Fly, Fish, Feast!

Why would you fly for four hours, drive for three, hike for another three, just to fish for one hour?   For me this past weekend,  the answer is clear - a good catch of native brook trout.

First though, lets clear up some misconceptions.  Native brook trout found in northern Maine are not "trout" like you think of trout.  In fact they are a salmonoid with reddish colored flesh, a legacy of the last ice age.  They are closely related to arctic char but are much much smaller, sweeter, and ever more succulent.  The first time you taste one you will immediately recognize the difference.  These fish will only survive in pristine waters.  Pollution will kill them.  And no, in the ponds we fish, they are not stocked.  These fish spawn and engage their life cycle right there in the clear cold mountain pond fed by natural springs and snow melt. 

Heading to our secret pond last weekend (a lot of Mainers don't even tell their best friends where they fish), we hiked in to find the single campsite there occupied and the canoe that goes with it, spoken for by the campers.  After we chatted a while around their breakfast campfire, they generously offered us the use of the canoe until we got our bag limit.  From past experience that could take anything from  an hour to a full day but our campers assured us it would not take long today.

They were right.  We paddled to the middle of the pond and let the canoe drift down towards the end while we fished.  In Maine a pond is usually big enough to be called a lake in most other parts of the world, and this pond is like that.  It took us about an hour to drift from one end to the other and in that time we had nine fish.  Several small ones were released as it was clear from the outset that this was going to be a good day and fish of 10 to 12 inches (large for native brook trout in this area), were in abundance and easy to catch.   We paddled back a little to get one more fish and have our bag limit of 5 fish each.

We returned the canoe, hiked out to our truck, and got back to camp (aka "house on the lake") just after lunch.  This gave us the afternoon to relax, clean our catch, and prepare for our traditional evening feast of pan fried whole brook trout, fiddleheads, and potatoes accompanied by a bottle of Oyster Bay (NZ) Sauvignon Blanc.  Once more we had achieved what we had come for and toasted our success - fishing, friendship, and feasting on one of the most edible species of fish I've ever tasted.  Priceless!