Typical, small Maine trout brooks see little angler traffic, even in spring, but that rule proves doubly true in July and August, when folks turn their attention striped bass in tidal water or black bass in lakes and ponds.

In the 1970s, Maine’s aquaculture industry began putting fresh, inexpensive salmon on the average dinner table of non-anglers and catch-and-release types, and salmon farmers accomplished this feat at an attractive price — often less expensive than haddock.

AUGUSTA — The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is encouraging anglers to take largemouth bass of all sizes from certain Down East waters starting Sunday.

An exotic insect, the hemlock wooly adelgid, is causing widespread mortality of eastern hemlocks across the eastern United States, where this important conifer grows in dense groves in the Northeast but occurs in sparser stands in the South.

At about the point where Penobscot Bay begins to narrow into the Penobscot River flowing down from the Katahdin region through Bangor and along both sides of Verona Island, Cape Jellison, a 1,600-acre peninsula, juts out into the bay. In colonial times it was known as Wasaumkeag Point, and the remains of Fort Pownall, built in 1759, still stand sentinel with the Fort Point Light Station, built in 1836 and automated in 1988.

It’s difficult to like the nonstop rain, flood conditions and wet basements. But across the state, the high water can end with some fast fishing as the trout come out of hiding and anglers have better access to them.

The busy summer hiking season is here, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a few good books when we’re not out tramping along the trail, whether it’s around the campfire, up to camp or relaxing at home. Here are three of my current hiking favorites. Enjoy.

Wendy Clark Wescott grew up in the New York suburbs, not a child who had an interest in the outdoors. But Junior Maine Guide camp changed that, so much so that Wescott, now 61, is meeting her former camp mates this summer up near Rangeley on the edge of the north Maine woods, where more […]