Spring gobbler season ended last week, and we are about to plunge into another summer season.

On the last Saturday of spring gobbler season, I was looking for any shootable bird. I got in the middle of six jakes and ended it with a Boone and Crockett four and a 4 1/2 inch-bearded gobbler. That evening I took a cruise just before dark and the old gobbler that outwitted me all season was in the field with three hens, in full strut of course. He looked over at me, stuck his tongue out, then went back to the business of courting the hens. I’ll be looking for him come fall.

Now is the time when some serious trout fishing takes place. Most of the streams are in good shape and have lots of trout left. A lot of trout fishermen hang it up after the 30th. That is good for the diehards, because other than the hordes that encompass Penns for the drake hatch, most streams see little pressure from now on compared to the first month or two of the season. Blue-winged olives and sulphurs should be good for a while on many streams. For the spin crowd, try some small rebel and rapala minnowbaits. The small rebel crayfish is another often-overlooked but effective early-summer trout lure.

The summer season on the Susquehanna is in full swing. The Adam Bower Dam is fully inflated and Lake Augusta is back for the summer. Smallmouth are mostly finished spawning, but I did see a couple still on nests last week.

Post-spawn smallmouth can be finicky for a couple of weeks. Straining the water with crankbaits and spinnerbaits is a good way to find active fish. You will sometimes find them out in the middle of the river chasing minnows. With the water up as it is now, they will roam around and feed on the plentiful minnows. When the water levels come down and things clear up as they do most summers, bass will revert back to living on crayfish. Tubes and crankbaits that imitate crawfish become a staple for the summer smallmouth angler. Smallmouth love to feed on the surface, and topwater fishing usually gets better as the summer progresses.

There are plans underway to put two fish passageways at the Adam Bower Dam. The “when” is unknown, but a passageway is slated for the west side. It will be a stream-like passage that will rise one foot for every 100 feet in length. At this rate, it will have to be relatively long to get over the Bower Dam. The east side will get the full-blown ladder with a viewing window, canoe portage path, and improved parking and footpaths.

There are gizzard shad there right now trying to figure out how to get past the dam. The American shad are what the fish ladders are all about, but so far, few Americans get upriver this far. Shore-bound anglers will lose some fishing grounds.

No fishing is allowed within 100 feet of the entrance to a fish ladder. This means we will lose a portion of two of the most popular river fishing spots in our area, both sides of the falls below the Bower Dam. It will be interesting to see if the exclusion zone will be enforced during the times when the dam is not inflated. The passageways might not be operational when the dam is down, so maybe we’ll be OK for the fall walleye season.

We shall see, if and when the project actually gets off the ground.

-- Ken Maurer, Herndon, is a licensed fishing guide and a regular contributor to the Outdoors section.