Penobscot’s Piscatorial Circus River’s bass fishery now attracts anglers from far and wide

At the head of a narrow island, where a long finger of ledge tickled laughter from the river, the angler quietly sculled the 17-foot canoe to within easy casting distance of a dark, foam-flecked eddy. Silently, then, he laid the paddle across the gunnels and slowly lowered the makeshift anchor of old sash weights. After wrapping the anchor line to a cleat and securing it with a quick half-hitch, the angler paused to study a large flat rock located near the middle of the eddy. He was pleased to see that the top of the rock – as usual, muskrats had left it littered with the shells of freshwater clams – was only a few inches above water.

Reaching for his fly rod he thought, Water level’s just right, river’s running a temperature of about 60 degrees, and I’d be willing to bet there’s a bass guarding a spawning bed in that eddy. With that he unhooked a yellow, cork-body popping bug from a reel pillar and began false casting: loading the rod, lengthening the line, dropping the popper between the rock and the shore of the island.

Waiting for the ripples ringing the lure to unripple, the angler recalled that he was a teenager when an older outdoors addict, the late “Bootch” Jameson, guided him to the Penobscot River’s smallmouth bass bonanza. Bass were regarded as “trash fish” back then, he remembered, but Bootch didn’t turn his nose up at them. No siree. Truth was, he’d sooner fish bass than salmon or togue.

After stripping the slack from his cast, the angler twitched a gurgle from the popper and let it rest. Through the murmur of the river he could hear Bootch saying: “Fish it slow. Don’t be in a hurry to make all kinds of commotion with that popper. If there’s a bass under it and he sees it movin’ off he might let it go, thinkin’ it’s not a threat to the bed he’s guardin’. But if you work it just a little and then let it sit, he’ll get agitated and mitten onto it.”

Chuckling, the angler swam the popper silently, a few inches at the most, leaving only threads of wake. Letting the lure rest, he recalled that the river’s bass fishery drew scant attention until the early 1980s or thereabouts. Things changed, though, when a few local guides began hooking the attention of bass fishermen from away. Naturally, they thought they’d struck the mother lode and couldn’t wait to get back home and crow about it. The word’s out now, the angler allowed, but even so, you can still come up here and not see anyone. Like today. And this is the first week in June. Prime time. I’ll be mighty surprised if this rod doesn’t suffer a severe case of the bends this morning. “Like that!” he exclaimed as the popper disappeared in a bulge of water.

Directly the rod danced a jig to the music of the reel but when the bass leaped and cartwheeled the popper came unstuck. “Quick release,” the angler muttered. “No sense playing them out once they’re hooked.” Then, realizing that he wasn’t fooling anyone but himself, he thought, Would’ve been nice to get a couple more runs and jumps out of him, though. Nice fish too, for a river bass. I’d say close to 3 pounds. Owing to their swift-water environment, river smallmouths tend to be more streamlined and muscular than those that pump pond water through their gills.

After reeling in and raising the anchor slightly, the angler let the canoe drift to where a grass-rimmed cove dented the shoreline. With its gravel bottom scoured clean by spring freshets, the cove was a classic spawning ground. The anchor touched, the canoe tugged and the angler stood to scan the shallows, where he saw three freshly made beds glowing palely through the Penobscot’s dark alder water. Seconds later he began casting toward the bed off to his right.

No sooner did the popper settle to the water when a bass sipped the lure like a trout taking a mayfly. An inexperienced angler would have thought the slight disturbance was indication of a small fish. But when the rod was raised to set the hook, the tip stayed down. The ensuing tug of war included three arcing leaps, tail-walking that sounded like the fluttering of a bird’s wings, and several go-for-broke runs. When the bass eventually rolled onto its side beside the canoe, the angler knelt and lifted it from the water by its lower jaw, guesstimating its weight to be on the heavy side of 2 pounds. Acquitted of its folly, the released fish swam off slowly until, with a splashing flip of its tail, it dove and left a blossoming swirl on the surface.

Easing back onto the seat, the angler propped his rod against the canoe’s carrying yoke. Might as well let things settle a bit, he thought. I’m in no hurry and, besides, these bass aren’t going anywhere. Allowing that a more beautiful day would be unbearable, he watched an osprey hovering like a helicopter. After folding its wings and dropping like a feathered bomb, the fish hawk struck the water with an audible impact. When it flew off with a fish in its talons, the angler marveled again at the incredible eyesight that enabled soaring ospreys and eagles to spot fish amid the distorting ripples and reflections of flowing water.

Gazing at the scattered islands and sprawling grass mounds where small coves, eddies, pockets and channels provide world-class bass fishing, he thought, This is quite a river. Aside from bass, its runs of anadromous fish, including Atlantic salmon, are awesome. His reverie rekindled memories of the April nights when his grandfather took him smelting on the South Brewer and Hampden shores. The river was feeling full of itself from snowmelt and spring rains but the chilly air was warmed by the banter of people dipping messes of the flavorful fish. It’s a tradition that time hasn’t tarnished, for the angler at least. And for good reason: a meal of fried smelts and freshly picked fiddleheads is symbolic of springtime in Maine.

As he stood to begin fishing, the angler thought about the swarms of alewives that ascended the river each spring. And in their wakes come schools of striped bass that become belligerent at the sight of streamer flies, baits and lures, cast or trolled. Then came recollections of boyhood days spent fishing for sea-run trout in brooks that spilled into the river in South Orrington; and, later on, squaretails and landlocked salmon on the east and west branches.

His concentration, therefore, was less than complete when he cast the popper toward the bed directly opposite the canoe. Accordingly, the bass that smothered the lure the instant it struck the water would have escaped if it hadn’t hooked itself. During the next few minutes, the scrappy smallmouth displayed the speed, strength and aquabatics that earned the species its reputation of being “pound for pound the gamest fish that swims.” When the tussle ended, the loser was released none the worse for the experience.

Surprisingly, a cast to the bed farthest from the canoe failed to raise a bass. Likewise, the second cast, even though the angler fished the popper so slowly that he became agitated by it. Still, he couldn’t believe the bed had been abandoned. I’ll give him another look at it, he thought as the 5-weight floating line shot through the guides of the 81/2-foot rod. When the popper fell lightly to the water, with the 6-pound-test leader fully extended, he mumbled, “That’s an offer he can’t refuse.”

Not until the popper had sporadically blipped and blupped and gurgled some distance from the bed, however, did the angler see the flash of a bronzy flank amid an explosive strike. When he set the hook he knew the bass was wearing a size Large suit. A no-holds-barred brawler, the fish used its broad fins to full advantage as it leaped, thrashed, tail-walked, skittered and bored for bottom in runs disdainful of the reel’s drag. A long five minutes later, the angler lifted the bass from the water and quickly hefted its weight. Figuring that if it didn’t weigh 4 pounds it didn’t weigh an ounce, he released it. Considering the trauma that a fish suffers while being held out of the water, the angler used the scales in his pack basket only on fish he intended to keep. Otherwise, he stuck to the weights-and-measures method known as “by guess and by gorry.”

Shadows were short when he pulled the canoe onto a point where a lofty pine hummed songs written by the wind. Not being a bean counter, he reckoned he had caught and released 15 bass. Additionally, several had been hooked and lost, and a few followed the popper but didn’t take. Those fish had been fooled before, the angler thought, alluding to the bass fishery’s increased popularity. Back along they’d have struck without hesitation. Before opening the cooler containing a roast beef sandwich, sliced cucumber, potato chips and a cold beer, he built a small fire. The world turns slowly when you sit by a fire and a sandwich becomes a full-course meal.

Sitting with his back against a stump, the angler smelled the wood smoke and listened to a raven running through its repertoire of calls. High above the opposite shore an eagle soared, the white feathers of its head and tail flashing like strobe lights in the sun-lit sky. “Days like this are bonuses,” he thought aloud, and he couldn’t help wondering if James Russell Lowell, the poet who penned the line, “What is so rare as a day in June?” was a bass fisherman.

When the fire was doused, stirred with a stick and doused again, he pushed off in the canoe and paddled toward a group of mid-river grass mounds. On reaching them he anchored the canoe in water only a few inches deep, pulled up his hip boots and went to wading and fishing. Suffice it to say the matinee performance of the Penobscot’s piscatorial circus was as exciting and satisfying as the morning’s entertainment. It seemed that every break in the current held a bass. The day was two hours older when the angler released the fish that brought his guessed tally to 30 or thereabouts. Knowing that a lot of people would pay a lot of money for that kind of fishing, he reeled in thinking how fortunate he was to have it in his backyard, so to speak.

Although he had fished a mile or more downriver, as the crow flies, the angler looked forward to poling the canoe back to his launch site, a woods trail, actually, that ended at the river’s edge. On the way he would enjoy observing wildlife – beavers, turtles, herons, muskrats, ducks towing unfledged broods, maybe a deer – and pausing to contemplate the hand-forged iron rings that were bolted to ledges during the logging era that made Bangor the lumber capital of the world. Sorting booms, where logs were counted and recorded before being rafted to saw mills, were held in place by chains attached to the rings. The angler regarded them as monuments to the men who used axes, saws and peaveys to write the Penobscot’s most symbolic history.

After loading the canoe onto his truck, he gazed admiringly at the river that he thought of as his Home Pool, and whose bass fishery now attracted anglers from far and wide. Quite a river, all right, he thought again. No matter where you fish it or what you’re fishing for, it’s a piscatorial circus well worth the price of admission. With that in mind he drove home wondering if the stripers were stacked in the rips boiling from The Spindle in South Orrington, and if they’d take a trolled streamer on tomorrow’s falling tide.

Tom Hennessey’s columns and artwork can be accessed on the BDN internet page at www.bangornews.com. Tom’s e-mail address is: thennessey@bangordailynews.net