TR: Big River, Big Smallies, Great Friends

Old friend Flyfish had been taunting me with taking his matched pair of Water
Skeeter pontoon boats on a float trip, so even though the weather forecast was
not encouraging, the choice between working on the yard this weekend or
joining Dave on a smallmouth float on the Androscoggin took little effort to
make. As soon as I could pry myself out of the office I was off and running
north to Mechanics Fall, Maine, meeting Dave with enough time to enjoy T3 on
his big screen/multichannel sound system (Ahhnold didn't leave any special
effects money on the table, that's for sure).

Saturday morning in a steady drizzle we dropped my truck at the take out and
settled in at a carry-in boat launch on the Androscoggin River just southeast
of Peru, constructing a pair of pontoon boatletts as we got increasingly
"damp". It's a nightmare of "Tab A into Slot B" proportions, but after only a
couple of errant moves we got the two critters together and launched around
11AM.

The boats proved incredibly stable, capable and comfortable, if not
particularly speedy. We'd be in them for almost 9 hours but I felt just fine
afterwards. The weather continued to spit on and off all day, but between
waders and rain jackets we were no wetter than we were when we started ;-)
With all the oars, pontoons, seat, etc, there are all kinds of things to eff
up your casting, but eventually I got the drill sorted out and was able to let
fly at pretty much any distance I needed...

....Which wasn't a whole lot: my second cast brought a nice smallie to the
long-handled net that Dave had thoughtfully included on his list of "gotta
haves".

From there we had a blast drifting along within a short cast of the river
bank, picking up smallie after smallie by casting right to the bank and then
slowly stripping the fly back. Both of us were fishing various Clousers that
Dave (the perfect host) had tied up, chartreuse/white, white/brown,
white/black, chartreuse/yellow.

They all worked - these fish were stationed in thin water at bankside and were
looking to hammer anything in their sight - and holy smoke could they pull out
line! I was fishing my rehabilitated 9/5 Winston and frequently had the rod
bent well into the grip, trying not to lose advantage to a fat Greenie.

The largest we caught was 19 inches, with a massive girth. I got one and Dave
might have got one. Most of what we caught were between 16 and 18 inches - all
of them well fed. Many threw in two or three jumps, and we long-line released
a bunch on top of what we netted and released. For sure we both realized this
river has much larger fish than these - I can't even imagine what a solid two
foot smallmouth much look like but no doubt it's impressive ;-)

Dave pried himself from a spot where he'd been hitting fish after fish, and we
took a break for lunch on huge smooth rock from where I'd hammered up five
nice fish on the same chartreuse/yellow Clouser. After lunch we sized up where
we were and what time it was, and we realized we were running late and better
get moving again.

In between all the fat smallmouth, we were blessed by the frequent appearance
of sizable chubs. Dave proclaimed himself ChubMaster for all the HUGE
chub/fallfish/shiners/whatever_these_scaly_things_might_be (we're talking 14
inch monsters, all colored up for God only knows what sordid things chubs do
among themselves). They were hitting his fly deep, middle, and on top - those
chubs really wanted Dave's fly in the worst way ;-)

As the afternoon turned to evening we discovered our take out at Canton Point
was about two miles too far downstream. Unfortunately there wasn't any better
place to take out - the river bank upstream was almost vertical and at least a
15 foot drop to the water, and we had these 70 pound beasts to haul out.

Those last couple of miles were exclusively Chub Water, so we rowed along for
the last hour, putting along at about 2 mph (these things are not anything
like gliding along in a canoe - every foot of progress is earned) but we
hauled out of the water just before dark.

I gotta say, I had a blast. I've never fished a *river* with that high a
population of large smallmouth, and being river fish these guys fought hard.
Dave did a great job of picking the drift, outfitting his small boats, plus he
ties a mean Clouser ;-)

Knowing Dave he's geared up and waiting for folks to visit and take him
fishing. If you have the chance, do it - you'll have a day to remember for
sure...

/daytripper (still can't believe smallies get that big!)

On Mon, 24 May 2004, daytripper wrote:

The largest we caught was 19 inches

The great daytripper making specific reference to size in a trip report.
What has this world come to?

Mu

.... hmmmmm, 19" and fat .... should be pushing 4+ lbs at least . nice one

wrote...
Knowing Dave he's geared up and waiting for folks to visit and take him
fishing. If you have the chance, do it - you'll have a day to remember for
sure...

Well done! Sounds like a freakin' blast. That TR is safely filed
away for future reference. :-)
--
Warren (who is looking to fill out his whole October itinerary on
the way to NC and back)
(use troutbum_mt on either yahoo or earthlink to respond via email)

daytripper wrote:

Old friend Flyfish had been taunting me with taking his matched pair of Water
Skeeter pontoon boats on a float trip, so even though the weather forecast was
not encouraging, the choice between working on the yard this weekend or
joining Dave on a smallmouth float on the Androscoggin took little effort to
make.


Sounds like the trip was a blast!

Big river Smallmouths are tons of fun. It's been too many years since
I've tussled with one.

Willi

Nice TR Tripper, it was a pleasure. I hope you were not too sore the next
day after the 2 miles of paddling hell at the end. I was surprised that I
wasn't sore in a host more places than I was.

Great fun, nice trip, big fish, good company. We had so much fishing to
do that I never did pop open that bottle of wine I brought along for our
shore lunch, we just wolfed down a sandwich and kept on fishing.

I had one fish that I lost at the net that I think would have gone well
over 20", I was thinking between 22-24". I just grinned and cast out
again.

And yeah I was the chub master, catching a bunch of 1 -1.5 lb chubs that
fought pretty well on their own.

Tripper did a good job of analyzing the deficiencies of the pontoons and
some corrective action will be in place before the next outing.

And Trip enjoy the bottle of bug repellent! (it's a virgin bottle) :-) We
never did get around to needing any as the weather kept the black flies
and mosquitos down all day.

Frank, you know the spot, cu in a couple weeks :-)

Flyfish

On Mon, 24 May 2004 00:33:38 -0400, Mu Young Lee wrote:

On Mon, 24 May 2004, daytripper wrote:

The largest we caught was 19 inches

The great daytripper making specific reference to size in a trip report.
What has this world come to?

"...dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria!"

... hmmmmm, 19" and fat .... should be pushing 4+ lbs at least . nice one

I have no idea on the weight but they were as fat as they could be and still
put up a great fight. Not quite footballs with fins but damned close. Dave
took film cough pictures so it'll be awhile afore y'all see dem beauties...

If we can find an earlier take out I'm definitely gonna do that float again!

/daytripper

daytripper wrote in
:

On Mon, 24 May 2004 00:33:38 -0400, Mu Young Lee
wrote:

On Mon, 24 May 2004, daytripper wrote:

The largest we caught was 19 inches

The great daytripper making specific reference to size in a trip
report. What has this world come to?

"...dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria!"

... hmmmmm, 19" and fat .... should be pushing 4+ lbs at least . nice
one

I have no idea on the weight but they were as fat as they could be and
still put up a great fight. Not quite footballs with fins but damned
close. Dave took film cough pictures so it'll be awhile afore y'all
see dem beauties...

If we can find an earlier take out I'm definitely gonna do that float
again!

/daytripper


My film camera is waterproof, I didn't notice your digital anywhere in
sight....

Flyfish

Flyfish wrote in
:

Nice TR Tripper, it was a pleasure. I hope you were not too sore the
next day after the 2 miles of paddling hell at the end. I was
surprised that I wasn't sore in a host more places than I was.

Frank, you know the spot, cu in a couple weeks :-)


....damn tootin' Dave. Trips TR has me drooling all over this
keyboard..yeeehaaaa! :-))))

Frank Church

"Flyfish" wrote


My film camera is waterproof, I didn't notice your digital anywhere in
sight....

Flyfish

who loves ya, davey!

and the difference in the real world...still better, unless you got a
few thousand to spend...

yfitons
wayno (fyia, barnard)

On Mon, 24 May 2004 17:19:56 -0500, Flyfish wrote:

Nice TR Tripper, it was a pleasure. I hope you were not too sore the next
day after the 2 miles of paddling hell at the end. I was surprised that I
wasn't sore in a host more places than I was.

Great fun, nice trip, big fish, good company. We had so much fishing to
do that I never did pop open that bottle of wine I brought along for our
shore lunch, we just wolfed down a sandwich and kept on fishing.

I had one fish that I lost at the net that I think would have gone well
over 20", I was thinking between 22-24". I just grinned and cast out
again.

And yeah I was the chub master, catching a bunch of 1 -1.5 lb chubs that
fought pretty well on their own.

Tripper did a good job of analyzing the deficiencies of the pontoons and
some corrective action will be in place before the next outing.

And Trip enjoy the bottle of bug repellent! (it's a virgin bottle) :-) We
never did get around to needing any as the weather kept the black flies
and mosquitos down all day.

Frank, you know the spot, cu in a couple weeks :-)

Riding those things is like floating along in an easy chair. Even for the
rowing at the end - that I could do without ;-) - I don't feel sore today.
Nice.

I actually was thinking about that wine while we were eating lunch on that
huge granite slab. That thought lasted for about five seconds before I was
back to thinking about those huge green trout!

As for the bug dope: You have it back, unopened - thankfully!
I put it in one of the dry bags before we set sail.

And I cannot conceive of a 24" version of what we were catching.

/daytripper (It would blot out the sun!)

ps: Weekends on the Rapid are utterly out of the question. Friday afternoons
are pretty bad as well. I think we'll be doing a lot of smallie fishing this
year...