Fishing Report April 7, 2025

Fishing is picking up on all fronts. Reports are good for salmon and lake trout lakes as more water opens up. The cooler weather has many people anxious for spring fishing and better access, but it hasn’t stopped the die-hard anglers. Trout stocking trucks are rolling in to Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. We also had favorable reports of deep sea fishing for redfish, a delicious Gulf of Maine species that are abundant and biting well right now.

Maine:
Greg Cutting at Jordan’s Store in Sebago told us that a lot more people are turned on to jigging lake trout this spring than ever. “Jigging is becoming quite a thing. We are seeing guys jigging a lot. It’s another tool on your belt. You can troll until you find a bunch of fish, reel up your lines, and use Spot Lock to sit over them and jig. Small paddletails are still the ticket out here. We are hearing good reports of clouds of smelt and schools of pretty big alewives, which is a great sign. Tricky still has ice in front of the boat launch. There isn’t much ice left there, but that ice in front of the launch just won’t leave.

CJ Harmon of Burnt Meadow Guide Service in Brownfield furnished the following report: “This week we were on Sebago targeting lake trout. We focused on vertically jigging for them using mostly glow colored soft plastic paddle tails with 1/2 oz. jig heads. The fish we found were still deep in that 100-130’ range. Most of the lakes and ponds in our area are very close to complete ice out and should be accessible by the end of this week. Reports we’ve had are that the trolling is a little slow right now, but some boats have done decent and boated salmon. Get out there and have some fun!”

New Hampshire:
Dana Berry at Berry’s Bait in Alton Bay reported a busier weekend and was pleased with the rate of recession of the ice in Alton Bay. “The ice is leaving. We are just past Loon Cove. There was some floating ice there, but with the rain it is gone. It’s still been kind of cold, but people are still fishing. We’ve been selling a lot of smelt and a lot of flies. We’ve been seeing a lot of nymphs going out the door. They did well off the bridge and off the docks here in the bay. Sunday was slow, but there was one lady catching lake trout right from shore over at Downings Landing,” she said.

Captain Les Eastman at Eastman’s Fleet in Seabrook posted the following report online. “Sunday, April 6, 2025: Capt. Les's report, "All boats out today (Sunday). Yesterday, Saturday, once again depending on what boat. I don’t have pictures or great info from yesterday. LAM was slow, LMA did ok, didn’t hear from the other five boats, but I’ll do a better job today. Six of the seven boats are red fishing today and that’s been phenomenal, I know that much. LMA only boat haddock fishing, so easy to report later when they call in. All the redfish boats slayed them, along with huge cusk. Lots of wolffish (had to throw them back), 50–125 pp and big ones on the redfish. The LMA had the haddock trip, lots of fish but mostly throwbacks, had to resort to reds for the last hour to make sure everyone had dinner…”

Massachusetts:
Pete Santini at Fishing Finatics in Everett reported more trout stocking, slow haddock fishing, and holdover stripers. “Trout fishing in Horn, Waldon, White’s, and Jamaica Ponds has been great. Lake trout fishing in Wachusett Reservoir has been good using Kastmasters and fishing shiners on the bottom. Haddock hasn’t kicked off just yet, but they’re catching redfish and pollock. The herring are starting to run the rivers a little bit and there are holdover stripers in the mouth of the Charles and Mystic Rivers,” he said.