golden beetle
Active member
Maine Brook Trout (Days 1 and 2 of a Ten Day Journey)
During the summer months I’ll often make a drive up the coast of Maine with a friend.. The drive to Maine from New Jersey is about 300 miles. Then the fishing trip commences, and concludes after about 500 more miles of driving along winding country roads that lead to brook trout nirvana.
The skill to identify brook trout habitat can make or break the trip. If you can’t read trout water, then you might as well stay home and fish Bear Swamp Brook (which really is a good little trout stream). I catch several brookies each time I make the trip to the Ramapo Reservation, and I particularly enjoy the hike over the mountains to the small section of steam that I like to fish. The years I’ve spent on New Jersey’s designated WTS’s has made me expert in the art of pursuing the elusive brookie.
So this year I would do the Maine journey alone, and put my skills as a Garden State angler to the ultimate test.
Nothing but a topo map, my car, and my bamboo rod and handmade reel for company, this week I’d show the world what I’ve learned from over 20 years of fishing for natives in the underrated fishing state of New Jersey.
Here is a diary of my Maine trip from August 2018.
Day 1: I drove all the way from New Jersey to Portland, Maine. I slept the night at a red roof inn, and looked at my road atlas under a dimly lit desk to scout out some spots that I considered worthwhile for prospecting for brook trout. This takes considerable skill, to see brook trout water where others see nothing but a meandering blue line on an old road atlas.
Day 2: I drove 60 miles to what I thought would be my first river, but what I thought was a stream turned out to be I-295.
From what I’ve heard, this was a common mistake made by old timers before the use of iPhones and GPS technology took the challenge out of water prospecting. According to legend (and by sheer coincidence) Lee Wulff met up with Theodore Gordon at the on ramp to I-95 at the Canadian border, both having misread their maps, believing I-95 to be the headwaters of a brook trout stream that stretched the length of the American coast from Maine to Florida.
Note to self: the dark blue lines on the map are interstate highways, not brook trout water.
During the summer months I’ll often make a drive up the coast of Maine with a friend.. The drive to Maine from New Jersey is about 300 miles. Then the fishing trip commences, and concludes after about 500 more miles of driving along winding country roads that lead to brook trout nirvana.
The skill to identify brook trout habitat can make or break the trip. If you can’t read trout water, then you might as well stay home and fish Bear Swamp Brook (which really is a good little trout stream). I catch several brookies each time I make the trip to the Ramapo Reservation, and I particularly enjoy the hike over the mountains to the small section of steam that I like to fish. The years I’ve spent on New Jersey’s designated WTS’s has made me expert in the art of pursuing the elusive brookie.
So this year I would do the Maine journey alone, and put my skills as a Garden State angler to the ultimate test.
Nothing but a topo map, my car, and my bamboo rod and handmade reel for company, this week I’d show the world what I’ve learned from over 20 years of fishing for natives in the underrated fishing state of New Jersey.
Here is a diary of my Maine trip from August 2018.
Day 1: I drove all the way from New Jersey to Portland, Maine. I slept the night at a red roof inn, and looked at my road atlas under a dimly lit desk to scout out some spots that I considered worthwhile for prospecting for brook trout. This takes considerable skill, to see brook trout water where others see nothing but a meandering blue line on an old road atlas.
Day 2: I drove 60 miles to what I thought would be my first river, but what I thought was a stream turned out to be I-295.
From what I’ve heard, this was a common mistake made by old timers before the use of iPhones and GPS technology took the challenge out of water prospecting. According to legend (and by sheer coincidence) Lee Wulff met up with Theodore Gordon at the on ramp to I-95 at the Canadian border, both having misread their maps, believing I-95 to be the headwaters of a brook trout stream that stretched the length of the American coast from Maine to Florida.
Note to self: the dark blue lines on the map are interstate highways, not brook trout water.
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