First Fish-in in Maine
| When |
September, 2007 |
| Where |
Maine |
| Who |
Jerome, Scott, Vaughn, Vinny, Chris, Larry and Mar-e |
For more pictures, go check the neat Bite Me Bait Co Web site, and notably this Web page.
The story
Just came back from the discovery month warm up! So we drove all the way to Maine to fish a local river for the very first carp fish-in in Maine ever! Organized by Scott & Vaughn Osmond. Here are some of the brave discoverers. And Vaughn with the first carp of the day.
The story of the week-end was unquestionably the sturgeon queen and the tamed prehistoric (baby) beast, but since Vinny and myself chose to go get soaked on the other side of the river, we didn't see much of it... We were actually convinced Scott was winding us up when we heard screams of of a sturgeon from the other shore... But no, Mar-e had caught one of those elusive and very neat fish! Incredible.
Right after the rain stopped, Vinny managed this one.
I left the guys for the rest of the afternoon, and I started to roam around (thank a lot for the map, Scott), trying to find some new spots, but man, it's like Vermont, private everywhere except boat launches... Scott had described 15 or 20 spots at the speed of light when giving me the map, but I wasn't listening very much, I wanted to find out by myself. Well, I didn't find much, and at the end of the day, ended up (re-)discovering one of the spots he mentioned! A old bridge which got destroyed by the weather, but a nice point of rocks remains, and after a bit of a trek, you're right in the middle of the Kennebec river, in breathtaking scenery.
I fished a couple of hours in the evening, nada. Dumped a bucket of maize in the water, sync'ed up with Larry and Mar-e, a detour at the local theater to see Jodie Foster looking mean and being brave, a few hours of sleep, and back we were early in the morning, with small carp jumping everywhere, the three of us and six rods in the water.
After 50 yards or so trekking on big rocks, would you guess that we were actually fishing behind this tree? Where of course, one could find more big rocks... And then, under water, even more big rocks (and snags!)...
Well, it took two hours for the first run, my new Maine PB of a 13 pounds (which made me a very happy angler because the fish which jumped earlier in the day were more in the 6 to 8 pounds class!). Too bad Larry was unlucky breaking his line on a rock when he got his own run a few minutes later. He was so desperate he started to play around with dangerous snakes!
I know, my catch doesn't seem like a special fish, but it made me much happier than catching a 20+ elsewhere! Was good that it took me a good few hours of exploring and error-making before getting it, actually.
Later in the day, Larry couldn't stand it and had to go back home set up his neat Web page, but I kept fishing for a while. By then, my thick brain (triggered by the low tide) has finally understood the configuration and figured out that I needed to fish on either side of the underwater remains of the bridge. Duh. And then I started to get more runs, landed two, lost a few more on snags (yeah, well, the bridge!), and got to admire a beautiful bald eagle.
I even had my own private air show, since the US Navy was showing off their planes in the local town and were circling on top of my head, but they were too fast, I couldn't get a clear shot. So here is a tight group of planes from farther away, and a thank you message they drew in the sky. Those guys have nerves of steel to fly so close to each other...
First Maine PB, amazing scenery, friendly atmosphere, discovery warm-up, and did I mention that Mar-e landed a STURGEON? Now, I have to spend a few thousands of hours of fishing out there in the vague hope of repeating the extraordinary feat of the sturgeon queen...
Was a great week-end. Many thanks to the Osmonds for organizing it. I'll go back to Maine, no doubts.
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