Downeast Fishing Report: July 24, 2007
Three memories from a youngster who got hooked on fishing for a lifetime
1. It was a hot, calm July afternoon when the 12 year-old successfully rowed his first 100 yards across the cove. After tying a new frog-pattern floating Jitterbug lure to his fishing line, he targeted a cast between a big stump and a patch of lily pads. The lure landed with a “plop”, sending circles of ripples across the quiet water. As the ripples disappeared, the youngster slowly took a few turns on the reel, producing the tell-tale “blub-blub-blub” of the Jitterbug. This time the water exploded into shimmering droplets of water as a two-pound smallmouth bass leaped two feet into the air, producing a memory that would motivate the youngster to become a lifetime fisherman.
2. His Dad and Grampie awakened him at 4 a.m. that Saturday to be on the stream at daylight. He slept in the car on the drive, then pulled on his short rubber boots as first light was breaking through the orange glow in the east. At first he trekked excitedly down the trail that started as an old woods road through the spruce-fir forest, then he shivered as the cold heavy dew of the meadow-grass soaked his clothes in the cool early morning air. At the edge of the first beaver flowage, he hooked a worm just below the gold spinner that his eyes would watch intently all day long as he casted and reeled. It was a slow fishing day, but by late afternoon, he saw a trout chase at the worm and hit it just enough to jiggle the spinner blade — and in those seconds, a visual memory was made that would last a lifetime. No hook-ups today, just a tease from one brook trout, and a burning hope for more that would motivate the youngster to become a lifetime fisherman.
3. The tousled, blond-haired 12 year-old had raked blueberries from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on a hot, August day in Aurora. His Grampie thought the boy was there to rake blueberries to earn money for school clothes, but raking blueberries was just an excuse for the youngster to be close enough to Long Pond for an evening of fishing. He had a cheap fiberglass rod with a long history of thousands of practice casts on his back lawn in Brewer, but no real casts on the water until this blueberry season arrived. His fly matched no hatch ever seen; it was a chartreuse colored wooly worm dry fly — the first fly he had tied himself, but it was highly visible to him and the fish. Did they bite that night? It was a great fishing night by his standards — 3 fish, all caught on flies. Were they all trout like Long Pond is known for? No, they were all pumpkinseed sunfish but they convinced the boy that he could fly fish and that fish would bite his homemade flies, once again motivating the youngster to become a lifetime fisherman.
We all have special memories and stories on how we started fishing. Take someone fishing this summer and introduce them to a wonderful lifetime sport.