Of all the trout in the whole world to catch, none quite compares to the brook trout. It eagerly feeds on insect and worm. Then cancels all wagers by hitting shiny bits of steel and tin. It truly is the average fisherman’s trout. Oh the elitests will tell you all kinds of fables about which fish is smarter than what fish. The truth is…intellect is relative to situation. You can be from the country and be a scholar beyond compare. But go to the city and your frame of knowledge and experience will leave you looking for help. If these facts are true of us they are true of lesser life forms also. So a brown trout in a chalk stream can be king of that environment. While the brookie is king of the ice cold brooks and ponds of the mountains and wilderness.

As an angler I appreciate each for their individual qualities.

The brookie:
The most common species in Aroostook County. It is also the trout most often stocked, next to the SPLAKE. (A sterile-hybrid created by crossing the brook trout and the lake trout that grows fast and is more commonly stocked in the congested waters of southern Maine.) The brookie can be found in most any free flowing steam or brook. It also inhabits nearly every pond and lake in the Northern half of the state as well. In smaller waters the fish will barely if ever grow beyond 9 or 10 inches. But in the lakes and deadwaters of Aroostook they can get scary big. 3 to 5 pounders are fairly common and usually stretch the tape at 15 to 20 inches.

The Brown Trout

On the other hand the Brown (German) Trout…an imported species to Maine. Has been stocked aggressively by the state in many of the poorer quality fisheries in Southern Aroostook. As well as having imigrated in from Canada via the St.John river system. They can now be found in waters connected to the St. John the state swears they never stocked. In some cases the brook trout have been pushed out and the browns have succeeded better there. Try the Aroostook River and St. John in Northern Aroostook and the Meduxnekeag in Southern Aroostook for these “natural” stockers. But also check The Hodgdon Deadwater, Mill stream, for browns in the headwaters all summer.(These were stocked by the state and this body of water annually receives some of the largest stocked browns that are placed each fall.)

What to Fling at the thing:
1. If you are after summer brook trout I cannot tell you more ardently how important it is that you fish the nymphs and wets. Granted the dries will get you stunning rises, but the nymphs and wet flies will get you more hits. The key to summer trout is getting as many hits as you can. Among them will be the giants, and these big boys seldom rise for miniscule feed. But drift a triple rig of PT nymphs or a trio of beadheads through their holding water and keep a good grip on your riggin’. The key here of course is to rig up with triple rigs and leave the single flies for dry fly purists.

2. Best patterns:
Nymphs
a. Pheasant Tail Nymphs
b. Gold ribbed Hares Ear
c. Czech nymphs
d. Copper Johns
e. Midge pupae
f. Maple Syrups
g. Dragon fly nymphs/emergers

Wets:
a. Olive Wooly Buggers
b. Bt Slayers
c. Black Nosed Dace
d. Micky Finn
e. Wardens Worry
f. Partridge and orange

The key here is to keep the flies low in the water and spread up to the surface on the trio rigs. Place a large nymph on the end, come up about 9 inches and add in a dropper. Put in a another nymph or wet here and move up 9 inches. Tie in another fly on the main line using a loop knot/palomar variation. You now have flies covering the bottom to the surface in an 18 inch sweep on each cast. You can spread that out further, but it can make casting more difficult once you get beyong the 20 inch spread. From my own experience I have found no added advantage in increasing this spread beyond the 18 inch mark.

My buddy Norm has a post on his blog about getting in on some free stuff. Click on Norm and see where it takes you, read his piece on the contests. Then go over to the Outdoor Bloggers Network to register. The link is below….

Outdoors Giveaway

Just read an interesting piece over at Muskoka Outdoors. The buddy of the author had recently caught and released a 5 pound brookie (specks as the call them over that away). Pictured below:

If you caught this trophy brookie would you keep it, or let it go? Tell me what you think!

Just read a great postng over in the Daily Bag Limit about an article in the New York Times. Click on over and read it over, quite concise and reasonably well done. Enjoyed the information about the steamers of choice and the “lures” used. Just a good plug for Maine and salmon fishing in general.

I just read a mail message today noting an anniversary among us Skinny Moose bloggers. Our very own “Moose” from Moose Droppings is celebrating his 1 year anniversary as a blogger here. Although he also writes over at Blind Ambitions about duck hunting and dog training. I know he will continue to entertain and enlighten us through Moose Droppings for quite some time. If you haven’t read his by-lines and viewpoints than you should go over and read his blog over. I think you will be like me and truly be glad you have.

Moose from all of my house to all of your house…….congrats and keep it up and keep it real. I’m glad to be writing for Skinny Moose alongside people like you.

Seems my buddy Rick, who Blogs over at Fledgling Flyfisher . Has included me in some sort of NEME…..thing? The idea I believe is to link alot of us bloggers together, so you the readers of our Blogs can find us easier, and to give the “googlebots” something to read as well.

So here are the rules as I understand them.
1. Post 8 facts about yourself, remember this is the internet and kids may read this!!!!

2. List 8 blogs on your blog ( remember the internet warning from #1)

3. Notify your 8 victims they have just caught a NEME ( ….. and you hope it can be cured.) So they can do this on their blog and link back to you as well. It should increase traffic for all of us.

4. List the rules on your Blog……(for a more detailed explanation go over to Rick’s site and read his explanation.)

So here comes the facts part of this NEME “infection”

1. I am the divorced and remarried father of one son (6), who I hope knows how much I love him and prayerfully try to raise him. Despite the trials and pitfalls of divorce and moving on with a new wife in a new life with three step kids(all over 19).
2. I am a stubborn #$@&%*&($%%#@ and refuse to backdown unless shown a good reason.
3. I am a Militant Christian, that believes we should save souls like we fight wars. Win their hearts and minds and the rest will follow.
4. I am a recovering alcoholic, keeping it real and fighting the fight since 1987, one day at a time.
5. I believe the key to the future is the doors we unlock today, not the walls we build because of the past.
6. I believe abortion is murder…… and should be illegal accept in cases of rape/incest and life threatening (fatal) illness.
7. I believe out of state hunters should first have to pass a test on animal identification…… and no twenty John Deere’s are not a herd and the dealership parking lot is not a “deer yard”.
8. I believe we should annex Mexico and Canada as the 51st and 52nd states. Pull down the fences, recoupe our outgoing wealth and Still be called “THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”

Well for better or worse those are my 8 facts……….. and now my eight “victims”.

Fledgling Flyfisher

Trout Waders

Outdoors With Norm

M.C. Bass

Daily Bag Limit

Sportsmans Blog

Blind Ambitions

Desert Rat

Well go check them all out…. and we’ll see you back here at some point very soon. I have a few new “projects” to share with you…. so don’t be gone too long.

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First Annual Upper Andro Two Fly Contest
May 17th, 2007 by Tom Remington
The Upper Andro Anglers Alliance is sponsoring the First Annual Two Fly Contest on June 2 and 3. The contest will test the skills of novice to accomplished anglers to fly fish for the most and the largest of the three trout species, brown, rainbow and brook found in the Upper Androscoggin river from the New Hampshire border to Rumford.

Contestants may use only two flies during the event, which starts early Saturday morning and ends at noon on Sunday. A fly is defined as made from natural or synthetic materials tied to a single pointed hook. No tandems or treble hooks are allowed.

The flies must be fished from a fly rod supplied by the contestant. Each angler will be supplied with an official packet of materials including a disposable camera to document the catches. All fish must be released live.

Prizes include an Orvis Rod, Orvis Vest and box of 100 hand-tied flies. Entry fees are $50 for adults and $25 for juniors 12 and under.

Official contest rules and a registration form are available on line at www.upperandro.com. Anglers wishing an early start may pre-register and pick up their contest packets at Sun Valley Sports and Guide Service, 129 Sunday River Road, Bethel, ME 04217 (207-824-7533) until 8 pm Friday, June 1. Regular registration begins at 8 am Saturday, June 2 at the Family Fishing Festival at the BIG Adventure Center, located on Route 2 in Bethel.

Contest Rules.

Tom Remington

This is sort of a 2nd part to my “Wilder Trout” piece last week. I felt the need to address some of the methods of finding these hidden places. But at the same time warn people to be safe and approach this as an educated endeavor not an “extreme fishing adventure”, kind of thing. The last thing we need is more people getting lost in the Northwoods and eating up our mediocre wildlife budgets.

In all my years as an angler I can honestly say that I have never taken the route most travelled. Preferring instead to find my own way. Lately that has manifested itself, last year and this year. In carrying a canoe the better part of a mile back through the muskeg swamps of Aroostook County. To find untouched and untried fishing. Sounds crazy huh……. but oh the places we have seen.

I will not tell you places but give you a general sense of the types of places I am talking about. The last thing I want is for others to find what I have discovered.

You can get there from here despite the old axiom that says you can’t. But first you will need some topos…and access to satellite imagery. Terraserver and Google Earth are about the best out there. Now pick a geographical area of interest. If you understand maps you know that any point on a map or on the planet as a whole is pinpointed by knowing the lattitude and longitude. These two numbers readily seen on topos and on satellite pics are your coordinates. Write down the longitude and lattitude of any point on land or water and a GPS unit can guide you straight to it, literally.

For those not familiar with GPS, remember to mark your trail on the unit using the “waypoints” (read the manual). I reserve this marking for directional changes due to topography, changes in terrain. I always mark my start point, my vehicle. Then plot my course via map, or observation in semi-familiar terrain. Then as I make my way to the desired pond or deadwater. I occasionally mark the directional changes required to get around a bad spot or trecherous obstacle. Between me and the GPS coordinate of the target body of water.

Although the days of Lewis and Clark are gone, you can recapture that sense of adventure for yourself by exploring the wilds of Maine with a map, a compass, and or a GPS. There are so many ponds and deadwaters out there to explore, camp beside and fish. Why would you want to go to some crowded, jetski infested local water?

My one and only suggestion is to operate within your actual abilities. If you can’t navigate in the woods with absolute certainty, stay home. The wardens have enough to do without having to go look for you.

Learn how to navigate via GPS by joining a “geocacheing” club online. They are literally everywhere on the planet…. so don’t think they aren’t in your area. Go out and locate some caches and play the game. Learn to read the GPS and how to orienteer, (look it up.) Then find a satellite image of anyplace you can think of. A statue in the town park, or a friends house. Using the GPS and the written cooordinates find your way there. Now keep playing this game and try to locate less and less familiar places. Again reinforcng the GPS education you started with in geocacheing. Now transfer part of your GPS orienteering to the maps of any selected area. Locate a place easily accessible but unfamiliar to you. Locate the sat image that corresponds, from it you can get the specific coordinates. Now go find it !!!

Don’t ever completely rely on the GPS…..it runs on batteries. If this device dies or malfunctions you can get into trouble really fast. A map is you best protection and best bet to always get you home. If you use the GPS, a compass, and a map/photo combination. You can explore and know you are in control and going out just like you went in.

Good luck…and good fishing.

P.S. If you write a comment here and email me over at: aroostookflier@yahoo.com I will send you a sat image of a place where you can catch brookies and browns of 12 to 14 inches on a regular basis. So long as you agree to only keep a fish a day and no more.

The Black Nosed Dace

Materials:

1. Tail:red poly yarn
2. Body: silver fat tinsel
3. Rib: round or oval tinsel
4. Wing : White deer hair and Brown/Natural Deer hair
5. Thread: 3/0 black
6. Hook: As small as a #6 (pictured) ……. up to a #1 (Your Choice … Match the size of available baitfish.)

This streamer has a mythical past in that I can not find a fixed creator or originator and a date or time line on it. (If you know anything about this killer streamer please let me know and maybe we can end the mystery.)

My first experiece with the BND was on the Penobscot River back in the early 80′s. A buddy of mine and I were venturing up the West Branch to try and catch some of the Salmon that were being caught up above Sebois Stream. We put in at the Old Lunksoos Camp site and shot upstream in an aluminum V-hull he owned at that time. This was a perilous put in, because of the rocks and current directly downstream from there.

Directly across the river was Wassatacook Stream, and this juncture was a white water confligration. One wrong move and you were downstream so fast, you had better jump out and take your chances. Or stay in the craft and get wrapped around one of the 20 or so midstream boulders remaining from the old bridge that used to cross there. The simple truth was that you could not safely pass downsteam due to the complete lack of an adequate gap between the rocks. The froth and churning there would roll anything that got pinned to the rocks.

As attested to by my Grumman aluminum canoe I had lost there in 1977. “Mavis” as I called her, lasted less than three minutes up against those rocks that spring. She folded in half under the pressure,and washed downstream about ten yards. Sinking to the bottom, gear and all. Thank God we were able to get to shore, and escaped what could have been a very bad day on the water.

My buddy and I shot upriver about a mile and beached along a stretch of smooth water above the Sebois. Here the river was calmer and the currents tamer by far than those downstream. We each had our own ideas on how to catch these early trout and salmon. He was throwing worms and lures most of the time. Which I had abandoned for the most part years before. Feeling that I was getting ahead of him, after I caught and released two young Salmon and a short trout. He switched to his fly rig and turned the tables on me.

We worked our way upstream along the shore of the river. Only wading out a short distance due to the slickness of the rocks and the current flow. As if he were Midas and had that golden touch. I could not buy a strike and he was being hit almost continuously. I stood back and watched him work this one run trying to see if it was how he was presenting the fly or something I was mishandling in my presentation. As luck would have it he lost track of his back cast and snagged a bush nearer to me than him. So I volunteered to release it for him.

That’s when I saw he wasn’t casting a wetfly or a nymph which is what I had expected. He was throwing this funnny looking streamer on a smallish hook. Before this I had only seen streamers tyed as long elegant 3x and 4x trolling patterns. With a few scattered tandems along the way. In my limited knowledge and the mindset of the time. Streamers were not casting flies but trolling monstrosities, used behind canoes down around Grande Lake and East Grande.

I released his line and tossed the fly away from me as he picked up most of the slack, stripping it in. Then it was up and away again to find another fish. But the image of it was fixed in my head and I looked through my limited fly inventory for something that might replicate the shape or flash of it and put me back in the game. I had nothing that even came close. But I managed to catch a few keeper trout to redeem myself. His luck was endless that day and he landed the largest LL Salmon I have ever seen with my own two eyes, alive or dead. She went a startling 34 inches on the tape and was at least ten pounds or better. Fat as a football and as rugged as a Texas linebacker.

Now my buddy was no “sport” so we took that fish home and it tasted marvelous over the coals in his back yard grill. That slight mesquite flavor from the wood chips mixed with the lemon butter…. a wonderfull thing, to please any pallet.

It was at this BBQ that he gave me my first Black Nosed Dace. Teasing me and taunting me on how I had made him look bad and that he then had to teach me a lesson. A lesson I learned humbly well, and the salmon dinner was a great end to a great trip.

This fly mimics a northern minnow we have up here in our clear and cold waters of the same name. The dace is common only in the very clearest and cleanest waters. Having very little tolerance for silt or pollution. Suffice it to say the pattern is a great spring fly for Northern rivers where these “minnows” live. Although effective into the summer and on into the fall. It is at it’s glory in the spring, in the fast water and roaring torrents. A place where the Dace is at home as well.

The tye:

Put the hook of choice in your vise. (My preference is to size it for casting, on a #6 hook.) From a length of red poly yarn, cut off a piece of about an inch. I brush out the twists and then secure it to the top of the shank, right at the bend. The tail should be about as long as the gap of the hook is wide. A standard dimension. Now trim away the excess tail material ahead of the thread and wrap it lightly.Tie in the silver tinsels, the flat and the round or oval. Move the thread ahead to about the 7/8 ths point on the shank. Wrapping the thread evenly as an underbody for the flat tinsel. Starting first with the flat tinsel…wrap it forward to the thread and tie off. Remember to keep the tinsel evenly spaced along the shank. Once the rib is wrapped it is time to add in the bucktail. Start with a small tuft of white, quite sparse. Then top it with a small sparse tuft of brown or natural deer bucktail. The final step is of course to wrap and finish the head. Some tyers add an eye of yellow and black…. or like me leave it eyeless.

Fishing this fly is simplicity itself. Just dead drift through curent and into eddies. The river sets a fast pace for most predators and they will pounce on this morsel in an instant or they are not there. The size matches the local populace. So be sure you are fishing the right size for your waters.

An additional tye I would suggest for fishing alongside the BND at this time is the Micky Finn. But scaled down into a castable version on a similarly sized hook.

Here’s a great version of the tye, from our friends at Gander Mountain.
This is listed solely for reference purposes…… and “free info” is always welcome at my fly bench.

Are you a tyer?