Maine

Maine is the last real stronghold of native coldwater fish in the eastern United States, and the fishing here is built around two species you can't chase this way anywhere else in the Lower 48: wild brook trout and landlocked salmon. The state holds the vast majority of the country's remaining intact wild brook-trout ponds and rivers, and its rivers run cold and dark through spruce and hardwood well into summer. This isn't tailwater-technical, small-fly fishing the way the mid-Atlantic limestoners are — Maine is big-water, big-country fishing, where a good day might mean a landlocked salmon that runs and jumps like a miniature Atlantic salmon, or a native brookie that has never seen a hatchery. The season keys off cold water and bug life: the ice goes out in April, the salmon chase smelt in the lakes and river mouths through May, and by June the rivers hit their stride with the Rangeley-country hex and caddis hatches. Fall brings the spawning run, when salmon and brook trout push up out of the lakes into the rivers and turn on hard before the season closes.

The geography splits into a few distinct fisheries. Out west around the Rangeley Lakes, the Androscoggin and the fabled Rapid River drain a chain of big cold lakes and carry the state's best combination of landlocked salmon and trophy brook trout — the Rapid in particular is legendary, a boulder-strewn, flies-only river that grows brookies bigger than most of the country will ever see. In the middle of the state, the Kennebec below Harris Station is a dam-controlled salmon river where the flow — set by the East Outlet dam and the hydro release schedule — matters as much as the hatch. And Down East, in the far eastern woods near the New Brunswick line, Grand Lake Stream is a short, iconic quarter-mile of river between two lakes that draws salmon anglers from all over. Maine's Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife runs the regulations, and they are water-specific and dense — many of the best rivers are fly-fishing-only or artificial-lures-only with slot limits and season dates that vary reach by reach, so the special-regulation ('S-code') listing for a given water is required reading before you fish it.