmon got its name: Sebago Lake.
Reports current for Friday, September 4
Live verdicts from this morning's reports.
Maine's deep giant: 316 feet of glacial cold where togue rule the basins and landlocked salmon cruise the ice-out shorelines.
Where American sport fishing grew up: Rangeley’s cold water still gives up landlocked salmon and brook trout under the western Maine mountains.
The big water of the Rangeley chain: Mooselookmeguntic holds salmon, brook trout and enough shoreline to lose the crowd entirely.
Maine’s inland sea: 75,000 acres of salmon, togue and brook trout water with Mount Kineo standing in the middle of it.
Three miles of the most famous salmon water in Maine: Grand Lake Stream is a village, a fly and a fishery all at once.
Big water below Ripogenus: the West Branch runs cold and heavy past Katahdin, holding the strongest landlocked salmon in Maine.
Wild brook trout at their largest: the Rapid River drops from Richardson to Umbagog holding the biggest stream-bred squaretails in the East.
Maine’s working river reborn: the Kennebec runs landlocked salmon and trout through Bingham, and stripers to the sea below.
Maine’s fly-fishing-only lake: Kennebago holds wild brook trout and salmon in remote western water.
Maine’s restored river: the Penobscot runs salmon, smallmouth and stripers after historic dam removals.
Species activity across the state's covered waters. Peak of the year: May.
1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.
Seasonal surface curve for this state's dominant water type (estimated).
| Water | Type | County | Live gauge | Peak month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sebago Lake | Lake | Cumberland | USGS | Apr |
| Rangeley Lake | Lake | Franklin | modeled | Apr |
| Mooselookmeguntic Lake | Lake | Oxford | modeled | Apr |
| Moosehead Lake | Lake | Piscataquis | modeled | Apr |
| Grand Lake Stream | River | Washington | USGS | Apr |
| West Branch Penobscot River | River | Piscataquis | modeled | Apr |
| Rapid River | River | Oxford | modeled | May |
| Kennebec River | River | Somerset | USGS | Apr |
| Kennebago Lake | Lake | Franklin | modeled | Apr |
| Penobscot River | River | Penobscot | USGS | Apr |
Maine holds what the rest of the East lost: self-sustaining landlocked salmon fisheries (Sebago, Moosehead, the Rangeleys), togue lakes 300 feet deep, and thousands of wild brook trout ponds protected by remoteness and law (many fly-only, many never stocked). The North Woods tradition: canoes, streamers, thermoses: is not nostalgia here: it is Tuesday.
Ice-out (April-May) is the event: salmon and togue chase smelt along shorelines everywhere at once. June brings the brook-trout ponds alive (hex hatches at dusk) and stripers arriving on the southern coast. Summer sends the salmonids deep: trolling season: while smallmouth (a quiet Maine strength) fill the rivers. September: salmon color up, moose season shares the roads. Winter: ice derbies on every big lake: Sebago's February derby is the state fair of togue.
The landlocked salmon: Salmo salar sebago, named for Sebago Lake. Ice-out trolling with streamer flies is the hundred-year-old tradition that still fills April.
They are the East's last wild-brookie stronghold: hundreds of remote ponds with native fish. The State Heritage list protects the best: fly-only, no live bait, and worth every logging-road mile.