An Evening Cast For Rainbow Trout
Last evening I made a trip from my camp here in Maine down the Androscoggin River for approximately 6 miles to the Moran’s Landing site. I recently provided you a story on efforts by local river supporters, etc. to build a boat launch ramp at the site. I returned last night to get photos of the nearly completed project so I could finish my story and get it published.
While I was there, I met a man from Connecticut who had been fishing portions of the Upper Androscoggin River that day and he had opted to conclude his fishing adventures by returning to Bear River Rips at Newry Corner along the Androscoggin River.
Photo by Tom Remington
An angler from Connecticut, casts his nymph onto the waters of the Upper Androscoggin River in Western Maine. At this site is the confluence of the Bear River and the Androscoggin. The Bear River is fed through several brooks and streams coming down out of Grafton Notch, high up in the Appalachian Mountain region near the Mahoosucs, noted as being some of the toughest terrain along the entire length of the Appalachian Trail.
The cool mountain waters of the Bear River provides a great resource for cold water species of fish such as trout. These much sought after fish lay quietly in water eddies waiting to strike at the opportunity for a meal.
Photo by Tom Remington
I stood at the completed boat ramp and snapped this shot looking upstream. To the right in the picture is where the Bear River enters the Androscoggin just below the bigger rips. The top of the smaller mountain to the right in the photo is Mt. Will, a great and relatively easy hiking trail that provides some spectacular scenery. Far up the river and what you can see over the top of the last visible part of the river, are mountains leading up to the Appalachian chain and the Mahoosucs. That one visible mountain may possibly be Locke Mountain.
Photo by Tom Remington
Standing on the same boat ramp looking downstream the views are just as stunning. The above angler told me a large trout lurked in the little ripples of water visible in the photo near to where I was standing.
Difficult to see and further down the river, is the head of Hemlock Island. I grew up on this river and as you view the photo, I lived on the right side of the river and Hemlock Island was directly behind our house. Hemlock Island is most noted in Indian lore as being the site that Indian Princess Mollyockett buried the treasures she had amassed over the years. As appealing as that might sound, don’t drop everything and head for the island to scavenge for treasure. People have flocked there for years looking. (My brothers and I found the treasure years ago and that’s why I am now independently wealthy!……. NOT!)
The sun was setting and the mosquitoes and black flies were feasting on my flesh, so I gathered myself and headed for camp, leaving the Connecticut angler in his quest to out-maneuver that pesky trout.
Author’s Note: If you would like to learn more about the history of this river and the transformation that has happened over the past few decades of taking this river from one of the ten most polluted rivers in America to a clean water, destination fishing location, you can read a story I wrote several years ago called, “From Blight to Beauty“.
Tom Remington