TR: An evening on the Wild, and a Middle Upper Androscoggin Float (longish)

Friday afternoon I bolted out of the office at noon, swung home to pick up my
gear, and hit the road north to Gilead, Maine, and the confluence of the Wild
and Androscoggin Rivers. It was a perfect afternoon, plenty of sun and no wind
to speak of, and I figured there'd be plenty of company waiting. But I
*totally* lucked out when I arrived at the mouth of the Wild around 5pm to
find nobody fishing there!

There were lots of fish rising just downstream of the Wild, and a short look
around the water showed why. There was some weird kind of spinner on the
water, I can only describe them as looking like a skinny house fly with way
oversize spent clear wings. I still have zero clue what they were, but I got
by using an Alderfly pattern with the hackles clipped top and bottom, leaving
a spent-wing-like impression.

That fly got a decided mixed reception: some fish short-struck it, while
others nailed it full-on. Fortunately that provided plenty of hooked-up trout,
mostly brookies but some rainbows mixed in, both ranging from 11-12" up to
16-17". And the ratio swung markedly towards hook-ups as the sky darkened
under a bright half-moon. All I had to do was hit the water with the fly, the
fish did the rest.

I tied the last fly on around 9:45 with a penlight clenched between my teeth,
trying to focus the beam on the fly while keeping the fly in sight of my
flip-downs. What a pita - I need to get one of those "miner light" rigs.
I promptly caught one more nice brookie, called it a day and headed over to my
friend/coworker John's place in Gilead to join up with him and another
coworker, Rick. We hung out 'til 1am drinking bourbon, spotting Luna moths,
and planning our trip for the next day...


Saturday morning we were up and at 'em early, gathering up our gear for a
float on the Andy. We headed out 3 trucks strong, ready for anything.

If Dave B's single seat pontoon boats are the Ferraris of small inflatables,
Saturday a couple of coworkers and I floated a different section of the
Androscoggin River in the Ford F100 short bed of inflatables.

Y'all may know all about this three-man inflatables, but this was a first for
me. For those who haven't seen once, picture a conventional 10 foot long oval
inflatable raft, with an aluminum frame carrying a bow seat, stern seat,
middle/rowing seat, high tech oar locks and anchor system strapped across the
top. The setup is extremely similar to a 3-man McKenzie boat, only in this
case you pump it up, slide it into the river, throw in the oars, coolers and
gear and you're good to go floating in style.

The weather forecast was for a cold wet day. We didn't care as long as the
lightning in the forecast didn't actually show. We were all sporting rain gear
to counter a light rain for the put-in, but that was pretty much the last of
the weather, as the skies started to clear and by early afternoon it had
turned into a beautiful day. Another miss by the weather dudes.

We put in with a crowd of other floaters just below the dam east of Gorham NH
and fished our way down to Gilead ME, roughly 9 miles of river. Having three
trucks between us we left one at the take out and another at the halfway point
- to facilitate either early take out, or a lunch run. We ended up using it
for the latter.

People were floating in all kinds of rigs, from wood McKenzies to round tubes.
A friend of ours bobbed along with us in his float tube and actually kept up
with our leisurely pace. What little breeze there was headed downstream, good
news for everyone involved.

We were barely settled in with Rick up in the bow, me in the stern, and John
at the oars, when Rick latched onto a 3+ pound smallie that went ballistic
with his olive 'Bugger and engaged in a mid-river tug-of-war. We would catch
many more smallies but that first one was the big bass for the day.

From the put-in to all but the last mile or so, someone usually had a fish on,
picking them up close to the banks. We caught brookies, rainbows, browns and
smallies - and chubs. Big chubs. Big *purple* chubs, with those fleshy-rubber
lips...ooooog...I'm certain I saw the biggest damned chub ever caught, it had
to be 16 inches long and barrel chested, freaky purple....we shoulda made
Eagle Chow (tm) out of him and his kin, but we were in a live-and-let-live
mood, so no harm came to any fish this day.

Did I mention the Bald Eagle? Awesome bird, we watched him soaring along the
river looking for chub shashimi...We thought we spotted his/her nest along the
way. Very cool...

After stopping at the halfway point and having two of the crew run back to
Gorham to pick up an ample lunch, we continued down the river, now under a
bright blue sky. To summon a famous analogy, we were playing the Halfordian
Golf Course behind the McKenzie boat, which turned out to carry a guide and
two sports. They'd lost their anchor along the way - we thought about offering
to sell ours for some 2X-obscene price and make him refuse it in front of his
clients. After a good laugh we decided to pass on the acts of terrorism...

The biggest damned fish we saw was found hard to the bank behind the root ball
of a blowdown, the resulting hole providing a good ten foot tub for Moby Trout
to hang in and watch the world float by. We saw that hole early enough that
the two of us fishing were lining up our casts well in advance.

I was in the bow and I threw an olive bunny in the middle of the tub. We *all*
saw this HUGE trout shoot out of the depths, strike hard at the fly, then do a
360 spin - and take another lunging whack at the fly! At the same time, Rick
in the stern had cast an olive 'Bugger about two feet away from my fly - and
another, smaller trout slammed his 'Bugger at the same time Moby was wailing
on my bunny!

Neither of us managed to hook up, but as soon as we got close to the bank I
almost jumped out of the boat to run back upstream to take another shot from
the bank above the hole. I worked my way down the steep bank to the water and
crept along to within casting range of the hole. First cast with the same
olive bunny got a follow. Second cast, nada. Tried white and gray bunnies,
nothing.

Meanwhile I had been inching ever closer to the lie and was actually on the
down-slope into the hole when the gravel underfoot shifted and I found myself
bobbing freely, bouncing on my toes. Uh oh. That hole immediately ahead was a
good 8 or 9 feet deep. In a couple more bounces I'd be a U-Boat captain. I
used my last bounce on the gravel to launch towards the bank to within reach
of a handful of bankside vegetation. Which thankfully held. Not even an 1/8th
Reid, I shipped barely enough water to dampen my shirt tail...

Further down stream I caught the big trout of the day, a brightly colored up
rainbow that pushed the 18 inch mark and put a heck of a bend in my trusty 9/5
Winston. I confess that I enjoy the hell out of fishing for river smallies -
but pound for pound there's nothing like a trout for protracted battle...

We ended up in Gilead at the takeout, giving a miss to fishing the mouth of
the Wild where I'd had a killer evening the night before, as there were too
many peeps already there. After packing the boat and gear back to John's place
and driving into Gorham for dinner, I hit the road home for a Sunday attack on
my lawn, and to finish re-decking my deck in time for the 4th...

All in all a great 24 hours...

/daytripper (...and a huge Thanks to John and Rick for getting me out there.)