Ice-Out Salmon Fishing Excellent At Rideout's!

Tips From Veteran Salmon Angler Frank Camarda (2011)

Hey fishing world, my name is Frank Camarda and I hail from Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. I’ve been making the trek up to Rideout’s for twenty-two years now, and I figured it’s about time for me to share what I’ve gleaned from fishing at this lake for all this time. I don’t know if it’s good knowledge or bad, but it has worked for me and I hope it can work for all of you who will read this, too.

I do most of my salmon fishing at ice-out, when the water’s cold and the smelt are running. Trolling is my favorite way, and my best friend Gary Bean’s favorite way, to catch salmon. There are many different ways to troll: you can use flies on top, live smelt, or lures on downriggers. Some people think that a cloudy day or a sunny day determines what color lures you use. Sometimes that’s true, but I’d say the majority of the time, it won’t make a bean of difference. If they’re hitting a certain type of lure that day, that week, it doesn’t matter whether the sun shines or not. It’s good to listen to people telling you what they’re catching the fish on, especially if you’re a beginner. Once you catch a fish, it will keep you coming back year after year. Side note: you should have a fish-finder to let you know what column of water the fish are swimming at and at what depth; once you find out the depth, you then set the downrigger with the lures to where they are.

One of my favorite ways of catching salmon “on top” is trolling with live smelt. We use very light gear for this. Five-foot ultra light rods, six pound test, four pound leaders, and # ten hooks. Be sure that the leader is fluorocarbon. Trolling speeds can be between 1.5 and 2 mph and sometimes when you have a decent wind, we kill the motor and drift-fish them. When we are trolling, we like to break it up by doing a lot of “S” moves and circles which allow the bait to drop and then come back to the surface. This excites the fish and makes them strike. Every once in a while you get lucky and a stupid togue will take that smelt on top, as did happen a few years ago with my four pound test, ten hook, and a ten pound togue. Took that smelt fifteen feet behind the boat right in the wash. We landed it. So you never know what kind of excitement you can have on East Grand on any given day. A lot of people use fly-rods when trolling. When you do this, the speeds are about the same with a weight-forward, sinking line, and a slow back and forth jerking motion with the rod. Some of the best of flies to use on East Grand are Governor Aiken, Gray Ghost, the Joe Smelt, and so on. If none of those are working, then just keep switching up your flies and eventually they’ll hit on one of them. When this happens, stay with that fly!

Last spring, we caught about 65 salmon and two or three togue, and gained about ten pounds each.

Right now, Gary and I are chomping at the bit for May 5th, when we’ll be rolling into Rideout’s with their “American Plan” and great salmon fishing. Maybe we’ll see you there.