Shad take up slack on ‘Guagus

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Robert Brooks grew up in Cherryfield, and he remembers spending many memorable hours on the river that passes through town on its way to the Atlantic.

“The Cable Pool is right over there,” he said on Monday as he sat on a rock, puffed on a cigarette, and took a break from yet another day of fishing.

The Cable Pool, Atlantic salmon anglers can tell you, was famous, once. Before the salmon stopped coming back. Before fishing for the king of game fish in this state was deemed unlawful.

Before all that, the Cable Pool was a hot spot. A destination.

Now, it’s not. Maybe some day it will be again. But today? It’s just a place salmon anglers talk about when they get together … share a sip … and begin trading memories about the way things used to be.

But that doesn’t mean the Narraguagus River has been forgotten … that it’s dead … that there are no fish worth catching.

Far from it.

“[I’ve come here] ever since I was old enough to cast a fly out there, really,” the 24-year-old Brooks said.

Salmon aren’t the lure anymore. Now, Down East anglers – and those who choose to travel from elsewhere – are limited to a couple hundred yards of real estate down river from the ice control dam.

And they’re looking for shad.

“I come here every day during the shad season,” Brooks said. “It’s fun catching them. I’ve caught 14 this year so far.”

On Monday, several anglers arrived as the morning tide approached its peak, hoping to catch a shad or two.

Some, like Brooks, were locals. Others – like Joe Bertolaccini, Don Corey, and Ernie MacDonald – traveled from the Bangor area to try their hand at shad fishing.

“About 25 years ago I fished here a couple of times,” said Bertolaccini, an avid angler from Orrington. “I enjoyed fishing here, but I never hooked a salmon.”

Bertolaccini, Corey, and MacDonald are all members of the Penobscot Fly Fishers. During the winter months, they pitch in to teach others how to tie flies at the club’s popular classes.

During the spring and summer … they look for excuses to fish.

The chance to try their hand at shad was just such an excuse … as if anglers ever really need one.

“I used to fish for them in the Connecticut River, years ago, but we never fly-fished for them, ” Bertolaccini said. “We just used spinning rods, and people would line up nearly shoulder to shoulder on the banks of the Connecticut when they were running in the spring.”

On the Narraguagus … on Monday … things weren’t that crowded. Eight fishermen tried their luck, tossing brightly colored flies into the river.

A couple even caught a shad or two.

More prevalent: Alewives, which periodically gobbled a fly, then finned quickly to hand.

Brooks, the 24-year-old hometown boy, had an explanation for the slow fishing.

It was the water’s fault.

“When the water comes up this high, it’s not as good for some reason,” he said. “When the water gets down low and warmer, they seem to be biting better.”

On Monday, most of the biting was being done by swarms of black flies.

Still, nobody was complaining.

The sun was out. The river was beautiful. And it was fishing … on the Narraguagus … after all.

Before casting his first fly, Bertolaccini pointed out one of fishing’s truisms: You can’t catch fish if you’re sitting at home.

“The only way to find out [if the shad are there] is to try it, I guess,” he said, turning toward the river, a promising spot from which to cast, and the day ahead.

On a personal note, congratulations are in order for 11-year-old Ryan Urquhart of Alna, who bagged his first career turkey on Saturday while hunting with his father.

Alna, you may know, is a small town just outside of Wiscasset. So, you’re asking yourself, why write about a young hunter who lives outside our readership area?

Simple answer: He’s my nephew, the son of my sister, Lori, and her husband, Carl Urquhart.

Ryan bagged his bird from the comfort of a ground blind set up in his rural backyard. Preliminary reports that Ryan may have been planning to pass the early morning hours on stand playing games on his Gameboy have not been confirmed as of press time.

All that has been confirmed is that when the big gobbler showed up … Ryan was ready. He dispatched it with a single shotgun blast that, his father proudly pointed out, did its lethal job without spraying any of the tasty meat with pellets.

The bird was a 22-pound bruiser, with a 10-inch beard and 1-inch spurs.

Sooner or later, I’ll get to go hunting with my nephew, who has been drawn for a permit both years he’s been eligible for the wild turkey hunt.

All I’ve got to do is find out how to capture some of his turkey-lottery luck: I’ve yet to have my name drawn.

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