Anglers from Team Patagonia/Wild River Angler Take Top Spots In Upper Andro 2-Fly Contest

Bethel, Me…..Tyler Cote of Monmouth was the first place winner in the Third Annual Upper Andro Two Fly Contest held Saturday, September 19th on the Upper Androscoggin River between New Hampshire and Rumford, Maine. Tyler tied for first place in the biggest fish category with Brad Jerome of Newry. Both anglers caught a 14” rainbow trout. There was a tie for second place between Kevin McKay of Brewer, Maine and Charlie Lowe of Twin Mountain, NH, with 13 ½” rainbows. Chad Hughes of Camden, Scott Overbey of Brunswick and Mitch Cummings of Bethel each caught a 13” rainbow for third place honors.

The largest catch was also won by Cote with 12 fish, ten rainbows, a brown and brook trout. Second place went to Overbey with a catch of 9 rainbows and third place to Lowe with 4 rainbows, a brook and brown trout.

The Rocky Freda Turtle Water Team Trophy was presented to the Patagonia/Wild River Angler team who caught 21 fish.

Thirteen teams entered the competition. Each team made up of two anglers and a drift boat oarsman, fished with the use of only two flies from 6 am to 2 pm. All fish were caught, recorded and released. Along with the trophies, merchandise prizes from Orvis, L.L. Bean, Kittery Trading Post and Patagonia were presented to the winners. Three anglers who were unable to catch any fish received a new set of flies from Selene Dumaine of Merrymeeting Fly Shop in Brunswick.

The annual event is a fundraiser for the Upper Andro Anglers Alliance. The non-profit group, based in Bethel, Maine, is dedicated to conserving, protecting, restoring and promoting the natural resources relating to the Upper Androscoggin River, its tributaries, watershed and environs.

Posted by Tom Remington

I recently did a movie review for Carter Davidson, “East by North East“. While watching the 70-minute DVD, there are several breaks throughout the movie where Maine humorist, Joe Perham, is heard spinning a fishing yarn of some sort. He tells a fairly quick hitting one which is one of my favorites. It goes something like this.

A feller went bass fishing over on Moose Pond. He was having a good time – how good might be a bit subjective but he suddenly realizes he’s out of bait and isn’t sure what to do.

Looking around, he spots a snake not but a few paces from where he’s standing and observes a frog hanging partly out of the snakes mouth. Reacting quickly, perhaps in much the same way he would react toward anything, he reaches behind him and yanks out a flask of whiskey and abruptly pours a shot down the throat of the snake hoping it would give up the frog.

Sure enough! The snake relinquished the frog and slithered away. The old feller used the frog as bait and wouldn’t you know it, caught a 4 1/2 pound bass with it. But his frog was now gone.

Wondering, the feller looked back over his shoulder and somewhat to his surprise the snake was back. This time with two frogs in its mouth.

Tom Remington

Do you need a license to fish this way? Does catch and release work better using this technique?

Tom Remington

Opening my mailbox in the morning sometimes is like Christmas. Thanks, Richard!

Tom Remington

On Thursday I posted a picture for readers to guess what it was. If you haven’t taken the chance to wager a guess, now is the chance to do that. In the process of gathering comments from readers, one of my faithful reminded me that I hadn’t revealed the previous “Whatzit” picture. That picture is below and this link will take you back to the original post so you can read all the comments about it.

So, what is it? As a reminder, this photo was sent to me by Gary Inman in Maine. Gary is a surveyor and needless to say he covers a lot of territory. Gary says the picture was taken in back of an old barn in Newry, Maine and the “thing” was taken from an old barn. He says it is actually the remains of a “six-holer”.

He was also eager to point out that he didn’t investigate closely enough to determine which hole got the most use.

Thank you Gary.

Tom Remington

On the sixth day, God turned to the Archangel Gabriel and said: “Today I am going to create a land called Maine. It will be a land of outstanding natural beauty. It shall have tall, abundant mountains full of pine trees and eagles, beautiful sparkling lakes bountiful with bass and trout, forests full of deer and moose, high cliffs overlooking sandy beaches with an abundance of sea life, and rivers stocked with salmon”. God continued, “I shall make the land rich in resources so as to make the inhabitants prosper, I shall call these inhabitants Mainers, and they shall be known as the most friendly people on the earth.”

“But Lord,” asked Gabriel, “don’t you think you are being too generous to these Mainers?”

“Not really,” replied God, “just wait and see the winters I am going to give them.”

Posted by Tom Remington

On Sunday night in an interview with Lesley Stahl of CBS’ Sixty Minutes, Al Gore was heard to exclaim that there were so few people who disagreed with him and his assessment of anthropogenic (man made) carbon dioxide causing global warming. He said these are the same people who think the lunar landing was staged at a Hollywood movie lot. He also likened them to the Flat Earth Society people.

Many people have wondered and longed for Al Gore, the arrogant narcissist who claims to have invented the Internet, to run for the presidency again. It has become clear that he has become obsessed with global warming to the point there is nothing else important in his life anymore. Or is that true?

This is an exclusive story by Skinny Moose Media that will not be heard of or read anywhere else.

Skinny Moose Media sent a crack field reporter to follow Al Gore. With a man of such public prominence, surely there must be something our staff could find out about Al Gore that even the most infatuated of mindless Americans would surely see that the man who invented the Internet and is now about to save the world, while substantially adding to his bank account, is a bit less than godly.

Skinny Moose Media’s head investigative reporter, Hairoldo Rivera, heard of a secret trip Al Gore had planned to visit the Hudson Bay area to see first hand the demise of the loving and cuddly little polar bears. Stories have existed for decades now and nearly cost Gore the Vice Presidency, that he has some kind of sick infatuation with polar bears. It is rumored that since birth, he has kept a stuffed polar bear with him at all times, often between him and his wife, causing stress in their relationship.

Rivera went ahead of Al Gore, who traveled alone, which he almost always did when he visited the Hudson Bay area, to devise a way of being able to spy on Gore without being noticed. He decided to rent a polar bear suit and mingle with the other Coca-Cola drinking bears. What Rivera discovered is shocking and is sure to bring the world to their senses about global warming…..and Al Gore, surely.

It seems that Al Gore is in love. Yes, that’s true. He has fallen in love with a polar bear and it appears that he has used his influence as sole inventor of the Internet, to convince the world that the end is near if we don’t stop emitting carbon dioxide, just for the purpose of explaining his trips to the frozen north.

Rivera, who had some difficulties remaining unrecognized with the other bears (it is bear mating season and they’re shooting another Coke commercial) got as close as he could to Gore and his very close friend, a smallish-sized female polar bear he likes to call Laura. He overheard parts of the monologue of Gore’s (Of course Al Gore, having become so mentally deranged from his work on global warming and protecting his Internet invention, thinks Laura talks back.) Here’s what Skinny Moose Media reporter Hairoldo Rivera heard Gore saying to his little fur ball.

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep coming up here like this to see you. What’s that, Laura. No, I have told you before. I will not leave my wife. As much as I love you, I don’t like the cold and you wouldn’t like the summer warmth of Tennessee. I know I told you the earth was warming and all the ice was melting but you have to understand, I did it for you. How else could I explain my repeated trips up here?”

Rivera reports that Gore sat for hours with Laura the polar bear, most often sitting silently and at night they cuddled and watch the Northern Lights.

Skinny Moose Media believes that once this story breaks, those lingering few who still believe in Al Gore will slowly turn their unthinking attention to Barack Obama, someone they can truly believe in.

Hairoldo Rivera reporting – April 1, 2008

Saturday, as most of you know, I went with Milt on a photo shoot outing, etc. Lasted part of the morning and then it poured buckets the rest of the day. In short, it was a wash out.

Sunday, I got up early and drove to the Ft. Myers area and met up with a hometown buddy and we took in a spring training baseball game between the Minnesota Twins and Baltimore Orioles. Before you read on, I want to warn you that what I tell happens is gross and disgusting but somewhere in my sick sense of humor, I can only help but laugh. You may choose to read something else.

We got settled in to the game and seated to my right, perhaps a half dozen seats away, was the Fat family from Cellulite City. There was Mr. and Mrs. Fat and their two fat sons – one perhaps 6 and the other 8 or 9. Combined, the family could have tipped the scales at well over a half ton.

We arrived about 30 minutes before the scheduled first pitch of 1:05 p.m. and as we sat talking and laughing (no we weren’t drinking beer), it didn’t take long to realize that the Fat family had a groove worn into the steel bleachers leading directly to the snack stand. First it was hot dogs, then slushies, a round of Cokes, some popcorn and couple more hot dogs. Every time someone selling concessions moved anywhere in the stadium, up went a yell from someone in the Fat family.

At one point, I glanced over to see if these people were actually human and that’s when I noticed the Dad looked like he had a baseball for a head balancing on top of a huge pile of molten lava. If you were to look close enough, you would have noticed two Nike sneakers sticking out of the bottom of the lava rock.

Just when I didn’t think it possible for any normal person to ingest anything else, Momma Fat broke out the peanut butter and fluff sandwiches, bottles of pink Gatorade and passed each member a huge bag of Cracker Jacks, I suppose to add some variety to their Easter Sunday dinner.

The crowd had began to gather and there were few vacant seats around us. The presentation of the colors and the singing of the National Anthem followed and it was impossible to tell if any of them stood. They were as tall seated as standing but they did continue eating. Nothing was going to interfere with that.

Before we got through the first inning, the older of the two boys began coughing. I’m not sure which came first – the uncontrolled projectile vomiting all over the crowd which led to the coughing or the coughing started the event. Bright pink puke trickled down his chin, spattering and blending in with the assorted partly digested remnants of his stomach on the walkway between his feet.

What then to me became an unexplained phenomenon, nobody in the family seemed all that concerned. The younger bog was looking on as if to say, “Look at all the good food wasted.” Dad was busy trying to find the bottom of his bag of Cracker Jacks and Momma Fats was licking the fluff and peanut butter from her fingers.

Most people around them were appalled at the actions and lack of response. A lady sitting directly in front of them now had pink puke and assorted other goodies looking like an abstract work of art stuck to the back of her Baltimore Orioles commemorative t-shirt.

The coughing persisted and the boy became angry that he couldn’t eat more in between his puking and so looked at his mother in needy way. Finally, Momma Fats got up leading her two boys directly toward me. I scattered in panic and ran for the high ground seeking shelter behind the television cameraman perched in the highest location up behind us. I just knew that kid was going to paint some more art on hundreds of unsuspecting baseball fans.

I wondered aloud if they were headed for the snack bar to get a refund.

I returned to my seat looking around from drippings or any other signs a walking ball of vomit had bounced through my seating area. Once I determined the coast was clear, I moved to sit down and that’s when I noticed Daddy Fats had just finished his giant bag of Cracker Jacks and was slip-sliding through the pile of puke trying to get his hands on the three other bags abandoned by the runaway vomit machine, his brother and Momma Fats. It was at this point I began having visions of what the inside of their home must look like. I abandoned any more thoughts like that.

It was one of the most disgusting things I had seen in a long time. Now it looked a bit odd as this very fat man sat alone in the middle of the stands shoving food into his mouth without a care in the world.

I continued to make jokes with my friends as we waited to see what they would bring back with them from the snack bar. Oddly enough, they didn’t return and once Daddy Fats had finished all the food, he took a nap.

I guess he slept for 3 or 4 innings and when he awoke, he glanced around to see if there was any food he might have missed and seeing none, he left.

Needless to say, the thoughts I had prior to the game about a bowl of nachos and an ice cold drink, no longer existed. I watched the game.

Home now needing to sort through way too many emails and get back to work. While you wait for my next important news event to get posted, why don’t you go get something to eat.

Tom Remington

This was submitted by Alan Remington from Anchorage, Alaska.

If you used every letter in the alphabet and put it in front of “Lucky!!!”, remove the “L”, that dog would come to you. Funny,
huh. She’d even come to “Car key”. It didn’t matter to her. Insults and lies will offend no dog. Especially Lucky. Food-whore from the very start. If you had something in your hands, she assumed it was food and she was entitled to it. Perfect for after-dinner clean up. Slip the plates down onto the floor and let her go. Lucky was in heaven.

By the beginning of July, if you haven’t gotten your line wet yet, what are you waiting for? Most of Alaska is in a hub-bub getting to the water. If you are unfortunate enough to still be sorting out all your gear from last year, you are not alone. Keep after it. It’ll make sense after a while. The tents set up in driveway aren’t staying there, they’ve just been water-proofed.

And Dan and Clyde arrived last night from Arizona. Clyde loves to fish and who doesn’t. Especially here. Land of the midnight sun. The most perfect campsite in the world. It doesn’t matter what time you start to get ready for fishing or what time it is when you leave or what time it is when you finally get there. The midnight sun is enough light to set up camp.

We rolled all the tents over to finish drying and I noticed Dan and Clyde over beside the garage. Looks like they’re bent over something or working on something together. “What’s that?”, I said. Clyde lifts her head, “salmon eggs”. Dan never moved. He was concentrating so hard. As I approached I saw they were trying to find a nice flat spot to set the 2 flats of freshly brined eggs. So they settled for an appropriate spot together.

They both seemed to enjoy each other’s company. And the eggs looked almost good enough to eat, but of course, do not!!!!!!!

As the day progresses, the gear that once lined the driveway has slowly been removed. By now, folks are beginning to wind-down for the day, after all it’s 11:00pm. It’s so easy to lose track of time. The television is on but no one listens. Company is wonderful; “Oh shit”!, says Clyde. “We left the eggs outside”! So, out the door they go to get the eggs and are right back just as quick.

I know Clyde is proud of all her work on those eggs. I can see it in her face. She looks at me and asked if I had moved the eggs………. Like I had. I said no and she’s not believing me, I can tell. After some discussion, everyone went outside to find the eggs. By the book, as they say, and still no eggs. Everyone is intrigued with the mystery.

We had to abandon the search until morning when daylight might reveal more. And it did. The best spot for the eggs was up on top of the snow machine trailer…. high enough to keep Lucky off. She’s so old, she struggles going up stairs and has to take a break on the way up. Evidence showed drag marks on the deck and the color was right. I decided to go find Lucky.

Perhaps she did get the eggs and if so, my God, she’ll die. Peering inside her mouth and around her gums didn’t help. Her gums were pink………. “Never fear”., I said. “Lucky will show us whether she ate the eggs or not…..later today or tomorrow, right, Lucky”?

Just like clock work, she showed us. Pink, pink, not so pink, everywhere you looked. “guilty as charged!”. She had eaten the 2 flats alright. Her stomach was growling long rolling grumbles. Passing gas was ongoing anyway but she really didn’t seem to be acting any differently. It was obvious she was hungry. I can’t figure out how she got on the trailer. Food whore.

Lucky came with the house. Indeed. The previous owners didn’t want her any more and would have taken her to the pound. Outdoors year round, house training was a long struggle and eventually she figured it out. At 5 or 6 yrs. old, training was slow. We replaced the front door as well as changed “the swing”. It took Lucky a couple of weeks to figure it out. A week and a half for BJ. I was lucky, I installed it.

So , Lucky has been lucky. However, I prefer to think of her as “fortunate”.

Posted by Tom Remington

I found this little ditty in my inbox this morning I thought I’d share. Seems appropriate for the times.

While walking down the street one day a US senator is tragically hit by a truck and dies.

His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.
‘Welcome to heaven,’ says St. Peter. ‘Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we’re not sure what to do with you.’

‘No problem, just let me in,’ says the man.

‘Well, I’d like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we’ll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you
can choose where to spend eternity.’

‘Really, I’ve made up my mind. I want to be in heaven,’ says the senator.

‘I’m sorry, but we have our rules.’

And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him.
Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people.

They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and champagne.
Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a good time that before he realizes it, it is time to go.

Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises…
The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him.

‘Now it’s time to visit heaven.’

So, 24 hours pass with the senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.

‘Well, then, you’ve spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity.’

The senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: ‘Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell.’

So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.
Now the doors of the elevator open and he’s in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage.
He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above.
The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder.

‘I don’t understand,’ stammers the senator. ‘Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there’s just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?’

The devil looks at him, smiles and says, ‘Yesterday we were campaigning…… Today you voted.’

Tom Remington