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Change in Plans Provide Private Fishing Experience in Rangeley Lakes Region

July 24, 2007 - Rangeley Plantation -- "This is where you want to fish," Bob Dionne says, holding his hand parallel to the paper on the desktop, and pushing it right up against the cash register for emphasis. "Right there."

Dionne, proprietor of Aardvark Outfitters in Farmington, then taps a spot on the sheet forcefully with his index finger, for emphasis.

It's the great thing about local fly shops.

You stop in for a couple of last-minute, hot-on-the-water salmon and trout flies, to complete the plans you've been laying out in your mind for days. Heading out the door to the parking lot, you now hold in your hand a detailed fishing map sketched out in ballpoint pen on your 6 x 9 inch receipt and a brand-new plan for how to tackle the days ahead.

Holding the map, already wrinkled and dogeared from the serious discussions of how, where, when and what to fish, you see state Route 4, which cuts from Farmington through Rangeley and into Oquossoc some 45 miles down the road. So, too, in the tradition of these original handmade Mapquests, the ones GPS and the Internet have yet to force into extinction, is the corner store and unnamed and unmarked dirt road that leads to a dam on the Kennebago River in Oquossoc which Dionne wants you to find.

"It can be really shallow," Dionne said. "And if it looks too shallow to fish, it probably is. But if it's not, then the fish are right there."

Again, he slides his hand flush against the dam he hass drawn onto my receipt. Bob is not telling me whereabouts to fish-he is telling me exactly where the fish are, and then he disappears into the back room of his shop, the one that houses the flies.

"You'll want this," he tells me. "It's the secret fly."

So much secret information, so little time.

That evening, the rain is falling hard enough that the rain gear comes out of its pack.

A narrow and gravelly path leads through crumbling concrete walls, sharply making its way down the side of a hill where the dirt road stops. The undergrowth is so thick that only the sound of rushing water below the dam tells me I'm headed in the right direction.

Popping through the trees that fence the river, I find two fishermen -- who were stationed directly on top of the dam, only a few paces from the whitewater bursting through -- packing up and heading out on a trail over the opposite bank.

I get my bearings and begin to inspect the river. It is shallow, shallow enough to wade straight into the middle and never be deeper than the top of my calf.

I hear Dionne's words in my head -- "if it looks too shallow..." -- but seeing a couple of deeper pools I decide it is more than ample water for trout. Immediately below the dam, whitewater turns black as it rushes several feet deep below the surface. Where the anglers hiked out, a granite wall runs 25 feet high before burying itself under water, forming another deeper pool.

I cast into this flyfishing only water, marked by signs on trees around the dam and clearly detailed in the law book, and my fly ( the secret fly! ) snags itself in a low-lying tree branch.

I think I'm done for, and I curse myself for not asking Bob for two of them. Or two more of them. Luckily, I can reach the branch, and the fly is only wrapped around a leaf. It's safe -- at least until I lose it once and for all on a submerged tree stump a little later on but Bob was right, there are plenty of fish here. The family of ducks that swim footloose and fancy free only a few feet from my ankles seem testament to that. In an hour's time, I've caught a few small trout, only 4 or 5 inches long and in some cases not even large enough to stir the line on a nimble 7-foot, 5-weight rod.

For me, it's not about the size of the fish I'm catching. For me, it's all about having come to a beautiful area in Maine's western mountains, having pitched a tent there and having set out away from the touristy coffee shops and moose memorabilia boutiques for some honest-to-goodness wilderness exploration. While the rest are staying in bed and breakfasts and taking guided tours around Rangeley Lake, I'm roughing it out on my own.

The fish, and Bob's advice, make it all the sweeter -- sweeter, that is, as the skies grow dimmer and dimmer until the lightning pops overhead and I realize I'm still calf deep in a foreign river.

The heavy rains which followed would not let up until after midnight, soaking everything except my clothes and sleeping bag inside the tent.

From my "hotel" room in Rangeley Lake State Park -- a two-man tent, a canvas chair and a cooler full of vitamin water, power bars, fruit and deli sandwiches -- I've decided that, despite threatening skies and the rumble of thunder over the mountains to the west, I'm going to hoof it up Bald Mountain. I came all this way, and I'm going to see the summit.

Sweaty and under siege from mosquitoes, I make this steep track to Bald's 2400 foot peak. On the way, though, I paused to admire the surrounding water. Even looking down from above the tree line, it's clear that the waters on Rangeley and Mooselookmeguntic Lakes are unsettled; their waves and whitecaps may seem less vicious from this vantage point, but they are no less noticeable. In fact, seeing how windswept the lakes are, in many ways, it gives them the distinction of being even more powerful and energetic.

Before long, though, I'm thinking about the river and streams, about where to walk-in, about how to hike to some fantastic little fishing spots that the masses are not yet privy to. Seeing the boats lined up like small armies on the Rangeley shore, ready to pounce with their trolling motors and streamer flies, I think about those little trout below the dam.

Who wouldn't want to catch 6 pound landlocked salmon on Rangeley Lake, or find those 2 and 3 pound brookies hiding in a perfect little cove? That kind of angling comes with a price, however, one steeped with crowds, the noise of boat engines and bows whapping themselves over the wakes and waves.

I spent 10 minutes and one of Rangeley Lake's small coves in a canoe. For seven minutes of that time, I asked myself why I was doing it.

I paddled ferociously back to shore and pulled the canoe out, before hightailing it 15 minutes back to Oquossoc and finding Bob Dionne's unnamed dirt road to the dam. This time I tried above the dam and, having left my waders behind in haste, I walked straight into the cool water in sporting sandals and nylon shorts.

I was sure the fish would not notice, nor care, whether or not it appeared the Orvis catalog had outfitted me.

Under sunny skies and increasingly warm air, I cast and cast and cast some more. To the big rock just upstream along the near shoreline; to the shallow rock bed downstream just ahead of the dam; to blind water out in the middle revealing noting more than the reflection of the sunlight.

Still nobody here, and still plenty of small fish around, some surfacing reluctantly, others hiding behind that big rock.

Sadly, I still wasn't all that far off the beaten path.

This article appeared in its original form in the Kennebec Journal, July 14, 2007

Lakes: Mooselookmeguntic &Cupsuptic, Rangeley
Regions: Rangeley


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