What a start to July!

The first week of July offered us great summer weather, foggy mornings, sunny breezy afternoons and warm summer temperatures. I have run a bunch of trips in the last ten days with a good variety. Family fishing trips, several striper trips and an afternoon nature exploration canoe trip thrown in for good measure.

The perch fishing has been outstanding for the family fishing trips; kids (and their parents) catch fish steadily and keep me hopping. Between baiting hooks and unhooking fish I barely have time to look up. If you have a few kids along the total numbers get amazing pretty quickly. No surprise big bass yet this summer but yesterday there were a few chasing the small perch a around the rocks. So I suppose it is only a matter of time.

The afternoon canoe trip in the 4^th of July was as close to a perfect trip as I have ever had. From the weather to the pond critters we dipped everything was very nearly perfect. What a great time.

The biggest disappointment so far this summer has been the striper fishing the most I have had caught on any one trip so far is six and several trips have had none. A far cry from two years ago that is for sure. At the moment I am still hoping that they will show up but it is getting pretty late in the season to hold onto that hope. No one seems to have any explanation but at least it seems to be everywhere on the Maine coast as far as I can gather. Hopefully this is not the beginning of a striper crash like we have endured in the past but I am very fearful that is the case.

Luckily I have excellent freshwater fishing to fall back on so while I still plan to do some striper fishing for the rest of the season I will plan to book more freshwater trips as the season progresses.