Northern Maine Ridge Runners and River Rats: Fishing Season Winding Down

So as the leaves begin to turn to their brilliant autumn colors, it marks the ending of one season, but also the beginning of another. General water fishing season ends on the last day of September, and bird hunting starts on the first of October. For this post, I want to focus on the ending of the fishing season. It has been a tradition of mine for the last several years to pay a visit to the gorgeous Fish River for the final week of the season. This year, the amount of rain that my area received, has kept me at bay from many of my traditional haunts, but there has been one pool that keeps tugging at the back of my mind. Something about it's location told me that it should still hold fish and be accessible by foot. My wife and I decided to head down tonight, since there is only a couple of days left in the season, to see if my theory would hold true. After a short walk down to the river, I could hear the water roaring over a set of ledges that I was hoping to be able to fish from. The volume of the roar told me that the water was far higher than any other time that I had fished this locale. As we pushed through the final trees shielding our view of the river, the sight confirmed my fear, and there was a standing wave over a foot high on the piece of ledge that is my traditional casting spot. Not to be discouraged by that, my wife and I quickly rigged up our poles. As I tied on the first of many lures, I caught a white glimpse in the back eddy at my feet. After further inspection, it was a nice 12" brook trout that had not survived the perils that it had been dealt. I took this as a good sign, and quickly cast my lure into the current line. And repeated that procedure over and over. The fishing was slow! We had cast for over an hour, and the sun was starting to set, when Heather finally hooked into a nice fish, and played it long enough for it to make one quick run, and then it somehow managed to shake itself off. From our quick glimpses it looked like a very nice fish. Discouraged by the loss, but rejuvenated at the same time by the action, we intensified our casting. It wasn't long before Heather managed to hook another one, and was able to successfully land this fish, which was a beautiful 15" female brook trout. Score 1 for Heather and 0 for Chris! That was all of the daylight we had for tonight, but thanks to Heather we managed to pull through without being skunked. See the photos below!

Chris getting the poles rigged up