Fishing!

[TheDudeLebowski]

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Is it really an accomplishment to just reach in there and grab a sturgeon or two??


I jest. Nice fish!

I think you'd have to wrestle one with the ones I've seen

We had a big one wash up on a public beach north of Boston last year. Initial news had "unknown dinosaur like creature washes up on beach" I'm like who doesn't know about caviar or fish?

 

[fluketamer]

I think you'd have to wrestle one with the ones I've seen

yes if you can get it on shore and get to its roe. lol

and smoked sturgeon is the absolute best cold smoked fish even better than sable

around us they are ultra protected species cant fish for them or even possess.

i have caught a few in the hudson river and i have seen a few in the new york bight area finning.

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

yes if you can get it on shore and get to its roe. lol

and smoked sturgeon is the absolute best cold smoked fish even better than sable

around us they are ultra protected species cant fish for them or even possess.

i have caught a few in the hudson river and i have seen a few in the new york bight area finning.

They're getting a lot more common around here. Especially up in Maine.. Both in freshwater rivers and oceans. We've also started to take down a lot of dams which seemed to have helped them. Now. A sign of getting old but I remember the great log drives that choked the rivers too

I've got all the equipment to start saltwater fly fishing. Seeing those things I don't know what I'd do if I latched onto one of them. I remember hearing they're protected around here as in cut line but I keep seeing people landing them so maybe things have changed

 

[day_trippr]

A sign of getting old but I remember the great log drives that choked the rivers too

My dad would always take me with his gang of elders for flyfishing Maine trips and I vividly remember following the Penobscot and the Androscoggin for miles and seeing them choked bank-to-bank with pulp logs. Sometimes we'd get treated to seeing the tiny tugs they used to pull massive log booms to the mills and see wiry dudes dancing on the logs to form up the booms.

Decades later I still come across pulp logs on the Andy...

Cheers!

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

My dad would always take me with his gang of elders for flyfishing Maine trips and I vividly remember following the Penobscot and the Androscoggin for miles and seeing them choked bank-to-bank with pulp logs. Sometimes we'd get treated to seeing the tiny tugs they used to pull massive log booms to the mills and see wiry dudes dancing on the logs to form up the booms.

Decades later I still come across pulp logs on the Andy...

Cheers!

Maine is my happy place. There's a business that is pulling ancient forest logs that have sunk and sat in 40° water in pristine shape.

Here's my happy place up on Rangeley and the Dead River. I've come to realize I'm a brooky person I just like to wander and get lost in the woods

This first pic is without filters. Turned around just to take the pic

 

[day_trippr]

Ever fished the Rapid River between Middle Dam and the top of Umbagog Lake? That stretch is my happy place. World class brookie and land locked salmon fishing, at least when I was two~three decades younger There's a great book - "We Took To The Woods" by Louise Dickinson Rich - that aptly describes life on the Rapid back when logging was still big.

I fished a lot of Maine and NH waters in my life. I had a handful of friends with cabins in northern NH and western Maine, one near Gorham, another up in Errol, one over in Oxford and a couple in between, so I never had a lack of flyfishing opportunities.

If I can get my body back together after being sliced and diced twice in 10 months I'm hoping to get back up there in earnest, though right now I'm just aiming to get a canoe on a local lake for an afternoon. Baby steps...

Cheers!

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Ever fished the Rapid River between Middle Dam and the top of Umbagog Lake? That stretch is my happy place. World class brookie and land locked salmon fishing, at least when I was two~three decades younger There's a great book - "We Took To The Woods" by Louise Dickinson Rich - that aptly describes life on the Rapid back when logging was still big.

I fished a lot of Maine and NH waters in my life. I had a handful of friends with cabins in northern NH and western Maine, one near Gorham, another up in Errol, one over in Oxford and a couple in between, so I never had a lack of flyfishing opportunities.

If I can get my body back together after being sliced and diced twice in 10 months I'm hoping to get back up there in earnest, though right now I'm just aiming to get a canoe on a local lake for an afternoon. Baby steps...

Cheers!

No I haven't hit the Middle Dam but that was one of the first places I marked on my bucket list when I first started going back there. I wanted to visit before they did the reconstruction but it never happened. Has a lot of history and sounds very secluded. I travel the extra distance going thru the white mountains and Errol instead of Portland because it's so beautiful. Sounds like it's a good hike to get in. Just the Upper Dam is a pita with a car I ran into the new owners that reopened the camp on the Rapid.

 

[day_trippr]

Lakewood Camps. My dad and I stayed there a few times over the years, back when the owners were Sue and Stan Milton. I think my last stay there was in 1999. After that I met a coworker at DEC who owned a camp just west of Errol on Little Akers Pond and we would drive in to a point just south of the Rapid where it dumps into "Pond In The River", park the truck and walk the rest of the way, which took maybe 15~20 minutes (and contrary to Google you can drive right to a parking area).

We'd ford the river just above "Pondy" then depending on conditions either walk up to the dam or fish the gravel "island" right at the drop off. We also had another parking spot just south of Lower Dam (its remains were removed in 2004) but that one's a bit more complicated to draw out

Sadly the brookies have been threatened by "bucket biology" as some dumbasses planted small mouth bass in Lake Umbagog and they worked their way up to Pond In The River and predate on fry as well as what's left of the alewife population. Haven't been up there in a few years so don't know what the status is but I know there was a "please kill the bass!" effort made...

Cheers!

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Lakewood Camps. My dad and I stayed there a few times over the years, back when the owners were Sue and Stan Milton. I think my last stay there was in 1999. After that I met a coworker at DEC who owned a camp just west of Errol on Little Akers Pond and we would drive in to a point just south of the Rapid where it dumps into "Pond In The River", park the truck and walk the rest of the way, which took maybe 15~20 minutes (and contrary to Google you can drive right to a parking area).

We'd ford the river just above "Pondy" then depending on conditions either walk up to the dam or fish the gravel "island" right at the drop off. We also had another parking spot just south of Lower Dam (its remains were removed in 2004) but that one's a bit more complicated to draw out

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Sadly the brookies have been threatened by "bucket biology" as some dumbasses planted small mouth bass in Lake Umbagog and they worked their way up to Pond In The River and predate on fry as well as what's left of the alewife population. Haven't been up there in a few years so don't know what the status is but I know there was a "please kill the bass!" effort made...

Cheers!

Hmmm.. thanks. Satellite is my friend. I've found a lot of good spots using it. Looking at Rapids satellite looks like there's tons of good spots to go along with it's reputation.

I do know a lot of guides still go there and I'm all for a good mainer can't get there from here misdirection to a visitor. Ive been told about the evasives and it isn't that great. Which probably means it's the locals fav spot

I was told the Upper was easier to get to but it was dirt and boulder and probably changed day to day with rain. The funny thing is the first time I visited some local move the road sign. I used satellite to find the dam road.

Is the road to mid paved? One of these times I'm renting a truck for some joy rides

 

[passedpawn]

Going camping all next week and getting to test my three new rod/reel setups!

me too. I already had more gear than I needed, but my boys have nothing so good excuse to get two new reels (one spinner and one baitcaster), two new rods, and some tackle. Sure is fun buying that sort of stuff. I took the braid off my baitcaster. Been too long since I've used it - was practicing in the pool and had a few nasty rats nests, so I'm gonna get started with mono.

Douglass lake in TN tomorrow. Have a place right on the water and boat too. Woot!

 

[hilljack13]

Heading home tomorrow. We were on lake Hartwell. Didn't have much luck, but gave one hell of an effort. It was nice to try the new gear.

 

[day_trippr]

Is the road to mid paved? One of these times I'm renting a truck for some joy rides

The only approaches that make it to Middledam are from 16 to the NW, and once you leave 16 it's packed dirt regardless of how one tries to get to Middle. And there's a gate a good couple miles from Lakewood on the best road which leaves 16 up in Marston Mills. The original Carry Road doesn't make it to 16 anymore as it's trenched and mounded a few places.

Also, the logging companies that have active leases close their gates during Mud Season which can make all approaches save for the direct shot to Lakewood "non-viable" unless one packs a bicycle (which I did in my yute )...

Cheers!

 

[passedpawn]

The only approaches that make it to Middledam are from 16 to the NW, and once you leave 16 it's packed dirt regardless of how one tries to get to Middle. And there's a gate a good couple miles from Lakewood on the best road which leaves 16 up in Marston Mills. The original Carry Road doesn't make it to 16 anymore as it's trenched and mounded a few places.

Also, the logging companies that have active leases close their gates during Mud Season which can make all approaches save for the direct shot to Lakewood "non-viable" unless one packs a bicycle (which I did in my yute )...

Cheers!

Canoe/kayak up/down it and portage past the unnavigable parts? I have no knowledge of this river, just riffing here.

 

[day_trippr]

There actually is an Outward Bound organization with a small lodge adjacent to Middle Dam proper, and they take canoes and kayaks down the Rapid to Umbagog Lake and eventually the Androscoggin where they pull out. I have put my canoes in at Pond In The River - in the first map image it's just one left turn at the southern corner of the pond - and gone up to where the river comes in, and also paddled down to where it goes out (which is just above where Lower Dam was).

To go much below the Lower Dam site requires a good water release and a very lightly loaded vessel as it gets pretty hairy on the way down to Umbagog, but the Outward Bound people do it. Otoh, it'd be nigh impossible to make it up from Umbagog by kayak or canoe and I've never heard of it being done. I don't think a human could maintain the stroke rate needed to get through the hairy stuff. It isn't called the Rapid River for nothing

This is a brookie I caught with an alderfly larvae aka "Green Rock Worm" right off the tail of the gravel bar just above Pond In The River. I think I was in my 40s...

Cheers!