Maine: More Moose than People

by David L. Vanderwerken

While Montana carries the tagline, "the last best place," I offer north woods Maine as a close runner-up, one that doesn't burn up every summer, either. For six weeks, June to August, my wife Karen and I roamed the northern half of the Pine Tree State, from the western Rangeley region through the central Baxter Park area to eastern potato-growing Aroostook County, targeting stream brook trout. We liked the idea of fishing for a creature that has inhabited Maine since history's greatest ice-out 10,000 years ago.

     All the guidebooks claim May and June as the best fishing months in Maine because the waters are at their highest and coldest and the aquatic hatches are at their best, and I'm sure that's true. These months are also the season of the black fly, one of nature's nastiest scourges. You can shower in 100 percent DEET repellant, but they will get you. Karen took 14 hits our first day in Maine, June 27. At an outdoors store in Millinocket, we saw a mordant yet apropos sign: "Keeping Maine's Wilderness Pristine: Black Fly Breeder's Association." Only the truly hardy hike or tent camp this time of year. However, by mid-July the black fly hordes wane radically, leaving only the mosquitoes, which actually are repelled by DEET although having the size of Cobra gunships. While many waters do get lower and warmer and send brook trout racing for cooler feeder streams and springs, we found enough cool water and active fish to occupy our days, likely because of plenty of rainy weather and moderate temperatures in July. And nobody else was fishing.

     Make sure you take along the most recent DeLorme Maine Atlas and Gazetteer in your four-wheel drive vehicle because northern Maine has few paved roads and a maze of gravel and dirt logging roads, snowmobile trails and ATV two-tracks to get you to the rivers and streams. Expect to get lost from time to time. In addition, we found DeLorme's Maine Fishing Maps, Volume 2-Rivers and Streams (1991) by Harry Vanderweide essential. Although this volume is out of print, you should be able to turn one up through some internet bookseller. Of the available fly fishing guide books, we found Tom Seymour's Fishing Maine, 2nd edition (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2007) and Kevin Tracewski's A Fisherman's Guide to Maine (Camden, ME: Countrysport Press, 2004) the most useful and comprehensive.

     We enjoyed the Rangeley area in the western mountains and lakes so much that we spent two weeks there, one at the end of June and again at the end of July. Rangeley/Oquossoc is a major family friendly resort area with a host of motels, cottages, cabins, and lodges. After all, Maine license plates proclaim "Vacationland," not "Next Most Famous Potatoes." Most folks are there to enjoy the lakes, hiking, moose stalking, biking, visiting the home and lab of the late Wilhelm Reich, controversial psychologist and sexologist, and cruising the myriad ATV trails. We stayed in Aurora Cottage on Quimby pond, several miles west of town, operated by a lovely couple, John and Dawn Towey (35 Copeland Way, Rangeley, ME 04970; daytime 207-864-3390; nighttime 207-864-3799; e-mail: villagesb@verizon.net). John is one of that select company who has hiked the entire Appalachian Trail in one five-month trek. The witty Dawn does killer imitations of dazed and confused moose on the highways and the eerie calls of the Pond's resident loon couple. The Toweys, who run a combined laundromat and video store in town, are listed on the Rangeley Chamber of Commerce site, http://www.rangeleymaine.com/accommodations_cottages.shtml. Aurora Cottage on Quimby Pond is a year-round, cozy, one-bedroom camp with sleeping loft, fully-equipped kitchen, living room, full bathroom, monitor heat. No smoking. Ideal for snowmobiling, fishing, hunting or just getting away. $75/night, two-night minimum, $450/week, five persons max, cash/checks only, 50% deposit and $200 security deposit.

     Make sure you make the drive up Saddleback Mountain, then engage your four-wheel drive and journey to Saddleback Lake, where you're likely to surprise grazing moose. Two more tidbits: a fish and vegetable truck shows up in the west side of the town of Rangeley on Wednesdays and Fridays, offering fresh salmon, halibut, haddock, tuna, clams, and of course, lobster, at very inexpensive prices. If your vehicle needs an oil change, go to Wayne's World Automotive. As his marquee might suggest, Wayne is a very funny man as well as a fine mechanic. While Kennebago River access is mostly gated off and controlled by lodges, the public can fish two miles upstream of route 16 and a mile downstream where the river outlets into the lake. Also the one-mile Rangeley River, paralleling the Kennebago to the east, is public water. Both contain plenty of eight- to12-inch brookies that readily eat a size 16 elk hair caddis. In fact, that's all I used all over northern Maine. We spent most of our fishing time on these two streams. In June, we caught an afternoon hatch of slate drakes on the Rangeley that coaxed every fish in the river to come play. It was no-brainer fishing at its easiest. Anything on your tippet got hammered. Later, in July, the dog days of the region settled in, meaning high temperatures of 85 to 93F, so the fishing shift became 5 - 9 am. After that, the brook trout knocked off for the day. On one of these pre-breakfast sorties, the Rangeley yielded a smallish landlocked salmon, our only one of the trip.

     In addition to these two rivers, we went hunting for other Rangeley-area cold water and found three smaller streams that fished well because they were at higher altitudes, well-shaded, and located in gorges as well as being renewed by springs and seeps-Orbeton Stream, the Sandy River and the Cupsuptic River. Unfortunately, the South and North Branches of the Dead River lived up to their names with low and warm water, and two of the major and wider feeder streams, Alder Creek and Bradbury Brook, were equally dead.

     Orbeton Stream, southwest of the town of Rangeley, is a rare brown trout stream for the area, and a tough one to maneuver around for people of a certain age since it flows in and around SUV-sized boulders. While our goat-hopping days are behind us, Karen fooled several 12- to 14-inch browns on this gorgeous and forbidding stream. However, an easy ATV trail parallels the Orbeton all the way to its source, Redington Pond. The Orbeton flows into the upper reaches of the Sandy River, which also stays cool all summer despite very low water. Route 4 south parallels the upper Sandy, and the Appalachian Trail crosses the Sandy in a gorge a few miles above Smalls Falls Rest Area. With hikers and bikers (both Harleys and ten-speeds) all around, we caught plenty of fish. Any cavity ankle deep held brookies, and Karen, with her uncanny radar for brown trout, caught a 14-incher. However, our furthest foray from our base camp at Quimby Pond took us northwest to the Cupsuptic River, a stone's throw from Quebec, accessible only by a bewildering array of logging roads. No wonder this is underfished water. What we found-when we found it-were voracious brook trout ganged up in any hole two feet or more deep. The ratio of casts to hooked fish was ridiculously high. However, start with a full gas tank for your Cupsuptic hunt or for trips to any northern Maine water for that matter, especially Baxter Park.

     When Governor Percival Baxter donated Mount Katahdin and environs to the people of the State of Maine in 1931, he stipulated that the Park remain "unspoiled," and so it remains in 2007. At 200,000 acres, having only two gravel "tote" roads, no concessions, no developed campgrounds, no RV access, and a $12 daily vehicle fee, Baxter Park is for hikers, tree-huggers and fishers. Bless that visionary man. Being so wild, Baxter receives minimal use. And the brook trout fishing is worth the time and effort. Although most fly fishers concentrate on the gazillion ponds in the Park, Karen and I focused on Nesowadnehunk Stream near the western perimeter, a fly fishing only stream. As with the Rangeley area, we had the north central waters all to ourselves, but ask a local Mainer for pronunciations. After a photo shoot of the moose parade at Sandy Stream Pond so Karen could demonstrate her digital camera virtuosity, we fished this stream four days, fooling a plethora of 10-inch and better brook trout, including the trip highlight, a 15-incher. The scenery is spectacular with stark Mount Katahdin looming above. Baxter's melodramatic weather changes seemingly every fifteen minutes; one day, we experienced five thunderstorms punctuating a primarily halcyon blue sky.

     In addition to Nesowadnehunk Stream, we fished a day on Wassataquoik Stream, a large water that begins in the Park, flows southeasterly out of the Park, and empties into the East Branch of the Penobscot. The guidebooks are dead accurate about this jewel: hard to find, rarely fished, loaded with cooperative 10- to 13-inch brook trout and runs cold all summer. The two-track narrowed to a densely canopied tunnel, more like a game trail than a road, scraping the top and both sides of our 4Runner. This had to be the wrong way. Then there it was-a hundred-yard wide trout playground. We had to force ourselves to depart to wend our way back to Route 11 in daylight.

     Our base camp for a week was the Econolodge in Millinocket, twenty miles from Baxter's southern access, Togue Gate. As the gateway to Baxter, the lumber and papermill towns of East Millinocket and Millinocket contain ample lodging options. For a hearty breakfast, eat at the Appalachian Trail Café in downtown Millinocket where Trail volunteers congregate, and the wall caricatures of Trail hazards and follies are as entertaining as the food is flavorful.

     We returned to the Baxter Park area in late July for a shorter stay in our process of meandering back to Texas. Having driven historic Route 11 (a road we highly recommend for its remoteness and beauty) from Fort Kent on the Canadian border, we spent three nights in Patten, east of the Park. Patten and Shin Pond are the entrées to Baxter's north access, Matagamon Gate. However, en route to Patten, we overnighted in the town of Eagle Lake and caught a few brookies on the Fish River on the southern outskirts of Eagle Lake, but that's beside the point. As we were gearing up in this residential area, an adolescent black bear crossed the road, one that clearly had been told by his/her mother to "Have a good life. You're on your own." Locals say a bear sighting there is extremely rare, and John Towey said he had yet to actually see a bear in the wild in his 25-year Maine residency. And we were graced by a bear viewing, not in the deep bush but in somebody's back yard. What a blessing!

     Along with another crack at the Nesowadnehunk closer to its source Lake, we spent one day on the warmish Seboeis River east of the Park, catching a number of junior smallmouth bass along with hell's own amount of chubs. Further east on Grand Lake Road, which gets you from Patten to the Matagamon Gate, you pass Grand Lake Matagamon and its major outflow, the lower East Penobscot River, sacred to the Penobscot tribe. Further south on Route 11, stop at Grindstone Falls Rest Area, a great lunch area and major canoe put-in/take-out. Back through Millinocket for a day off, rain having set in, to lick wounds-cuts, scratches muscle cramps, bug bite, leech bites and Karen's mysterious foot rash. (No more wet wading for her.) In our golden years, we routinely schedule vacation days from our vacation.

     Our third itinerary destination was Aroostook County in northeastern Maine, bordering New Brunswick, the flatter potato country. We highly recommend Blaine Country Cabins for your lodging, a few miles southeast of the village of Mars Hill, offered by Bill and Robin Corson, very congenial and helpful hosts. Their web site, www.blainecountrycabins.com provides all essential information. The bathhouse contains a hot tub and sauna, and three upscale propane grills are available for guest use. This is a high quality facility at very reasonable rates.

     The fishing, however, proved less attractive. Perhaps we had been spoiled by Rangeley and Baxter. The wide Aroostook River itself ran low and warm and wasn't fishing, while the Little Madawaska, north and east of Presque Isle had been blown out by heavy rains, a consequence of an agricultural area. The one water that stays clear and cold all summer is Prestile Stream, a section of which runs through Blaine Country Cabins property. This is a lovely small stream, heavily shaded, that flows out of Easton southeasterly into New Brunswick, and it's packed with 8- to 10-inch brookies. But I must narrate a cautionary tale about the dark side of Prestile Stream. Leeches!! Having never fished running water infested with these critters, we had our one horror-movie moment of the summer. We had quit for the day around 5 pm, and I was loading our rods and gear in the truck. With some concern in her voice, Karen said "David, the back of your left pants leg is all bloody." I probably took some scratches bushwhacking off the stream. So I dropped my trousers, and Karen screamed "There's a THING on the back of your knee, and you're bleeding all over!" The THING was the first leech I had ever seen, about the size of a silver dollar. While Karen performed her hysterics, I rationally dredged up what the 1958 Boy Scout Manual had to say about removing ticks: light a match under its butt, and it will pull its head out of your skin. Um, leeches don't bury their heads we learned. They just ratchet up their suctioning force. After Karen, hands shaking, burned me more than the little beast, I cried "Grab your hemostat and pick him off me." Do you know how strongly leeches resist disengagement? On the fourth stab, Karen ripped it free, then stomped it for good measure. Blood flew everywhere. My blood. But the crisis was only half over. Another one had glommed onto my left ankle through my plastic sock. In subsequent visits to the Prestile, I secured my pants legs with duct tape to thwart any repeat traumas. One leech attached himself to my metal Folstaff, more for free transportation, I expect, than for nutrients.

     This year we fiddled in Maine while Montana burned. Maybe you'd like to as well. Hooking brook trout amid moose and bald eagles, and gorging on fresh lobster is a fine way to spend your summer-even with insects and leeches competing for your type A lifeblood.

» Home | » Read An Issue Online! | » Subscription Related | » Report Search | » Contact Us