May 2006 Almanac
This Month: It’s Turkey Time! But Don’t Neglect Your Fishing Rod
As any landscape photographer will tell you, early May looks like more of April, and photos have decided shades of browns and grays tinted inadequately with green. By month’s end, though, The Emerald Isle has nothing on Maine. Fields ripple in the wind and hardwood ridges turn as virid as they ever get.
May in Maine means fishing, fishing, fishing and more fishing.
…Unless you’re a turkey hunter. Then turkey hunting is the thing.
Ice-out mania hits full blast in the top third of the state now.
Predictable afternoon hatches make river fishing heaven in the bottom half of Maine.
Trolling down to 20 feet produces big results with brookies, browns and particularly salmon in lower Maine.
Brooks from Kittery to Fort Kent produce topnotch action before the month ends.
Striped bass arrive in May.
Bass move toward shallows to make spawning beds before month’s end.
Warm-water fishing start biting before May closes, too, including pickerel, perch and sunfish.
White perch move toward spawning beds two weeks after ice-out, which puts them close to shore in May.
Northern pike really hit well in May.
Turkey hunters live for May and chortle about the intelligence of this bird…the challenge…the mystique.
Woodchucks also attract a few hunters who search for those distant brown dots.
Camping, canoe tripping and backpacking starts in May.
Black flies and mosquitoes will swarm now.
Folks plant their gardens and for many, this is as big as hunting and fishing in their lives.
Wild-food gatherers pick fiddleheads, roots and tender new potherbs.
Deer and bear scouting continues for serious hunters…as does shooting practice for archers and rifle hunters.
Clay-sport action picks up.
Hey, May in Maine is the way life should be.
Next Month: June Is When Maine Fishing Dreams Come True
When June starts, the bottom half of Maine is as green as the state gets with verdant fields rippling in the wind, lush foliage on trees hitting the most viridescent of explosions and lawns startling in their greenness.
In Northern Maine, evening hatches on brook-trout ponds are predictable and excite fly rodders.
In Coastal Maine, stripers, blues and mackerel thrill folks who encounter schools of them.
Bull and cow stripers excite trophy anglers, and June is the month the trophy line-sides congregate in Maine.
Black-bass males sit on spawning beds and slab-sided females hang around in nearby deep water. The trick begins with fishing the deep drop-offs near the smaller males.
Pickerel, white perch, sunfish, yellow perch, hornpout and eels feed ravenously this month, often the exciting target for children at summer camp.
Brown trout come into shallows at dawn, and early birds get the action.
Togue settle into deep holes by month’s end, concentrated targets for trollers who know how to work the bottom.
When school gets out, then car camping, canoe tripping, backpacking and hiking hit high gear.
Gardens start looking good now and by month’s end, leaf veggies are big enough to harvest.
Wild-food gatherers have wild strawberries now, and strawberry farmers allow people to pick their own cultivated strawberries.
