Thoughts always trail back to the one that got away

I’m not false casting when I claim that Cobb’s Pierce Pond Camps is a touchstone to the past. Sprawling in the shadows of towering pines on the west shore of the rock-rimmed pond, the squat log buildings evoke images of a time when sporting camps were a Maine tradition equal to that of Thomas rods and Old Town canoes.

If you know a “Hornberg” from a “Muddler Minnow,” then you’re aware that Pierce Pond produces bragging-size brook trout, call them “squaretails,” if you’re so inclined. After arriving at Cobb’s I was introduced to Chris Leo of Dexter, who would guide me on those storied fishing grounds.

Gary Cobb then showed me to a cabin and afterward gave me a quick tour of the camp. After introductions to his wife, Betty, and her kitchen crew, Gary and I went into the main lodge. There, I suspect I stood owl-eyed and slack-jawed staring at the football-shaped forms of mounted trout – 6- and 8-pounders, if you please – gracing the honey-toned gleam of log walls. I decided it was time to rig a rod.

Among the smaller ponds surrounding Pierce are Kilgore, Grass, and Pickerel. “We’ll give Pickerel a try this morning,” said Chris when we were situated in his square-stern canoe. “Some people don’t like to fish it because of the name, but it holds big trout.”

“That’s the bottom line,” I replied as the purring outboard pushed us toward Caribou Narrows. Left sitting on the dock, Chris’s Labrador retriever, “Blueberry,” watched us until we rounded a point. After beaching the canoe beyond the narrows, we gathered our gear and left five minutes of tracks on a trail guarded by black flies. We wasted no time in launching the rowboat left at the shore of the pond.

“These big trout spend most of their time on bottom,” said Chris as he lowered the anchor, “and the only way to get a fly to them is with a sinking line.” Suffice it to say that unless you enjoy looking like an insect wrapped in a spider’s web, you wouldn’t drop 30 feet or more of Hi-D sinking fly line on the water and then try to lift it for another cast. Simply put, the stuff casts and sinks like a cable.

By shooting coils of stripped line, we attained distance and swam our streamers deep – without finned interference. But there’s more to fishing than catching fish. While we continued casting, loons laughed – perhaps at our lack of success – and pairs of goldeneye ducks performed mating rituals along the spruce-steepled shores.

Nearly two hours later, we returned to the canoe and set a course for the thoroughfare leading to Upper Pierce Pond. The day had reached middle-age when we anchored on a breeze-ruffled shoal where mayflies were hatching and trout were showing.

“They’re taking nymphs,” said Chris. “This breeze is taking the flies off the water.” Floating lines, dry flies, and nymphs attached to leaders with droppers were in order. My guide’s observation was accurate. Directly, we caught and released three keepers that included a 17-incher snagged by Chris, plus several other strikes – all on nymphs.

After releasing a trout, I allowed it was time to put on the feed bag. “Leave your line out,” said Chris as he fetched the sandwiches and cold drinks. “There are quite a few fish working on this shoal, sometimes they’ll take a fly that’s drifting behind the canoe.”

No sooner did I take a bite of sandwich and a swig of drink when my rod tip did a deep bow. In the electric excitement of the moment, I emptied my left hand of sandwich and filled it with rod handle – and line. Consequently, I snubbed the fish and the 6-pound test tippet parted with a sickening snap. Wouldn’t you know it? Disappointment showed on Chris’s face. “Damn,” he said softly, “that was a big fish.”

“Nobody to blame but me,” said I.

After finishing our lunch we again beached the canoe and hiked half a mile or so to Kilgore Pond. As far as we could tell, we never got a grunt from the leviathans that live there. That evening, after a delicious dinner in the company of clients who have been returning to Cobb’s long enough to be considered family, Chris and I trolled streamers in Lower Pierce. Between dusk and dark we released three salmon that were big enough to know better.

No socializing for me that evening. I had been in gear since 4 o’clock that morning and my cabin was beckoning. During the wee hours of the night, rain sounded like squirrels scrambling across the roof. But when I awoke a few hours later, a rougy-faced dawn was peeking through the pines.

With a woodsman’s breakfast under our belts, Chris and I again left Blueberry watching forlornly from the dock as we struck for Grass Pond. After leaving the canoe on the shore of Upper Pierce, we came upon a cow moose that followed us along the tote road leading to the pond. Because we intended to troll lures, Chris brought along a 2-horsepower outboard for the small aluminum boat left at the landing.

We hadn’t trolled two minutes when a trout snagged the small Mooselook Wobbler I was towing and curled the rod into a capital C. A heartbeat later it uncurled. Hit and run. Then and there, we might as well have picked up and packed out. From then on, our invitations were snubbed, and at noon we headed back to camp.

“I was hoping you’d catch a big trout,” said Chris as he ferried me from the camp to my truck parked at Lindsay Cove.

As nonchalantly as possible, I shrugged and said, “What the heck, I had hold of a couple and caught some keepers to boot. I can’t complain – right, Blueberry?” The patient retriever had at last taken her place in the canoe. Between you and me, though, I can still feel the weight of the trout that parted that 6-pound tippet.