How About a Trout Streamer Thread?

[roywest]

A bit under 50 years ago I was learning to fish for brookies, landlocked salmon, and lake trout ("togue") with streamers on the tributaries of Moosehead Lake in Maine, when the big lake fish ran up the rivers in spring and fall. (Such cold water in jeans and sneakers -- the first time I stepped into the Sac with waders 8 or 9 years ago was quite the happy revelation ; )

Bill, does your shop carry "Strip-Set: Fly-Fishing Techniques, Tactics, & Patterns for Streamers" by George Daniels? I've been leafing through my copy over the past several months, and it's a pretty interesting modern take on the topic.

[Ard]

Based on what you're saying Roy then you remember how the fish used to stack up at Lower Roach Dam. The first time I ever saw that was I believe 1979 and even then I knew that with a crowd of people there from all over the North East US. it would lead to no good. When I took a friend on a sort of Guided trip through all the places I had fished in 94' the Roach was basically fishless and C&R only. I have read recently that things are turning around but have no real up to date info on the area. In 1994 the Kennebec was still fishing well but the fish were small.

Things were still pretty good as late as 1987 in many of the rivers between the Ragged and over on the Moose but by my return in 94 there was a significant change. The Roach was closed to any harvest at all and there was a small visitors pavilion under which the State had a bin containing surveys which they requested anyone fishing to fill out. Among the questions I remember were:

Number of fish caught

Species caught

They wanted to know if you thought you had seen a landlocked salmon, I forget how it was worded but it made clear that the salmon run had been depleted.

I never kept one of them but when I first started going you could catch many fish with big ones being between 5 & 6 pounds which for the species were huge. I don't recall seeing anyone release fish, pretty much like here in Alaska now. The only fish I see handled carefully and released unharmed are those caught by myself or those fishing with me. other than that any caught salmon is a dead fish.

[PV_Premier]

bellyache minnow is a lethal fly on valley trout

[roywest]

Wow, Ard. That's hard to wrap my mind around. I think my last trip to the Roach was in about 1981, but I don't remember what you describe.

When I started fishing that water in the early 70s, the Roach ponds and rivers were still part of an active pulp wood industry. Multi-acre rafts of 4' long pulp logs would get dragged across the "ponds" (really lakes by our measure). They'd let the pond level rise up and then open the dams to flush the pulp down to the next pond during the summer. This was an ecological horrorshow, of course -- I can remember the huge banks of bark sucking the oxygen out of the water in the first Roach river. But the big lake fish would come up out of the depths to track the pulp rafts for the bugs coming out of them and then end up in the river, which made for a few days of exciting fishing after the flows went down. Spring and fall of course were another thing.

We used to fish below the dam for sure -- once "caught" a cedar waxwing while fishing from the old wooden dam -- luckily it was just grabbed over the shoulder and not hurt when I released it. But the better fishing was always down river.

I'm sure the ecosystem is healthier now that the pulp farming is over, but perhaps there were unique aspects of that industry that led to more big lake fish in the river systems.

Hope to go back one day....