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The Pine Tree Store is a cozy streamside purveyor of nearly everything a traveling angler could want.

A sandwich? Got it. Beverage? Sure. A fly rod … just to replace the one you snapped on the rocks while hustling down the bank so you could wade fabled Grand Lake Stream? No problem.

Because the store he and his wife, Kathy, own is so close – and so closely tied – to the stream that gives the town its name, Kurt Cressey also performs many duties one wouldn’t immediately think of.

Kurt Cressey is (if not officially, at least by default) Grand Lake Stream’s fishing barometer … and its chief ice-watcher.

He can tell you what flies are working … what aren’t … and (perhaps most importantly) whether the lakes are still iced in.

Ice – the kind that recedes on nearby Big and West Grand Lakes, not the kind you purchase in 5-pound bags – is big business here, you see.

“The way I look at it, when the ice goes out, the cash flow comes in,” Cresssey joked the other day, leaning back and chuckling from his perch on the store’s well-worn liar’s bench.

He has a list of about 15 anglers he’s supposed to call when West Grand Lake opens up. And that’s not all.

“That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the people who call me,” he said. “We start answering the phone at 7 o’clock in the morning, up until 9 o’clock at night. ‘When is the ice going out? When did the ice go out?'”

On Tuesday, Cressey was preparing to make some calls: Big Lake lost its winter coat earlier that day. According to Cressey, that means that West Grand isn’t far behind.

The formula is simple, and pretty accurate: When Big Lake loses its ice, West Grand will follow suit in a week.

“I hate to tell them that it’s white and tight,” Cressey said. “Now when people call I can definitely say, ‘Big Lake is out, West Grand will be out in a week.'”

Give or take.

Big Lake’s ice-out also affects fishing in Grand Lake Stream, which connects it with West Grand.

“Once Big Lake goes out, it begins to warm up and the fish will start swimming out of Big Lake, up Grand Lake Stream,” said Cressey, who explained that salmon follow suckers up Grand Lake Stream and eat the eggs of the spring-spawning fish.

Perhaps you’ve never been to Grand Lake Stream. Perhaps you’ve never trolled West Grand. And perhaps you’re wondering why Cressey and so many anglers make such a big deal out of ice-out.

Here’s the answer.

“You want to be fishing the day the ice goes out,” Cressey said, explaining that unlike some other lakes that need a couple of weeks to reach their peaks, West Grand is generally most productive as soon as you can get a boat in the water.

“A lot of guys wait too long and they’ll come in two or three weeks after the ice is out,” Cressey said. “Then they’ve got to start fishing fairly deep with sinking fly line.”

It may be a fishing clich?, but at West Grand Lake, a certain phrase may hold a lot of water: You should have been here yesterday. Or two weeks ago.

“The first couple weeks are an awful lot of fun,” he said. “Not everyone can time it with vacation and stuff like that, but I’m gonna make it a point to be out there, even with a stick if I’ve got to push some ice out of the way to get to the main lake.”

Good advice from a man who knows a bit about fishing in his adopted hometown.

Among the other pieces of wisdom Cressey shared during our conversation:

. Flies … flies … flies: Cressey said there are a number of flies that can produce on Grand Lake Stream at this time of year.

“Streamers, like the Barnes Special that imitates the yellow perch, that works well,” he said. “The black ghost has been working well. We’ve also been selling little larvae imitations like the bead-head prince and the pheasant-tail, and the caddis pupa.”

Cressey said that much of the time, a nymph fisherman will have more luck than a streamer-fly fisherman at this time of year. But that doesn’t stop diehard streamer enthusiasts.

“Year round, we probably sell more streamers than anything else,” he said. “It’s just easier to chuck, strip and bring it in.”

. Watch that first step: To the outsider, Grand Lake Stream seems to be one of those timeless villages where nothing changes.

Go back next year, and it’s not hard to convince yourself that everything is exactly the same.

Cressey cautioned that this year, that’s a dangerous assumption.

Especially when you’re wading the famous Dam Pool.

Two heavy snowstorms which were followed by torrential rains pushed the winter level of the lake higher than normal, Cressey said. Because of those storms, a lot of water was released from the dam during December and January.

The result: A lot of sand was washed downstream, making previously wadeable water potentially dangerous.

“[One angler] hadn’t heard that the pool’s characteristics had changed,” Cressey said. “He started walking toward [a rock] and floated his hat.”

The fisherman may not have been lucky (he tossed his brand-new rod in the drink and began paddling after the stream’s eddy began pulling him toward the dam). But he was fortunate: He walked away from the ordeal after slogging onto dry land.

Cressey said the rod is still out there … somewhere.

“These guys that are used to just walking to the rock aren’t going to make it because it’s about 20 feet deep there,” Cressey said.

Speaking of ice – or the lack thereof – as promised, I’ve got a few updates for you.

On my jaunt Down East on Tuesday, I purposely took a circuitous route and kept an eye peeled on the lakes I passed (keep in mind, that was four days ago, and conditions may have changed). Here’s what I found out:

Mattanawcook Pond in Lincoln was open as far as the eye could see.

East Musquash Lake in Topsfield wasn’t. In fact, it was iced in completely. The ice was black and looked ready to begin breaking up, but hadn’t done so as of Tuesday.

On the return trip on Route 9 – The Airline to locals – Crawford Lake in Crawford showed plenty of open water. As previously reported, Davis Pond in Eddington is also ice-free.

In addition, readers passed along a few updates you may be interested in.

John Richards reports that Alligator Lake in T34 MD lost its icy coat on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Another reader passed along word that Green Lake in Dedham and Ellsworth “officially” lost its ice on Monday.

Ice-out becomes “official” on Green Lake, according to the e-mail, when the lake is passable from Jenkins Beach to the dam.

And finally, I received word on two lakes from Ron Ingalls.

“I am pleased to report that I was witness to Hermon Pond’s disrobing itself of its frosty attire on Sunday morning,” Ingalls wrote. “It was my first ever sighting of an ice-out and I was quite enthralled. It occurred between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. The pond had previously been partially ice-free, but froze over each night. With Sunday morning’s raging winds, all of the crystallized ice shards were beaten against my rock wall, leaving the pond devoid of ice, but whipped into a froth.”

Ingalls also passed along some a negative report on another lake he likes to fish.

“I am most disappointed to relay some unfortunate news,” Ingalls wrote. “My father, Jeff Ingalls, visited camp [on East Grand Lake] this weekend with Jimmy Hayes.”

The verdict: Spring hasn’t sprung.

“Dad sent word home that there was not a bit of water to be seen as of yet, including on the shores. It seems as though we’ll have to wait a couple more weeks to ply our trolling trade on the clearest lake in Maine,” Ingalls wrote.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my requests for ice-out information. Feel free to keep the updates coming … and I’ll keep letting folks know where they can wet a line.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.