Fishing is more than pursuing fish

Late season angling is productive because cooling temperatures and shorter days sharpen fish appetites. With the sun rising later, cooler air temperatures, and a lessening of biting bugs, fishing is more pleasant for the angler.

A recent trip to the edge of Thoreau’s Maine Woods proved, again, how appealing late summer and autumn angling can be.

Recently, my friend Bob LaRoche, a landscape architect and Maine resident, wrote and invited me to join him and his friend Cliff Curtis on a camping trip with secret brook trout ponds. On Friday, Sept. 13, Bob, Cliff, and I headed north.

After following part of the route that Benedict Arnold and his troops had taken to invade Canada, Bob and Cliff left the paved road, put their trucks in four-wheel drive and we bumped and lurched over neglected paper-company gravel roads.

When we got to the campsite, we found Cliff’s friend Pete Belanger had arrived the day before and set up part of the camp. Pete, we learned, had beaten the traditionally unlucky 13, catching four brook trout over a foot long. He further underlined how productive late season fishing can be by saying his fishing was better than it was two weeks earlier.

We went to the pond where Pete had fished, a water body so large it could also be called a lake, at the height of the afternoon. Pete invited me to fish with him and fishing was initially slow. But after making yet another sunscreen application, we reached a remote cove and hooked, caught, and missed a few fish.

When the action stopped, we changed flies. I chose a nymph, a fly type fished underwater, that Curtis had tied in a pattern called “Candy Bar,” with glittery tinsel the colors of a Snickers bar.

While retrieving the nymph, something took the fly with a solid hit. The hit instantly brought me alert, and I raised the rod tip and concentrated on bringing in the line.

As the fish rose to the surface, it looked big. When the fish was near the canoe, Pete netted it, a 15-inch brook trout, the largest trout I have ever landed!

This pond, and the others we fished, have a state-mandated slot limit. Anglers may only keep fish in a narrow size range, a “slot,” that requires releasing smaller and larger fish — to keep the fishery healthy and self-sustaining. The brook trout was outside the slot, and I released it as quickly and carefully as possible.

The fishing slowed but became more active toward dusk. Fish began rising, taking insects on the surface or insects swimming to the surface. A small brook trout leapt over six inches out of the water in pursuit of a dragonfly its own size.

We caught and kept a few legal-sized fish for dinner, caught and released many fish, and had so many short strikes that we lost count.

During the next two days, we fished other ponds and a stream flowing from the big pond. We all caught and hooked fish each day — even if they were small fish.

Cliff has a piece of equipment that is part GPS, part fish finder, and part sonar. While fishing, he consulted this item to locate fish and to gather information to prepare a map of the pond bottoms, to provide clues for where fish might gather.

This trip reminded me again of the importance of preparation. At home, I have everything ready for stream fishing. But this trip reminded me that taking a different kind of trip requires more careful preparation.

Bob has camping equipment already packed and carefully labeled. Although it took him time to pre-pack equipment, it allowed him to load his truck in minutes. Cliff and Pete have fished these ponds and streams before; both have a sense of where the fish are more likely to be.

In training videos, one person portrays the right way to do something and another foolishly makes mistakes. For this trip, I was the fool. I packed many things. But I left a warm jacket at Bob’s house, which would have been nice when it got cooler the second night, and I did not have a sink-tip fly line.

When I bought my fishing license, I was in such a hurry that I did not get a copy of the Maine fishing regulations. Cliff and Pete knew the rules, but if I were fishing without them, I might have gotten in trouble.

Similarly, Cliff and Pete shared advice on fly patterns and gave me flies. Having friends or a tackle store to advise on what is working makes the trip more enjoyable and productive. If a person wants to fish in Maine and does not have experienced friends, look for a Registered Maine Guide to bring a full experience.

Many great fishing places are accessible with a regular car. But for this trip, the roads were so poor that a four-wheel drive vehicle was not optional. Around one campfire, Cliff and Bob recalled, in rueful tones, having to help a friend get a two-wheel drive truck unstuck on a poorly maintained road. 

Finally, this trip illustrated again that fishing is more than pursuing fish. On the ride home, we stopped at a rest area and 140 acres of open space. Bob had managed the acquisition and development of this place when he was at the Maine Department of Transportation — the views from the place are spectacular. 

The ponds and the stream looked as if they came straight out of a Winslow Homer painting. Maple trees turning red and yellow on a shoreline looked exactly like the trees in Homer’s October Day. Homer painted the watercolor, “The Red Canoe,” and I rode with Pete and Cliff in each of their red canoes. 

If you cannot make it to Maine, there are many great places nearby. Even parts of Rensselaer County look like the Great North Woods.

But my trip was personally memorable. Thank you, Bob, Cliff, and Pete!