Sports

Salmon fishing in Maine well-worth the trip

By Dave Sartwell
Correspondent
Published: June 17, 2008

Outdoors

Dave Sartwell

We had taken the five-hour drive to Grand Lake Stream in northern Maine on Friday for a long Father's Day weekend.

We chose to stay at Weatherby's Camps, but there are several in the area. This is an annual pilgrimage for my friend Steve and I, as we love to fish this 21/4 mile long, 100-foot wide glacial stream that flows from West Grand Lake to Big Lake. Its beautiful clear water flows over the sand, gravel and stone bottom that makes it perfect as a spawning river.

In an oddity of nature, the salmon come down out of West Grand in the fall, making it one of the few fish that migrate downstream to lay their eggs. Many of them stay in the river all winter, only journeying back to the lake in the middle of June. They are joined in the spring by some fish that had dropped down into Big Lake in the fall and are working their way back up to West Grand for the summer.

Both Big Lake and the river are too warm in July and August for these beautiful salmon. Although very few will stay, most go to West Grand Lake to seek the cooler, deeper water and to feed on the abundant rainbow smelt. They drop down into the stream again in October. There is a catch-and-release season for them in this stretch from Oct. 1 to Oct. 20.

Each spring, Maine stocks 10,000 to 12,000 salmon in the seven-inch range from the hatchery that sets on the banks of the river.

This run has been amazingly stable over the years. In fact, in 1874 a fish trap was set in the waters where the big dam is now and counted the fish going up the river. The total was 2,626 with the average fish size being 17 inches with a few in the 20-inch range and a very few to 24 inches. To this day, about 2,600 fish make the annual journey with exactly the same size categories.

This river is for fly fishing only, with almost all folks practicing catch and release. What flies you use depends on the time of day, the temperature of the water and what is hatching. The dry flies that really work are the brown caddis with a green body, Hendricksons and flying ants. The nymph fishing is also terrific and, in most cases, is the most effective way to hook a salmon. We use a tandem rig that is led with a bead-headed Prince and a dropper of a green-colored brassie or pheasant tail. The lead fly is often tied on a No. 14 hook with a tiny No. 20 or No. 24 for the dropper. The size of the bead-headed fly is determined by the speed of the current. We use that weight to get the fly down to the fish.

If you are looking for a terrific fly-fishing only experience, this stream offers some of the best in both the spring and the fall. The surrounding lakes also offer a great small mouth bass fishery as well, with 50 fish days the norm.