"Memphis Jim" wrote in message
oups.com...
Everything was going great until I climbed up a long hill where the
fields dropped off on both sides. I came down the hill and was in the
middle of a vast field that was level into the distance. Then the road
became dirt.

Great story. It really brought back some memories.

I spent may hours riding through the barrens in the back of an old hard top
jeep driven by my cousin's father. "Mack" was a born and bred Mainer, had
little use for comfort, and was happiest when there were as many people
around as possible. So my father, my cousin (dad's age), Mack, my cousin's
two sons (both a bit younger than me), and my brother and me, along with a
very happy full grown lab and a dozen rods (classic Down-East fishing rods
of the telescopic metallic variety), would load up in Mack's CJ7 and roar
off from Northfield down to the barrens. Mack had no idea how rough the ride
was in the back of the Jeep, or perhaps he thought all the bodies crammed
together would offer some sort of cushioning, but at the speeds he traveled,
we all spent as much time airborne as seated, if you can call the fender
well a seat. I never decided whether he drove fast over the rutted dirt
roads because he was anxious to get to the brooks, didn't have any idea how
bloodied we were getting from the impact against the roof, or just thought
driving fast was fun. In any case, by the time we rolled out of the Jeep, I
would gladly have walked back to camp rather than ride back. Of course, by
the next day, I had forgotten this discomfort, and was always ready to do it
again.

Mack always knew where the fishing was going to be good, and since there
wasn't a lot of fishing pressure in the brooks of the barrens back then, it
was almost always wonderful. In fact, I can never remember seeing another
fisherman in all the trips we made. It always seemed that the barrens were
our private fishing grounds, and I can remember my cousin's outrage when he
thought someone was building a house near one of the brooks. They weren't,
but it got his attention. We were meat fisherman, and kept our limit for
dinner and the freezer long before there was any realization that the
resource was limited. I learned early how to best preserve a nice bright
brookie in a sphagnum moss lined basket creel so that it's flesh would still
be firm at the end of the day - a skill I haven't needed to use in nearly 30
years of C&R. That's just the way it was back then, even with an 8 fish
limit. Dad says my grandfather was devasted when Maine dropped the limit to
25 fish a day. There are many nice brooks and "rivers" on the barrens, and
while I haven't fished them in 35 years, they always held fish. The season
allowed fishing in "rivers" after August 15, but the brooks closed. If the
map said it was a river, we fished it, even though many of the rivers were
significantly smaller than some of the brooks.

Sorry for the ramble. I cherish the experiences I have had fishing out West
with my wife, but in the end, there is simply nothing like the joy of
fishing a brook so tight with alders that you have to poke the pole though
the branches.

And but for a wrong turn or two, you were in the right place.

Jim Ray