By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

So what if ice blankets some of the area’s favorite fishing holes? Die-hard fishermen and -women are going to find a place, and a way, to wet a line on Friday, the season opener.

It won’t be easy, though. Conditions are tough.

Rivers, steams and brooks are running high and silty with spring melt. That makes it hard for fly and worm fishers to find success.

And “they’ll have to hike through three feet of snow” to get to the waterways, noted Russ Day of Casco, one of those eager to land a lunker.

While the Little Androscoggin is ice-free and open, Day said more popular big waters – Sebago and Thompson lakes – will tease fishers for a while to come.

Still, such conditions won’t stop the most avid of anglers.

“They’ll be fishing in a 12-quart water pail,” Day quipped.

Roland Anctil of Lewiston has his sights set on a bit bigger bucket – Lake Auburn.

Anctil is a regular along the shore of the popular lake on opening day. On Wednesday he was already planning his outing. It will actually start today, he said, with a trip to Augusta and the Kennebec River. He’s hoping to snare some smelt there for use in luring salmon and lake trout at Auburn’s big lake on Friday.

Like a lot of others who fish the lake early in the season, Anctil said he’ll probably use a locally popular trick to try to increase his success.

That calls for moving a baited hook from small shoreline openings into deep water by attaching it to sections of PVC piping.

Richard Stone, who runs Stone’s Bail and Tackle Shop in Lewiston, said the tactic works well. “Some guys get their bait out there 100 feet or so that way,” he noted.

Stone said fishing fever is running high.

“Our place has just been full for the past month,” said Stone, as his customers eyed and bought open-water gear in anticipation of the big day.

He had two laments, however. One is that smelt have been scarce this winter. That’s because the ice has held firm and the favorite food of salmon and lake trout haven’t been moving up streams yet for spawning runs. It’s then that smelt are vulnerable to traps and nets.

Because of the conditions, Stone said, he doesn’t have any of smelt on hand to sell now, just as demand is highest.

His other trouble is also connected to his business: “I have to be here to take care of my customers,” he said. That means he won’t get to fish on opening day.

It’s a good thing he’s a bass fisherman. He’ll start his season later in April as ice clears away from boat launches on the Androscoggin and elsewhere.

“The tourneys start in May,” Stone said, and by then the early season rush at his shop will have slowed.

Stone, along with Francis Brautigam, the regional state fisheries biologist for the area, both recommend Lake Auburn and Sebago and Thompson lakes for trophy-size lake trout – also known as togue.

Brautigam, in an opening-season advisory, also said Lake Auburn is likely to give up some huge landlocked salmon and big brook trout, too.

Another lake known for giving up lunkers is Rangeley. Ice-out there, however, isn’t likely until sometime in early May.

Closer to the Twin Cities, “We got a couple of weeks to wait,” said Stone.

That’s about when the ice will clear from Lake Auburn and some of the other area lakes and ponds.

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