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OUTDOORS: Androscoggin River provides excellent smallmouth bass, trout fishing
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BY TRAVIS BARRETT Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 06/27/2009

BY TRAVIS BARRETT

Outdoors Writer

The line goes taut, the rod's tip zipping left, then right. Pulling the hook with all its might below the surface, the fish makes a beeline for the shady spot below the canoe.

Frantically, the fish below the surface darts deeper and deeper. It's not a smallmouth bass. The tell-tale lumbering rolls of a hooked bass are absent, replaced by the obvious, frenetic purpose of the trout. Bass will let you lead them to the surface, where they entertain anglers with their spirited leaps into the air as they try to wriggle free.

Fueled by fear, the fish changes direction, now rushing away from the boat. From the stern behind me, I hear the words as they escape his mouth.

"I think it's a trout," Ryan Brod tells me in a hopeful tone as I, too, convince myself of a golden hue rippling below the water. "This could be your brown."

This is my shot at "The Grand Slam." My adrenaline pumps a little more furiously, my fingertips jingle with nervous energy. We've been on the river for the better part of four hours now, and I'm told this is the last good stretch of trout water.

But just as I reach for the drag on my reel to try to allow myself some flexibility, I make a rookie mistake. The line sags ever so slightly, and the fish capitalizes -- snapping the line in an instant and silently racing off to freedom.

I try to bring the rod tip back up, to put tension back to the line, but there is no tension to be had.

The fish is gone.

I set the rod down in the bow of the canoe, removing my hat with one hand and running my other over my bald head. I cannot look at Ryan now, for his words are echoing in my head.

"This could be your brown ..." he'd said aloud. "This could be your brown ..."

It could have been, but we'll never know.

* * *

It's first thing Monday morning, and after day upon day of steady rains, it's remarkable that the Androscoggin River has receded enough to not only be passable for paddlers but also remain clear enough to promise good fishing.

Here on this central section of the Andro, which runs from the New Hampshire border to where it meets the Kennebec River in Merrymeeting Bay, Ryan Brod -- a native of Smithfield and a registered Maine fishing guide -- says it's ripe for the picking. I think he's salivating.

As we load our gear into his 15-foot Old Town canoe, he informs me of what will become my day's mission.

"It's the Androscoggin 'Grand Slam,' " Brod says. "Smallmouth bass, rainbow trout and brown trout. With the water like this, we should have a good shot at all of them."

Within minutes, we are already well on our way, too, with two rainbows for each of us in the boat before we even enter the main stem of the Androscoggin. Beautiful little fish they are, too, their sleek 13-inch bodies carrying the tell-tale pink stripe along their sides.

Brod informs me that the fishing will only get better as we go along the eight-mile stretch we've plotted, though he said we also are unlikely to encounter any other fishermen. It's got nothing to do with high water either.

"Part of that is access, and part of it is that some of the river is less than scenic," Brod said. "And part of the river doesn't have the same fishing history as others. I could stand in line and wait my turn to throw a fly in Steep Bank Pool on the Kennebago (River), and I might catch a nice salmon. Or, I could be the only person fishing on the Androscoggin and catch 30 smallmouths, a handful of browns and rainbows."

Fifty years ago, Brod points out, the Androscoggin carried very few fish at all -- and certainly no trophy-sized smallies or stocked trout.

"People thought of it as a sewer," Brod said.

* * *

Ryan Brod's been on this river enough now, though, to think about it as a premier fishery -- and not a dumping ground for area mills. In the first hour of the trip, he had already completed his Grand Slam without so much as breaking a sweat.

He even landed a small brook trout, only a few inches long, just for good measure.

For me, I was practically up all night long at the thought of chucking Mepps spinners to eager smallmouth bass, and Brod knew it. The trout together with the bass in one place, it was a bonus that seemed too good to be true.

But it's one of the redeeming characteristics of the river, Brod said.

"What makes the Andro so special is that you can catch nice rainbows and browns in the fast water, and then paddle fifty yards to the edges and hook into bruiser smallmouth. Sometimes they're in the same pools," Brod said. "These are not smallmouth for the feint of heart either -- they're big and they fight, especially in the cool water of spring and fall and in thick current."

In six hours on the Androscoggin, just two days removed from ridiculously high flows that were more than 11,000 cubic feet per second -- almost three times the normal flow for the stretch -- we caught more than two dozen smallmouth bass. Several of the bronzed fish weighed in at more than 3 pounds.

"They hit like a ton of bricks," Brod said.

* * *

The loss of my shot at the Grand Slam haunts me, but only for a few hundred yards or so.

More of that glorious smallmouth cover is ahead -- a steep riverbank over looking wooded or rocky cover. It's like Club Med for smallies, and even after running through Mepps and top-water Rapalas, we're still into tremendous fishing.

In a span of four casts, three more smallmouth bass have come over the edge of the boat for us to admire.

I tell Ryan that one of the most amazing things about the day is that we didn't find good fishing in a few pockets while paddling the rest of the way. Every inch of the river seems as ripe with fish as a strawberry field this time of year.

And, as promised, there was nobody else around to enjoy it.

Not a single other angler, either from shore or a boat.

"It's bizarre, isn't it?" Brod said. "I'm glad we didn't cancel the trip. I'd been checking the water level online and the level had been off the charts. I really figured we'd have stained water and fish scattered all over the place. It goes to show that even in bad weather (or) high water, you can have a successful day."

With only the small matter of human error having gotten in the way, I never did get my Grand Slam.

"Not a problem," Brod says as I avert eye contact, staring down at my thumb, looking over its rough edge from having hoisted so many smallies by their lower jaw. "We'll just have to do it again when the water is low.

"The fishing is even better then."

Travis Barrett -- 621-5648

tbarrett@centralmaine.com

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