Open-Water Fishing, and Spring Turkey Season, are Here!
This past winter overstayed its welcome, so to help our loyal readers make a smooth transition to springtime, The Maine Sportsman magazine unveils its annual April “Spring Fishing” issue, complete with twelve pages of the 2025 – 2026 Maine Fish Stocking Report.
Need to find brook trout, landlocked salmon, lake trout (togue), rainbow trout, splake or brown trout? Once again this year, we offer the most detailed list available of the lakes, ponds, rivers and streams where Maine’s hard-working biologists and hatchery personnel have placed more than a million fish, including 20” brookies (Sabbathday Lake), 19” salmon (Mopang Lake) and 13” splake (Wyman Lake).
On this month’s cover, we keep it all in the family, with our photo of Travis Elliott and a 16” brown trout caught and released while trolling a fly on Crystal Lake in Gray. Travis is married to the photographer, Christi Holmes Elliott, who has been writing for The Sportsman for seven years.
On our inside pages, Blaine (“the Redneck Preacher”) Cardilli helps get us ready for the May 4, 2026 opening day of Maine’s spring turkey season (Youth Day is May 2), with his piece titled “Successfully Hunting a Roost” (pp. 27-28).
And in his monthly “Guide Talk” column (p. 13), successful guide John LaMarca waxes eloquent on the MASTC-worthy performance of a traditional wingbone turkey call, crafted by “Uncle Pete” Wentworth.
Meanwhile, master storyteller Ret. Lt. Warden Doug Tibbetts details a heartwarming, air-assisted search-and-rescue mission, in “Learn a Thing or Two Every Day” (p. 53), while Bill Graves crosses over into Canada to catch huge salmon.
With the weather warming, the start of the recreational boating season isn’t far away. Well-known writer Bob Humphrey introduces readers to the ultra-modern designs of “adventure boats,” that feature unconventional styling, but undeniable appeal for social-minded boaters.
All this, plus the best cartoons southwest of Northeast Carry Twp, and northeast of Southwest Harbor.
And be sure to tell us how you and your family enjoyed the State of Maine Sportsman’s Show, March 27 – 29 at the Augusta Civic Center!
