PORTLAND, ME – Fly Fishing in Maine (FFIM) is proud to present screenings of “The Good Life – Tall Tails from the East”, a fly fishing feature film produced by Maine native Carter Davidson. The event, hosted by FFIM, will be at the Frontier Cafe and Cinema in Brunswick on April 15, at two separate showtimes of 6:00pm and 7:30pm.

This is the 3rd full-length feature from Gray Ghost Productions, with last year’s “East by Northeast” exciting angling audiences with amazing footage from all over Maine, New Hampshire and beyond. This year’s film tours the better part of the East from Labrador to the Florida Keys and everything in-between. Hitch a ride in the flying Beaver with Luke Gray in search of huge Eastern Brook Trout and enormous Northerns. Check out the alluring saltwater for Stripers in the north or toothy monsters of the southern latitudes. From Peacock Bass to Landlock Salmon, from urban pools teeming with silver Shad to remote runs with glorious trout and a dash of the occasional Stonefly hatch, this film is proof that the good life is never too far away.

The Frontier is a stunning intimate venue located in the Ft. Andros complex, with excellent food and a unique collection of beverages. FFIM’s Dan Tarkinson adds, “The Frontier has quickly become somewhat of a favorite in the Maine Fly Fishing community. We’ve held several events there now, and the crowd and ambience of the theater have always gelled so well. We’re very pumped to be able to showcase the film-making talents of Carter Davidson and the Gray Ghost Productions crew at such a fine establishment”.

Due to limited capacity, we strongly recommend ordering your tickets in advance, by either purchasing online with a credit card at
http://www.flyfishinginmaine.org/thegoodlife/, or by calling the theater at (207)-725-5222.

The event festivities will also include several door prizes for each screening, as well as the chance at some larger fund-raising raffles, including a 2-person Pontoon Boat to be raffled off at the annual FFIM Conclave in June.

All proceeds from this event and the raffles will go to the FFIM Grassroots Grant fund. FFIM is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Past recipients of FFIM Grassroots Grants have included Trout Unlimited, Casting For Recovery, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, and many more. Among the beneficiaries this year is the Sebago Chapter of Trout Unlimited, providing them with a grant for their “5-in-5″ Southern Maine pond reclamation program.

For more information about Fly Fishing in Maine, please visit our website at http://www.flyfishinginmaine.org/

For more information about “The Good Life”, including the trailer and where you can purchase a DVD copy, visit their website at http://www.ggpfilms.com/

Photo from fOTOGLIF

The people at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife are claiming they are broke and are in need of funding, as much as doubling the current funding, according to Dr. Ken Elowe, Director of Resource Management for MDIFW.

You’ll get no argument from me that MDIFW is underfunded. What you will get are questions as to why and suggestions about the best way to deal with it. Let’s first address why the MDIFW is underfunded.

In the new issue of Maine Fish and Wildlife, MDIFW Commissioner Roland D. Martin, states that all the programs and responsibilities his department has to care for, brings back to the state of Maine some $2.4 billion annually. Maybe that amount could be more.

Dr. Elowe, in his article on who should fund MDIFW, also states that responsibilities to the department have grown out beyond fish and wildlife issues.

Over time, the Department’s mission has broadened significantly: It now manages whitewater rafting, registration of watercraft, snowmobiles, ATVs, hunter, trapper and recreational vehicle safety, conservation education, environmental permitting and other matters.

And that’s just scraping the surface. To this we should add search and rescue, law enforcement of recreational vehicles and all non game programs.

The major reason the MDIFW is underfunded is because it has been tasked to perform duties well beyond management of fish and wildlife. All of this has been done with essentially no additional funding. Presently the overwhelming majority of funding to MDIFW comes from license fees paid by hunters, fishers, trappers, and snowmobilers/ATVers.

I know of nobody who thinks MDIFW is properly funded. The problem now becomes what to do about it.

George Smith, Executive Director for the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, is promoting funding to come from general taxation. He is proposing that a percentage of the tax revenue be designated to the MDIFW. In all honesty I haven’t heard anybody else make a specific proposal that doesn’t involve using tax money to fund the current composition of the MDIFW and it’s ever expanding non game services.

While this proposal may seem functional on the surface, I have to wonder if most sportsmen, the one’s who will still be the major fund providers for the Department, understand that with such a move opens the door for non hunting, non fishing interests to demand more and more input into the decisions and direction the MDIFW should take. The majority of states that have followed this path have faced this problem and a problem it has become, with organizations like the Humane Society of the United States and PETA directly seeking or sponsoring their own representatives to fill seats on fish and game commissions. What could possibly be wrong with that?

I support increased funding for all the issues that Dr. Elowe lays out in his article. However, I don’t support them to be part of and funded by MDIFW. For regular readers, you know that I support a move that will put all non game programs into the Department of Conservation. Dr. Elowe says MDIFW doesn’t have enough biologists to cover everything. Fine, DOC, funded by taxpayer dollars, can hire their own wildlife biologists to take care of non game wildlife species. DOC can take care of environmental licensing, conservation education, etc. Law enforcement of snowmobiles and ATVs should be handled by state and local law enforcement as well as search and rescue.

This move would be unprecedented as the tendencies these days are to mash departments together believing money can be saved and programs run more efficiently. History has already shown us that that is not the case. As a matter of fact, the bigger the department the further away from the average sportsmen a sense of ownership becomes, resulting in a significant loss of interest. In other words, when sportsmen lose their voice, participation drops. The larger the department the more bureaucratic it becomes swelling the budget, resulting in depletion of programs. In other words, more of the same.

Conservationist or perhaps better labeled, environmentalists, have no business dictating to a fish and game department how to manage game for hunting, fishing and trapping opportunities. Funding fish and game with tax dollars will accomplish that with very negative results.

It’s easy for Commissioner Martin or Dr. Elowe to exclaim how their programs contribute $2.4 billion dollars annually to the Maine economy. Think how much bigger that amount would be if the programs were split up so that each one saw the attention it deserves and that would provide better opportunities. With a smaller MDIFW, they could get back to managing just fish and wildlife for the purpose of providing opportunities for hunters, trappers and fishermen, then I believe these resources could improve with the end result a better revenue stream for MDIFW.

With a better funded and more targeted Department of Conservation, similar results could be seen and achieving the wishes shared by Dr. Elowe. This can be done and the results impressive, in my opinion. Who has the chutzpah to try it?

The groups involved in examining how MDIFW should be funded are supposedly contacting other states that fund their departments with general taxation. I hope these groups understand that just because everybody else does it, doesn’t mean it’s the best. I’m confident that if they look at the issue with open minds, they will realize what I did several years ago.

Let’s properly fund the programs that need to be funded in Maine and not just throw money at it. Two lean, mean departments, each properly structured with sufficient funding could reverse a management trend that is seeing lousy results.

Tom Remington

Photo from fOTOGLIF

AUGUSTA – Open water fishing season is now open under an emergency law signed by Gov. John E. Baldacci today, Thursday, March 25, 2010.

All lakes, ponds and brooks are open except those with specific opening-day regulations that start after April 1 as listed in the 2008-2009 Open Water Fishing Law Book.

Bag and size limit rules contained in the 2008-2009 Open Water Fishing Law Book also apply.

The emergency law is in effect from March 25 to April 1, 2010.

A new fishing law book that combines ice fishing and open water fishing rules, including several new regulations, will become effective on April 1, 2010. Distribution of this law book began a couple of weeks ago and is available where fishing licenses are sold.

“People have been anxious to drop their lines given that ice fishing season ended too soon in some parts of the state, with many lakes and ponds experiencing early ice out conditions,” Commissioner Roland “Danny” Martin said. “We’re happy to provide this opportunity to anglers, and remind them to be mindful of early spring cold-water conditions by being safe.”

Open water fishing season historically begins on April 1 on most waters of the state. Because of unseasonably warm weather opening up waterways in many counties and strong public interest in wanting to fish, Maine Sen. Bruce Bryant, D-Oxford County, sponsored emergency legislation to start the season early.

“Let’s go fishing!” exclaimed Sen. Bryant, upon the Governor’s signature of the bill.

As part of National River Cleanup, members of the Upper Andro Anglers Alliance and students from the Telstar Challenge Course at Telstar High School in Bethel, Maine will clean up a section of the Androscoggin River from Gilead to West Bethel on Wednesday, May 19. Students, ages 16-18, will float down the river in rafts armed with garbage bags and towing garbage scow rafts to collect debris along the riverbanks. The clean-up flotilla will launch at 9 am from the bridge at Gilead and take out at Newt’s Landing in West Bethel. Community members are welcome to help clean-up this and other stretches of the river. The town of Bethel will provide trash collection at Newt’s Landing and deliver to the town’s solid waste facility.

Magic Falls Rafting Company of West Forks, Maine will provide rafts and garbage scows. Immediately following the clean-up, Pleasant River Campground in West Bethel is hosting a barbecue for all participants.

Rivers and watersheds have been used as dumps for old appliances, shopping carts and other refuse. Litter, such as foam cups, plastic bottles and food wrappers float into waterways, build up along the shoreline and stay there for years. With landfill space at a premium, recycling efforts stymied by a lack of plant capacity and toxic waste expensive to control, a grassroots effort can help maintain a constituency for preserving and protecting waterways. In 2009, 600 tons of trash and debris was collected and 7,500 miles of rivers cleaned across the nation. Last year the Upper Andro yielded over a ton of debris including bed springs, tires and tire rims and a 1950’s record player.

The Upper Andro Anglers Alliance is co-ordinating the local clean up. Says Clean-up Co-ordinator and UAAA director Bruce Pierce, “There’s been a long-standing effort to improve the Androscoggin’s water quality and fishery-now we need to improve the shore land zone along this wonderful river.”

National River Cleanup was founded in 1992 by America Outdoors, the largest association of America’s outfitters and guides, to assist local groups in keeping waterways clean. In 2007 American Rivers assumed administration of the river clean up. American Rivers, founded in 1973, is the nation’s leading river advocacy organization. NRC Information is published on line at www.nationalrivercleanup.org.

AUGUSTA – The Maine Warden Service continues to warn people about thin ice conditions on many of the state’s waterways.

Above-average temperatures, along with recent storms, are creating conditions that are weakening ice throughout the state. Rivers and streams still are high, causing substantial amounts of water to flow into lakes, opening up inlets and outlets and creating dangerous conditions. Also, power companies recently have performed routine draw-downs of water that changed ice conditions, especially along shorelines.

The state’s larger lakes have substantial swatches of open water, and in southern Maine many of the smaller lakes and ponds are opening up.

Because of insufficient ice in parts of the state, promoters of the 10th Maine Chevrolet Derby, a statewide ice fishing derby, decided Tuesday night to cancel the event, which was scheduled for March 6-7.

According to derby promoter Tom Noonan, only six of the 25 fish weigh stations reported having two feet of ice or more. For more information, visit www.icefishingderby.com.

The Maine Warden Service is advising that people to be cautious. Do not drive heavy vehicles, such as cars or trucks, onto lakes or ponds. Any snowfall, such as that forecasted for tonight in parts of Maine, may blanket any open water. Persons unfamiliar with a lake or pond are advised not to go on them, particularly at night.

Some parts of the state, primarily ponds in northern Maine, have ice. But Game Wardens are advising that its thickness should be checked before venturing onto its surface.

The Maine Warden Service offers these tips for ice safety:

· Never guess the thickness of the ice – Check it! Check the ice in several different places using an auger or some other means to make a test hole and determine the thickness. Make several, beginning at the shore, and continuing as you go out.

· Check the ice with a partner, so if something does happen, someone is there to help you. If you are doing it alone, wear a lifejacket.

· If ice at the shoreline is cracked or squishy, stay off! Watch out for thin, clear or honeycombed ice. Dark snow and dark ice are other signs of weak spots.

· Avoid areas with currents, around bridges and pressure ridges. Wind and currents can break ice.

· Parents should alert children of unsafe ice in their area, and make sure that they stay off the ice.

If you break through the ice, remember:

· Don’t panic.

· Don’t try to climb out immediately – you will probably break the ice again. Reach for solid ice.

· Lay both arms on the unbroken ice and kick hard. This will help lift your body onto the ice. Once on the ice, roll, DON’T WALK, to safety.

· To help someone who has fallen through the ice, lie down flat and reach with a branch, plank or rope or form a human chain. Don’t stand. After securing the victim, wiggle backwards to the solid ice.

The Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in order to obtain around 100,000 email addresses of those who bought hunting and fishing licenses online. As a result, it has set off a firestorm across certain channels of the hunting and fishing outdoor world in Maine. At issue is privacy and unwanted SPAM from SAM as well as the ability of any other individual or group to obtain the same list. Potentially, this could open a can of worms.

According to WMTW-TV website, SAM obtained the emails to send out information about coyotes. SAM has become very active of late in working to get all hunters involved in doing what they can to stop the further decline of the whitetail deer herd in Maine, which is suffering greatly due to many factors; poor management, severe winters, loss of habitat, overblown populations of predators, among other things. One aspect is to encourage and promote the hunting of coyotes.

One would have to recognize and appreciate SAM being all agog to fire up the licensed hunters and get them involved but I have to seriously question the decision to mount an email campaign using emails obtained, 1). through FOIA request, and; 2). using emails from fellow hunters without their approval. These are the guys you want help from. It’s an odd way to go about it.

We all hate SPAM and some are obsessed with it. It think it safe to say that most hunters are not very thrilled with the prospects of what can come from this move by SAM. First, it immediately creates bad public relations. Second, it forms distrust. Many hunters are asking whether SAM will resell the list to other agencies. This all comes at a time when hunters need to unite in an effort. I think SAM is attempting to do this but they failed to grasp what would happen. Third, if SAM, which had to go through the Maine Attorney Generals Office, can obtain this list, anyone else can. That fact in and of itself, has angered a lot of people.

In my opinion, here is what SAM needs to do. Immediately issue a public apology. Promise the list will not be used and that they will work with the Attorney General and MDIFW in order to get the law changed to protect those emails. I don’t believe this was the intent of FOIA. This only makes sense. MDIFW has promoted their MOSES online license purchasing program for quite some time. It is time and money saving for MDIFW. If perspective license buyers can’t be confident their email information and perhaps other personal information, cannot be safeguarded, it will seriously detract from the program. This has to be done immediately.

Once SAM has done what it can to minimize the damage they have caused, then they can choose other routes to get their message out. SAM has a website that needs updating to become more user friendly and interactive. They can wage an opt in/opt out email campaign for sending out newsletters, etc. and seeking new members. They can provide needed updates on their website along with providing RSS feeds so other websites, including blogs and forums, can post SAM’s feed so their readers have easy access.

Press releases can also be generated from the website and sent to all media outlets across the state. If SAM is wondering how well this might work, then just take a lot at how quickly and widespread the news traveled about them confiscating emails. I rest my case.

We live in an electronic age. With the rapid growth of the Internet, lack of knowledge can set businesses and organizations back in their progress as was the case for SAM. On the same token, knowledge can advance their cause. They now need to mend some fences and get with the times. The days of “stealing” email addresses to send unsolicited information is not only outdated but is extremely bad business. SAM needs to become cutting edge in this regard.

Tom Remington

A Skowhegan man caught a record-setting rainbow trout on Lake George in Canaan, according to Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife regional fisheries biologists.

Michael Thebarge of Skowhegan landed the rainbow trout on February 6, 2009, while fishing at Lake George in Canaan.

The fish weighed 7 pounds on a certified scale at George’s Banana Stand in Skowhegan last year. The record was confirmed by a regional fisheries biologist based in IF&W’s Sidney Regional Office.

It wasn’t until this week that Mr. Thebarge decided to contact IF&W and the Maine Sportsman, which maintains that state record book, to see if it was a record.

Thebarge’s record-setting rainbow trout was a product of IF&W’s Casco Fish Hatchery, as evidenced by its fin clips. The rainbow trout was stocked as a fall yearling (one-plus-years) in the fall of 2004, and was six years old when it was caught.

The previous state record was caught by Steven Day of Madison on the Androscoggin River on June 5, 2007. It weighed 6.52 pounds.

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the Maine Sportsman newspaper, which is edited by avid outdoorsman and TV personality Harry Vanderweide, jointly announce new records. The publication has maintained the state record book for more than 40 years.

A Waterboro man has caught a record-setting brook trout in York County, according to Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife regional fisheries biologists.

Patrick Coan of Waterboro landed the brook trout on January 8, 2010, while fishing at Mousam Lake.

The fish was weighed 9.02 pounds and was weighed on a certified scale at Limerick Supermarket. The record was confirmed by regional fisheries biologists based in IF&W’s Gray Regional Office.

Coan’s record-setting brook trout was a product of an IF&W hatchery, as evidenced by its fin clips. It is not known when this particular fish was stocked in Mousam Lake.

The previous state record was caught by James Foster of Howland on Big Black Pond in 1979. It weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the Maine Sportsman newspaper, which is edited by avid outdoorsman and TV personality Harry Vanderweide, jointly announce new records. The publication has maintained the state record book for more than 30 years.

Tom Remington

Bob Romano, author, outdoor writer and contributing writer to Maine Fishing Today and other Skinny Moose Media online publications, will be attending the Marlboro Mass. Fly-Fishing Show to sign newly released books.

“I’ll be at the Marlboro fly-fishing show all three days – Jan. 15th, 16th and 17th signing my new novel, “North of Easie” and book of essays, “Shadows in the Stream”, both about fly fishing in western Maine. I’ll be at the Angling Bookstore all three days and folks can stop by and say hi, talk about fishing in western Maine.”

So, if you’re planning to attend the show, make sure to stop by and visit Bob and pick up one of his books.

Tom Remington

Ice fishing season is almost here!

Our regional fisheries biologists preview the upcoming season in their annual Ice Fishing Preview. This is an informative guide to what fish have been stocked and where, and biologists’ picks of great ice fishing hot spots!

To view the preview on our website, visit http://www.maine.gov/ifw/fishing/reports/weekly_biologist/index.htm

For a printable pdf version, select this link: http://www.maine.gov/ifw/fishing/reports/pdfs/2010icefishpreview.pdf

Happy Fishing!

By Bob Romano

Looking up at the hemlocks, you would never guess that they are dying. These trees, many over seventy feet tall, are plagued by the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid, an exotic pest infesting many stands throughout the northeast. I suppose one should be grateful that it has been a slow process, each season a few more trees falling to the forest floor, others losing their needles. The shade cast by this forest insures that the temperature of the little stream that runs through it remains cool.

The sound of the current grows louder as my wading boots leave indentations in the thick layer of moss that spreads across the bank of the brook. Even now, in early September, I can almost grab the humidity with my hand.

The last time these waters were stocked was in the nineteen-eighties. Since then, the descendants of those dull-witted, hatchery-bred fish have developed into a strain of cagey, wild brook trout, their sides a riot of blue-and-yellow circles, some with blood red dots in the center.

The fish of this little stream lack the lighter hues found in trout of other waters. Instead, their backs are uniformly black. I like to think that it is because they spend their hidden lives under the shadows of the hemlock forest. I know they are doomed to perish without the dense shade provided by the trees, that the stream will one day be unable to maintain the lower temperatures necessary for their survival. It’s just a matter of time.

Hemlock needles cushion my knee as I look down at a mayfly riding upon the current. The dun-colored insect holds its diaphanous wings upright, looking like a sailboat with translucent sails tacking against the breeze. A second mayfly hovers above the stream’s surface, momentarily hesitating before the delicate creature rises upward like a woodland faerie fluttering through the sun-streaked shadows.

The brook’s primary source is a small pond tucked into a ridge along the foothills of a minor range of mountains. The blueberry bushes that spread down to the water’s edge make it difficult to hike around the pond’s shoreline. Farther back, scrub oak, white pine and Norwegian spruce grow close together. Rumor has it that the snakes here are as big as your fear will allow, and although gnats, black flies and mosquitoes can be a bother, it’s the deer ticks that are the real worry.

Descending for a short distance from the pond, its depth no more than inches, the brook slides around boulders lush with lichen and moss until it passes under a single-lane macadam road. A few hundred yards downstream a second, smaller rill trickles down out of the east to join the main flow. A quarter-mile from the road, runoff from the hills that rise up along the brook’s western flank descends through a ravine, adding more volume whenever it rains. As the gradient increases, riffles are interspersed with plunge pools that are formed wherever the current slices around or over larger rocks, fallen limbs and other debris. The depth in some places is now two and even three feet. It is in this manner that the hidden brook falls for another seven miles until slipping unnoticed into a bigger river.

Standing here in the uncertain light, my calves resist the pull of the current. I flip a Gold-ribbed Hare’s Ear wet fly, its tinsel worn, body ragged, toward a small glide along the edge of the far bank. For a moment the fly bobs on the surface. A flash of jaw appears and I can feel hook bite sinew, but then the trout is gone, my line slack.

As an angler, a fly fisher to be more specific, I have a fondness for moving water, can’t help but look over each bridge, stop by every rivulet, gully or ditch. Most fishermen might not think to fling their lures at the secretive trout of this little stream, preferring the certainty of bigger fish in the many put-and-take rivers and lakes that are within a few minutes drive. But I have discovered a secret under the deep shade of the hemlocks, something more than bracken and bone. For it is here, in this dark forest, by this tiny brook that a man can lie suspended in place and time, however briefly, with yesterday forgotten, tomorrow of no concern. It is for this reason, that these woods, this water draws me back to present my flies to forgotten trout for as long as a dying forest will cast its shadows.

Climbing from the brook, I lean on a hemlock. The trunk is still strong although the tree’s needles have turned gray. A few feet downstream, a fingerling turns to capture a caddis larva dislodged by my wading boot.

Bob is the author of three books and numerous essays about fly fishing and the natural world. Shadows in the Stream, his book of essays about the Rangeley Lakes Region in Maine is in its third printing while his novel, North of Easie, was recently published. For more information check out Bob’s website: forgottentrout.com or go to his publisher’s website: birchbrookpress.info

Government basically screws up everything it touches its hand to and in addition to that it costs taxpayers bundles more than it ever should have. So what else is new? This is a success story, one that you won’t hear a lot about because it really only happened after the big and powerful government backed off.

It was only last March that I did a review on a brand new DVD production of Carter Davidson’s of Gray Ghost Productions, LLC called East by Northeast.

Davidson, through his generosity, took a section from his movie and made it into a short film, about 8 minutes in length. This film talks of the history of the Androscoggin River in Maine, once one of the 10 most polluted rivers in America. Not a title you really strive for. The films depicts some of what the river has become today.

The video can be viewed below but I thought I would share with readers my own personal knowledge about the river and the effort to clean it up.

In the video below, the narrator mentions the efforts of the federally mandated Clean Water Restoration Act, an act often tagged with the name of Senator Edmund Muskie, a resident of Rumford, Maine, located just a few miles downstream from my hometown of Bethel.

While the CWRA was responsible for cleaning up a lot of rivers and water bodies, it was not the end all solution to dirty water. Strong-arming the companies and municipalities along the river could only go so far. In attempts to keep the effort going to clean up the river, taxing and regulating could only go so far.

Essentially, the stiff arm of government forced paper companies and towns along the river to take care of the majority of their wastes and pollutants they were dumping in the river. That was the easy part. Taking care of the last 5-10% of the waste became very costly. Efforts stalled.

That was only part of the problem. What about all the private landowners and farmers along the river corridor? Was the government going to force them to stop spreading manure and fertilizers? Where they going to make landowners clean up old garbage dump sites, many of which the current landowner never participated in?

The effort to clean up the river seemed to come to a grinding halt. Opposition grew to the tactics being used by government and environmentalists. Let’s face it, you can only push Mainers so far before they balk.

Speaking specifically about the Upper Androscoggin River, the effort wasn’t quite dead yet. The actions taken so far were beginning to return life to the river. Ducks returned to some degree, fish were jumping and a few brave soles were paddling their canoes as well. Ospreys soon were seen overhead and occasionally a bald eagle.

I will give the Maine Environmental Protection Agency credit for one thing. Someone thought it might be worth the effort to try a different approach. Something other than force and bullying. I’ll have to go try to verify my history but if memory serves me, this effort might have been initiated, at least to some degree, by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s director at the time, Bucky Owens. I do know that Bucky loved the Upper Andro and during his tenure at MDIFW he had a vision to turn the Upper Andro into a trophy fishing mecca.

I knock came at my door one day. Someone from the EPA was looking for a location to have a meeting and help getting volunteers to attend a meeting. I had the meeting space and drawing from a few members of the Friends of the Androscoggin, we rounded up a few volunteers.

Our newly formed group thought that if we could convince the locals, that included me, that the river was clean and stayed clean all the time, perhaps we could begin a process of deprogramming these people about the past and get the years and years of dirty, nasty images of the river out of their heads. This was a huge chore.

A friend, Walter Hatch, and I volunteered to do sampling of the water once a week for the summer. We had five sampling stations spread out from New Hampshire to just below the Bethel village and the confluence of the Androscoggin and Sunday Rivers. We were all surprised at how well the water tested and how consistent those tests were.

That was 15 years or so ago and as they say a lot of water under the bridge. What makes this story such a success and one that I wish others would model is that the real long lasting clean up effort never happened until after big government butted out and local residents took ownership.

Industry, along with careless and thoughtless use and abuse of the river snatched it away from the people. Government tried to take it back. Once we could convince the people that there really was something there of value, something they could own and participate in caring for, then we knew the river could be safely returned to the people.

Enjoy the video. In it are many of my friends. I recognize most of the spots that you will see along the river and I can personally attest to how dirty it was and how clean it is now. I also want to take a moment and pay special notice to my good friend Rocky Freda, who appears in this movie. Rocky passed away just this summer and I miss him. His name will be forever etched into the Upper Androscoggin River for his efforts and tireless dedication to keep the effort alive.

Tom Remington