2023 Aug 28 - Last day at Bear Spring Camps

 

Early morning looking over Great Pond

The day started off nice and calm and beautiful.  

We went fishing in the morning, but it was too sunny, and the fish were hard to find.

Frank caught a small pickerel, a smallish Pike, and a good-sized white Perch. The only fish I caught was a 28" Pike when we were on our way in for lunch around 12:30.

Esther with a 28" Pike

The wind kicked up and there were white caps on the pond after lunch!  We decide to give it a go anyway and hoped Chutes Island would give us some protection from the wind and perhaps hold some fish. The fishing and wind were not good there so we crossed the pond to get protection in the North Bay.  Fishing was still not good. We only caught 2 yellow perch and 1 pickerel and it was impossible to do anymore, so we headed in early.  We had hoped it would calm down as the afternoon went on, but it did not.  A nice neighbor came out to help us land at our dock, it was so choppy! 

2023 Aug 27 - Day 2 Fishing at Bear Spring Camps

 We got on the water around 10:30 am after breakfast and fished until 1:30 pm and then broke for lunch.

Frank caught a perch, 2 smallmouth, and a largemouth bass.  I caught a 21" and a 24" Pike, a pickerel, and a nice smallmouth.

Frank with one of his smallmouths

Esther with one of her Pike

It was a little unnerving but interesting to watch a seaplane that was practicing takeoff and landing quite near to us!

We went out fishing in the evening again. This time I caught a 24" Pike, a 27" Pike, a pickerel, and a 23" pickerel. Unfortunately, Frank did not catch anything tonight.  I think my #4 Mepps with the silver blade and Orange tail was the key to my catching.

Esther with her 27" Pike - They keep getting bigger!

As the sun went down, we were treated to some pretty skies on this calm night.

2023 Aug 26 - Bear Spring Camps

 We returned to one of our favorite places Bear Spring Camps to fish Great Pond in Maine. We always stay at Bear Spring Camps. You get 2 homecooked meals a day, a cabin and a boat to rent.  All you need to do is fish all day! 

We got on the water at 1:00 pm and it was very hot all afternoon. We fished until 5:30 when it started to rain, took a break for dinner and then went back out and fished 7-8:15 pm. Frank did really good on this first day by catching 12 fish: 6 smallmouth (2 large ones), 2 perch, 2 northern pike, a pickerel, and 1 decent-sized largemouth.  Frank used Mepps, a large jointed orange Rapala and a large #5 Mepps with stinger hook.

I didn't catch as many fish and told Frank I was holding out for the big ones. I caught 2 very small smallmouth bass, a 20" smallmouth and a 20" Pike - the largest Pike of the day. I caught my fish on a Hula Popper and a #4 Mepps silver blade with Orange skirt.

Esther posing very stylishly in her new fishing shirt holding her 20" Pike

Esther with her 20" Smallmouth bass

As the rain ended we were treated to a nice rainbow 

2022 Aug 28-30 Bear Spring Camp

 We spent 3 nights at our favorite fishing camp and had a great time. The weather was tough— very hot and sunny during the day and the wind was a constant 10 mph which made boat control and casting a challenge. We had my brother George with us this year and this was his first experience at a fishing camp. The food was very good, and I think we all gained a couple of pounds! Here are just some of the fish we caught this trip.

George with the largest Pickerel caught this trip

We all caught at least 1 smallmouth but Frank got the biggest ones this trip.

Frank with his 3-1/4lb smallmouth

And I saved the best for last. We come to this lake for the Pike. I was lucky enough to catch a 28”Pike this trip.

Esther with her 28” Pike

Frank with his Pike.

George caught a Pike too!

Esther with one of the crappies she caught.

Esther and George - a couple of tired fisherpeople resting up before heading out one more time!

2019 June 6 - Fishing and Wildlife

We decided to try a different pond today.  One that we had fished here a few years ago and remembered it was pretty good. Unfortunately, the fish were harder to find today but we did enjoy seeing a variety of wildlife. Here we saw a Canadian Goose with her babies.  They were so cute!

Geese with babies

Next we came upon a Loon nesting.  We kept our distance and I zoomed in with my camera.

Nesting Loon

We also saw our nemesis - the Northern Water snake! I saw him swimming across the water and he held his head high out of the water when he saw us.  He did not scare away and started heading right for us! I was getting ready with my paddle to fight him off so I did not get a picture.  Thankfully, Frank backed the boat up and got us away from the snake, which finally turned and headed to a small island.
Of course the best part of the day was our surprise when Frank and my brother George both caught small pike.  We did not know they were in this lake.

George with a small Pike

My brother also caught a really nice pickerel.

2018 Aug 23 - 25 - Bear Spring Camps- Frank beat me!

Frank with his first nice Smallie

We headed off to one of our favorite fishing camps in Maine, Bear Spring Camps and got out on the water right after lunch.  The woman in the cabin next door warned us that fishing had been very slow the week she was here. We hoped we could prove her wrong and Frank got off to a good start by catching this nice smallmouth bass right away. Then it did get slow and it was another 3 hours until we got into some good action.

Frank with a second smallie

Esther with her only catch of the day, a small pike

Now things got really good for Frank!  He caught a decent pike.

Frank's first big pike

Then he caught the prize fish of the whole day -- a 29" Pike!!! We measured this one together, Frank wanted to make sure there were no mistakes like last year.

Frank with his 29" Pike

 He didn't stop there and ended the day with a nice largemouth bass.

Frank with a nice Largemouth bass

End of the day: Frank 5, Esther 1

Fishing was very slow the next 2 days.  The days were sunny and hot and the wind was too much so it made getting into spots almost impossible. We caught some smallies and largemouth bass but not very many and nothing very big. Frank caught a white perch and I caught a Crappie which is unusual so I took a picture of that fish.

Esther with a Crappie

Frank discovered trolling was a good way to catch since we could not navigate close enough to the reed beds we wanted to fish. That was how he caught his big Pike the first day so we trolled some more on the last day. It paid off and I caught a pickerel and a pike trolling with spinner baits.

Esther with a pickerel

Esther with another small pike

Late in the day I was ready to give up, but Frank wasn't.  He did give up fishing however, so he could better handle the boat in this tough wind.  He drove the boat back and forth close enough to the reeds for me to get multiple casts in.  I had a couple of strikes but I still hadn't landed a big one. My arms were ready to fall off and I decided to switch to a no. 5 Silver Mepps I saw in my tackle box.
First cast and Bam! I caught my big Pike of the weekend.

Esther with a 26" Pike

Mine was not as big as Frank's but I was happy to catch this one.  I owe it all to Frank who was so persistent and willing to give up fishing so I could have the chance!
End score for the weekend:
a tie in the number of fish caught,
but Frank's Pike was bigger and his generosity was the biggest!

2017 Sept - Bear Spring Camps

We could not resist going back to one of our favorite fishing camps again.  This camp is located on Great Pond in Maine and it gives us the opportunity to catch Pike.  We only stayed for a weekend and the weather predicted a chance of showers everyday.  One day right after a sprinkle we looked out and saw a beautiful rainbow.  I said this was a lucky sign and it was pointing to where the Pike were hiding!

Let's follow the rainbow!

We headed out to that spot but didn't catch any really big pike. Overall we caught a dozen or so medium sized pike.

Esther with one of her pike

Looks like Frank caught the biggest one of the trip.

Frank with one of his pike

On our second day we really wanted to catch a trophy pike, but we had a very unusual day instead.  We had just settled on a weed bed to fish, when we noticed a boat within our sight with many people and they appeared to be swimming.  After awhile we thought we heard something and sure enough, they were trying to get our attention.  We went over to see what was going on. They had caught a rope around one of their propellers and could not get it free.  They also did not have any tools to help and no one else was around on the lake.
Frank did have a tiny 1" pocket knife which they gladly accepted.  It took them a long time because the propellers were under the boat and they had to take turns going under, holding their breath.  In the process, one young man unfortunately stabbed his hand with the knife! They finally cut through all of rope and went on their way home to get their friend's hand bandaged up.
So much time had passed, we decided to move on to another weed bed.  We had no sooner settled in when a speed boat came across the lake and stopped not too far away.  Again we heard "HELP!"
 I looked over and the older man was all alone and he was trying to paddle his large boat. We pulled up anchor and went over to help.  His engines wouldn't start and he was asking us to tow him, which didn't look possible since his boat was much larger.  Frank tried to help him troubleshoot the problem and that was when the older gentleman realized he had gotten a rope around his propeller! He was able to tilt the motor and I freed the rope so no one had to get into the water.
We could not believe our luck. We have never had to rescue anyone and to have 2 incidents in one afternoon was too much to believe!
By now the sun was setting and we hadn't caught any pike.
I guess we will have to come back and try again for that trophy!

Great Pond sunset and end of our fishing trip

2017 Aug - Fishing in Steamboat Springs Colorado

Esther with a Colorado trout

We had a wonderful vacation in Colorado and we spent a fair amount of time fishing.  The town we stayed in had the Yampa River flowing through it.  This river is known for it's abundance of trout.  Most people fly fish in this area, but we wanted to travel light so we did not pack all of our fly fishing gear.  This made it more difficult to find spots where we could cast a lure from shore. I am not a trout fisherman but I did manage to hook into 5 trout and I landed 3! The best one is pictured here.  I believe it was a cutthroat trout because it had 2 reddish lines along it's throat.  At first I thought the fish was bleeding, but I was glad it wasn't because this river is catch and release.

Close up of trout

Frank with a fat Colorado Pike

We also fished in a few ponds where I did not have any luck, but Frank did! He landed 3 Pike during the week.  They were not the huge like the Pike we are used to catching in Maine but he had fun landing them anyway.

2016 Sept 6 - Last day at Bear Spring Camps

Today is our last day at Bear Spring Camps and we are stuffed and tired. They serve 3 huge home cooked meals for guests - much more than we normally eat at home. We spent so many hours in the boat, we feel like we are rocking when we are on land now. Time to get back to our normal routine!

Last day was cloudy and we also got caught in some downpours in the morning.  Late morning it was still cloudy but the rain had stopped and that is when I landed 2 nice fish back-to-back. First one was a Pickerel and the second was a Pike.

Esther with a Pickerel

Esther with a Pike

Later on that day, we had a Double-hook-up.  Frank had a hit and was busy landing his Pike when I had a hit at the same time. We love it when that happens! Frank's Pike was  a little bit bigger than mine so I snapped a picture of that one.

Frank with his "double-hook-up" Pike

In the late afternoon we were fishing the reeds hoping to catch one last monster Pike when Frank spotted a large bird at the top of a tree.  We think it might be an eagle but we were not sure.

Eagle maybe?

All in all we had a great time.  We caught at least 6 Pike in the 24 - 29 inch range and ate a lot of good food.  I guess that is why we keep coming back to Bear Spring Camps!

2016 Sept 5 - More Pike

Today the fishing was slower. We didn't catch any really big Pike. The biggest one I caught today is shown below. I did catch a nice largemouth bass using my spinnerbait above a weedbed.

Esther with a Pike

Esther with a 3-1/4 lb Largemouth Bass

When we are not catching fish we always enjoy seeing other wildlife and it always amazes us.  On this day we saw a large snapping turtle swim under our boat. Then we saw what I think was an otter.  It stood up like a prairie dog watching us and then swam back to shore.

Maybe an Otter

Then we saw what looked like a Loon but the colors where more white than a normal loon.  It was not afraid of us at all and swam very close to the boat so I got a couple of nice pictures. The last picture is a normal loon that we see all of the time. I looked loons up on the internet and found out that juvenile loons have different coloring.

Juvenile Loon

Front view

 Adult Loon