Ravenous Baxter State Park brook trout provide a memorable day of fishing

By Pete Warner, Bangor Daily News Staff

Veteran anglers know the best fishing occurs when the insects hatch out and the fish are actively feeding.

Fly anglers strive to match the hatch, using flies that look the most like the kinds of bugs that are in, on and around the water.

But one veteran Maine fisherman recently discovered that an apparent lack of insects also can open the door for some productive time on a lake or pond.

Bill Bell of Saco, who last week took a video of a cow moose and its calf crossing Nesowadnehunk Stream in Baxter State Park on his way home, returned with a tale of some amazing fish activity at a pond where he and his cousin, Neil Fitch, were fishing.

Bell said the surprising absence of black flies and mosquitoes was notable, welcome and beneficial. But then, Bell said, it’s almost impossible not to enjoy a trip to the park.

“The fishing was great, because there were no bugs and there had been no bugs all week,” Bell said. “The fish were ravenous and would strike at anything that looked like it might be food.”

Bell explained that rather than go after a dry fly gently deposited on the surface of the pond, the brook trout instead were tantalized by flies that made a notable disturbance. He got great results using a bass popper that made its way not so subtly along the water.

“The fish were so hungry that they were striking fiercely at anything that was kind of skipped across the surface,” Bell said. “These were footlong trout. They were leaping out of the water and coming down on it. They were so excited.”

Bell said the brookies behaved more like smallmouth bass in terms of their aggressiveness and even would come back for a second strike if they had missed the fly on the first attempt.

It was a most productive outing, with Bell and his cousin catching between 25 and 30 fish on the final day of their trip.

“It was a unique fishing experience,” Bell said.

Retired longtime fisheries biologist Nels Kramer of Enfield said it can be difficult to predict how fish in a particular water are going to behave at a particular time.

“You see a lot of funny things out there,” said Kramer, who has enjoyed great fishing at places such as Daicey Pond in Baxter State Park during the green drake hatch — as compared to when insects are scarce.

“It’s just mayhem,” Kramer said.

It’s really a matter of timing on a particular water. That was the case many years ago when Kramer and some colleagues were fishing at Frost Pond, in the park, the week before Memorial Day.

The anglers found the trout hanging out right near the shoreline in large numbers. Upon keeping one and inspecting its stomach contents, they were surprised at what they found.

“We dressed him out and looked in the stomach and it was filled with salamanders,” Kramer said. “It was just one of those quirky things.”

A year later, equipped with flies that somewhat resemble salamanders, everything had changed.

“They were out in the middle feeding on emergers, so you never know,” Kramer said. “Some of those ponds are quite unique. Some of the things you see are inexplicable and you may not see them anywhere else.”