Mainebass1984

All of the fish are northern strain with out a doubt. I caught them all in Maine. A coworker of mine was kind enough to take the initiative to have the spines sent to the lab that does all of our bass dorsal spine aging. If you want some of your fish aged you should contact your local fisheries biologist or their department. Finding out the age of such large bass this far north is very interesting. The data is also valuable from a scientific stand point as well. Not many fish over 7 lbs are sampled each year by the fisheries department through netting and electrofishing. Aging fish of significant size can reveal a lot about a fishery.

I got a couple more bass ages in yesterday. 8/9/2012 7 lbs 14 oz 11 years old 8/10/2012 7 lbs 2 oz 9 years old Both caught in Maine.

Glad to see some Maine guys on here !! I fish A LOT in southern Maine. Some amazing bass fishing.

I am about 40 minutes away from Shelburne Bay. An hour and a half to where I like to fish up by the Inland sea / Alburg passage. Larabees's launch by fort Ticonderoga is about an hour or so away from me. Champlain is amazing. That time of year can get unreal. There is a lot of pressure that time of year as well because everyone knows it is so good.

I wouldn't mind it to melt quickly. High water spring fishing conditions usually mean great fishing for me. Athough I do not wish damaging flooding anywhere. High water flows in the rivers and high water in all the lakes and ponds makes for some of the best fishing I have had.

I am so jealous. For some reason I had assumed there would be ice in that area this time of the year. Where I am there is still 3 feet of ice with 3 feet of snow on top of that.

There really isn't a wrong place to fish this lake especially in June. The southern end of the lake the largemouth fishing is world class and so is mississqoiu bay. The better smallmouth fishing tends to be towards the north end of the lake from Burlington north.

First week in April I would mainly be using a spinnerbait/chatterbait, a crankbait, or a jig. If I were to choose one it would have to be a jig. I am assuming that it would be a week or two after ice out given this harsh winter. The water will be cold. I am guessing still in the 40's maybe upper 40s perhaps even 50 if there is some warming. Anyhow every year with in the first couple weeks of ice out it is hard to beat the 3 lures I mentioned there as well as a jerkbait and even a senko. I cant stress it enough though early in the season a slowly worked jig is hard to beat. They catch big fish too.

It was big. The struggle is real. It happened.

I am truly obsessed with a particular fish. It lives in a particular lake I like to fish. This lake is amazing. It produces a lot of 5-6 lb fish which are big for Maine. Every year I catch a few over 7 lbs with the biggest over 9 lbs. Those are the fish I have landed. Sadly I have lost some huge bass at that particular lake at a few very specific spots. Sure it is hard to say what a fish weighs when you hook it. In my opinion there sure is a difference in the feeling when you hook and fight a 5 lber compared to one well over 7. They simply fight differently. Of all the times I have hooked a bass what seems to be a very large bass there is one particular fish that really did break my heart. I was fishing with my father in my small boat. I had located some big fish for us a couple days before. We were fishing offshore, way offshore, sunken trees. I had pulled up to one of the spots using my trusty hand held gps. I wanted my dad to catch some big bass that day. He is more of a trout fisherman. I did not cast on the spot. I wanted him to have the first few casts at it. I had tied on the hottest lure from a coupe days ago a KVD 1.5 silent squarebill in a specific color. I instructed my dad that the idea was to cast well beyond where I told him the tree was so that the crankbait would bounce off of the tree several times before getting back to the boat. One his first cast after he made contact with the tree he hooked and landed a large bass, a 5 lb 12 oz. The biggest he had ever caught. His very next cast he hooked and landed a 5 lb 5 oz largemouth. He instructed me to cast to the tree. I told him after a few more casts. I was itichin to cast in there but I waited. After 2 casts he didn't get anything. Again he instructed me to cast. I told him one more then I would fish it as well. He cast by the tree and hit several branches on the way back. Another fish loaded up on his rod another big fish. After getting it into the net it weighed 6 lbs 3 oz. He then told me he wouldn't take another cast until I did. So I went for it. I had opted to use a KVD 2.5 in the same color. I made a long cast and bounced it off of the tree branches. A ginormous fish hit it. It immediately surged for open water. I could tell it was really big. All I could do was hold on. It clearly was in control. It was ripping drag like a tarpon. I have a very small boat. It had turned the boat towards the direction it was going. It took out a lot of drag. I have my drag set in such a manner that a 5 lber takes out minimal drag. This fish was far bigger. It was taking out drag and lots of it. I cant be sure to say how much it took out but I would guestimate it at more then 50 ft. It was in complete control. There was nothing I could do at all. Then it happened. My line broke. It was very sad. I had a retied half an hour ago or so. That fish haunts me. It was huge. I have gone there again and again and again and have yet to hook into anything that was that large. That day was a great memorable day fishing with my dad. It was the best bass fishing he had ever experienced. A great memory. We went on to catch a lot more fish and more big fish but none like fish. That bass was bigger then any bass I have ever hooked into. That is what I believe. Could it have been nessy ? Could it have been a shark ? An otter. I will never know. I keep going back after that fish. That fish has got me obsessed in perhaps a not so healthy way with that lake. That specific spot is magic. Some of the biggest bass I have caught I caught off of that sunken tree. Two falls ago I caught a 8-1, and an 8-3 in back to back days off of that spot. A couple weeks later I got a 9-1 off of the tree. None of them were as big as that fish. That fish haunts me, drives me to catch bigger bass. Is that fish even alive anymore ? Who knows ? I will still fish that lake and that specific spot until I catch that fish if it even exists.

The personal best thread seems to pop up about every month or so. I am always willing to post some big fish pictures. The fish in my profile pic went 8 lbs 9 oz. At the time was personal best until 3 weeks later I got a 8-10 my personal best at the time. Here is my current personal best 9 lbs 1 oz Although none of the fish are over the sacred 10 lb mark, fish of this size are pretty big for Maine. State record is 11-10. I don't really fish for smallmouth but my personal biggest smallmouth is 4 lbs 8 oz.

The age for the bass sampled in 2012 were done using a dorsal spine. The second dorsal spine. It is very important that it is the second one. These dorsal spine are then set in a solution so that all the skin is dissolved and only the bone remains. The spine is then sliced microscopically thin. We do not have the necessary machine to do this. It is a very specialized machine and costs A LOT of money. We send away the spines for them to be sliced. Once the spines are sliced we place the sections onto a slide and secure them in place. We then stain the section. After the stain has set for a minute we are then able to view the side underneath the microscope. It looks basically like a section of a tree with grow rings spanning out from the center. You can then count the age rings exactly the same as you would do a tree. Pretty cool stuff. You could also do the same using otoliths but to attain that you must kill the fish. The otolith bone is the fishes inner ear bone which has growth rings much the same as the dorsal spine. The dorsal spine and the otolith bone are viewed at being more accurate then scale samples. Dorsal spine and otolith aging are becoming the scientific norm. Aging fish using those methods are more expensive then aging fish using a microscope.

April of 2012 was a very interesting month. It was much, much, warmer then usual. My first day out on my boat that year was March 21st. That is an anomaly. Usually ice out is around the second week of April. The winter that year was incredibly mild. The warmest wettest winter on record up here in the northeast. Al of that played into what happened that April. Now after a lot of time on the water on that specific lake the conditions which led to that amazing day usually occurs around the first week of May. Everything was a bit off that year, about 3 weeks ahead of a usual year.

No smallmouth were aged.

2012 was a great day. 4/27/12 was an amazing day. That day my biggest 5 went 32-6. Basically that is how you age bass using a dorsal spine. Slice it microscopically thin and count the rings. It is more accurate then using scales. It is far better for the fish then using otiliths you have to kill a fish to get them.

I figured I would share some pretty interesting information. Back in 2012 I took a dorsal spine sample from several bass that I had caught. All fish were released alive and well. I sent the samples away to get aged. I just got them back in. 4/27/2012 7 lbs 1 oz 11 years old 4/27/2012 6 lbs 8 oz 10 years old 4/27/2012 7 lbs 6 oz 15 years old 4/29/2012 7 lbs 13 oz 12 years old. A couple years ago I took a scale sample of a huge largemouth I caught in Nov 7th 2013, a 9 lb 1 oz lunker. That fish turned out to be 16+ years old. All fish were caught in Maine.

I was being sarcastic. I have a bunch of rage bugs. They work very well texas rigged or like I fish it, on the back of my jig.

I am going to guess and say around April 16th I will be fishing in my boat for the first time of the year.