Maine Free Family Fishing Festival

The Upper Andro Anglers Alliance in co-operation with Trout Unlimited will host a free family fishing festival on Saturday, May 31. The festival will be held at the Grand Summit Hotel Pond at Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry, from 9 am to 2 pm, rain or shine. Free casting workshops and fly-tying instruction will be available throughout the day.

Members of the Mollyockett Chapter of Trout Unlimited will teach the workshops. Instruction will follow the curriculum developed by Trout Unlimited’s “First Cast” program for Kids. Instruction will include both spin casting and fly casting for older youth and parents. Maine’s Hooked on Fishing-Not on Drugs Program will supply complimentary rods and reels for use at the festival.

Families can practice newly learned casting skills in the Grand Summit Pond and are welcome to take home their catch. The pond will be stocked with trout courtesy of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. The Upper Andro Anglers Alliance will provide each young angler with a mini-tackle box complete with bobber, sinkers and hook.

Kids can learn how to tie flies with materials provided by TU and fibers from Sunday River Alpacas. Every child will be able to take home a hand-tied fly.
Exhibitors include the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife with a mobile unit information booth, the Hooked on Fishing-Not on Drugs Program; www.Mainefishingtoday.com ; and The Maine Conservation School of Bryant Pond, a camp facility for juniors and adults offering programs in Maine’s traditional outdoor activities.

Families are welcome to bring a pack lunch. An outdoor barbecue and cold drinks will be available at the festival. All parents and kids registering for the event will be eligible for prizes including outdoor and fishing equipment from sponsors, local outfitters and businesses.

The weekend of May 31 and June 1 is a free fishing weekend in Maine. Resident and Non-resident freshwater fishing licenses are waived each day. June 1 is the first day of National Fishing & Boating Week, a program of the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation. RBFF is a non-profit organization whose mission is to increase participation in recreational angling and boating and thereby increase public awareness and appreciation of the need for protecting, conserving and restoring the nation’s aquatic and natural resources.

The Bethel Family Fishing Festival is one many nationwide events that provide families with an opportunity to have fun on the water. For those families wishing to stay overnight and fish or canoe the Androscoggin River on Sunday, special family packages are available for the weekend at local lodging establishments.

For information on the Family Fishing Festival, contact the Upper Andro Anglers Alliance at 1-877-275-3363 or on line at www.upperandro.com .

Northeast Drift Boat Championship

The First Annual Northeast Drift Boat Championship will be held Friday afternoon, June 13 on the Upper Androscoggin River in Bethel Maine. Designed as a spectator event, the competition will test oarsmen’s skills at launching, navigating a course and rowing speed. Each drift boat must carry at least one angler, who must remain standing throughout the timed race. The launch will be from Bethel Outdoor Adventures on Route 2 and the finish line is at Davis Park in Bethel-a distance of a quarter mile.
Prizes include drift boat equipment provided by Clackacraft. A registration form is available on line at www.upperandro.com or by phoning 1-877-851-7533. The entry fee is $50 or is included in the Two-Fly Contest fee if the drift boat is competing in both events.

Click here to view and download a pdf form application.

Upper Andro Two Fly Contest Information & Rules

Upper Andro Two Fly Contest Information & Rules The contest is scheduled from 6:00 am to 2:00 pm (sunrise 6:34) on Saturday, September 20, 2008. Rain or shine. Each team consists of two anglers and a referee/oarsman. Fishing from open boats-drift boats, rafts or rowboats, only. No canoes, kayaks, motorized craft or wading allowed. Anglers will be fishing for three species of trout-brown, brook and rainbow. Small mouth, fall fish (chub) or any other species will not be accepted. Teams are responsible for their Maine State Fishing Licenses, cameras, processed film or digital images. UAAA will supply a retractable measuring tape and bag lunch. 1 All State Rules and laws apply and will be followed by Contestants. 2 For this contest FLY means natural or synthetic materials tied to a single pointed hook. 3 No tandems No treble hooks. 4 The two flies that you register with will be the only two flies that you can fish. 5. You may re-sharpen hooks and dress flies with floatant, or sink it, but you may not retie materials on to the hooks. 6. The flies must be fished from a fly rod. All rods must be supplied by the contestant. An extra rod is allowed to switch from dry to wet if you so chose 7. You must release all fish alive. 8. For a fish to be counted it must be brought to a net, and have its picture taken and measurement taken. 9. For a fish to be counted for the largest fish it must have a photo taken alongside a tape measure. 10. The fishing area will be from the Maine New Hampshire boarder down stream to Rumford Center. No more than 25 yards up any tributary may be fished. 11. Remember to ask first. Please ask landowners’ permission before walking to the river at non public access points. 12. The decisions of the judges are final. 13. It’s a big river so be ethical don’t poach on one another’s water. In other words, first come first serve. Upper Andro Two Fly Entry Form Team Name & Sponsor_____________________________________________________ Team Cell Phone_______________________________________ Angler #1____________________________________________ Address________________________________________________________ : _______________________________________________________________ Phone________________________E-mail_____________________________ Angler #2_____________________________________________ Address________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ Phone________________________E-mail_____________________________ Referee/Oarsman_______________________________________ Address________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ Phone________________________E-mail_____________________________ : _______Yes, Team will be entering the Drift Boat Championship The entry fee is $150 for boat sponsorship and $50 per angler. The entry fee includes a bag lunch for Saturday and entry in the Drift Boat Competition. Sponsors names will be prominently displayed on the boats and listed on www.upperandro.com. Please make check payable to: Upper Andro Anglers Alliance and send with registration to PO Box 244, Bethel, ME 04217. To pay by credit card and register by phone call 1-877-851-7533. Registration deadline is Sept. 6. An additional $50 will be charged for late registration. Registration is limited to 20 teams. Sun Valley Sports, 153 Sunday River Road, Bethel, will be open until 8 pm Friday, Sept. 19 to pick up registration materials. Over $5,000 worth of prizes from our sponsors Kittery Trading Post-Bitterroot Wading shoes, Yellowstone Chest Waders, Integrity Fly Reels, Big Bass U-Boats, Sage Performance Taper II’s, EKS Fly Rods The Orvis Company- Helios Fly Rod and Battenkill Reel LL Bean-Rapid River Vest Pack, Orion III Fly Rod & Orion Fly Reel Caddis and Cane-Hand built Fly Rod and hand tied flies Sun Valley Sports-Orvis packable float tube, Orvis waders Clackacraft-Drift boat floor mats, oar rights, oar locks and tie down Download a pdf of rules and entry form.

River on the Rebound

Once famous for its filth, the upper Androscoggin might yet become an angling destination — if only it can get better press coverage.
BY ROBERTA SCRUGGS

Reprinted by permission from the May 2007 issue of Down East Magazine. Copyright © 2007 by Down East Enterprise, Inc., Camden, Maine. All rights reserved.

T-shirt weather in early spring is always rare and precious in Maine, but there’s no better way to enjoy it than floating down a beautiful river. The trees are bare, but the sunshine warms everything it touches, including the clear waters of the Androscoggin River.

That’s right. The Androscoggin. The river once famous for its dirty, smelly, polluted water now looks, smells, and fishes like an L.L. Bean commercial — and has become a media darling to boot. Read more

Fly-Fishing Film “The One” Now Available On DVD

After a standing room only premiere of “The One” at The Bethel Inn this February, the film is now available on DVD. Sun Valley Sports in Bethel, Aardvark Outfitters in Farmington and the Maine Guide Fly Shop in Greenville are all retailing “The One”. It is available for sale on line by following this link.

Raised in the western mountains of Maine on the banks of the Androscoggin River and the village of Bethel, Carter Davidson is an avid fly fisherman, a producer of outdoor adventure television programs, documentaries and most recently executive producer of Gray Ghost Productions fly fishing film titled “The One.” Beginning in 2000, Carter first got his start with Maine PBS, producing and editing a long list of Emmy nominated magazine series and documentaries. Later, he traveled across the globe to locations such as New Zealand, France, Argentina, Chile, and British Columbia to film all sorts of outdoor adventures from extreme skiing, whitewater rafting and kayaking, skydiving, mountain biking and of course fly fishing. In 2007 Carter founded the video production company Gray Ghost Productions and began his search to film and capture the essence of fly fishing. Read more

Upper Andro Fall Two Fly Contest And Drift Boat Competition

Dear Fishermen and Fisherwomen;

Rescheduled for September

Due to the unseasonable rainfall and high water levels on the Upper Androscoggin River this past June, The Two Fly Contest and Drift Boat Championship have been rescheduled for the weekend of September 20 and 21. The contests will be held in conjunction with Bethel’s Harvest Fest.

Contestants may use only two flies during the event, which starts at 6:00 am on Saturday. Teams may launch from public launch sites from the New Hampshire border at Shelburne to Rumford Center. The contest concludes at 2:00 pm. Read more

Upper Andro Anglers Alliance And Telstar High School Students To Clean Up Androscoggin River

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 Bethel on Thursday, May 15. Twenty 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. One clean-up flotilla will launch at 9 am from the Gilead bridge and take out at Newt’s Landing in West Bethel and a second group will launch at 9 am from West Bethel and take out at Davis Park in Bethel. Read more

Andro Smallies

This article can be found at the Cabela’s Outfitter Journal.

Darl Black
10/6/2006

Many anglers come for the trout, but this underutilized Maine river gives up smallmouths, too.

The 4-inch salty stick worm had barely touched down when a dark shadow rose from a crevice between granite boulders. As the shadow materialized into a smallmouth bass, it launched upward and snatched the lure. Read more