Dan Legere provides memorable adventure

loading...

As the seasons change from spring to summer to fall, so do the tactics Dan Legere uses to tempt the Moosehead Lake region’s trout and salmon.

During the peak of the early season, Legere scans the horizon from the middle seat of his drift boat, watching the water’s surface for the telltale swirl of a feeding fish.

Then, the hunt begins.

Come September, Legere – the proprietor of Maine Guide Fly Shop in Greenville and one of the state’s top fly-fishing guides – opts for a different tactic. Fish aren’t feeding on the surface at all … or not too often. The game becomes more complicated, and his knowledge of a river even more important.

“We’re just gonna play a game of hit and run,” Legere said on Saturday, as we made our way down the East Outlet of the Kennebec River. “I know where the fish are gonna live. Sort of.”

That, he does. And once a year, he shares some of his vast experience with a BDN reader and me.

We call it the “Win a Drift Boat Trip Contest,” and while a marketer could probably think up a far snappier name for our daylong jaunt, it works fine for us.

And the fish don’t much care, either.

On Saturday, I shared Legere’s Hyde drift boat with Tom Nichols, a Penobscot resident who moved to Maine after retiring from a 40-year career at Raytheon in Massachusetts.

Nichols (as is usually the case) was responsible for catching the fish. I (or so I tell everyone) was only along to take notes and prepare a column. The fact that I also wielded a fly rod for much of the day was mere coincidence.

And once again – despite finicky weather that constantly changed, from cool to warm to hot to rainy to hot to cloudy to warm – we had a fantastic day on the water.

Not that there wasn’t a miscue or two.

Like the time Tom’s rod zigged at the same time mine zagged, intertwining our lines in an ugly nest of lines and leaders.

“Two rods in one boat, it happens,” Legere said with a chuckle before extricating us from our situation.

“I’m a professional knot untier,” he said, immediately lightening a potentially embarrassing moment. “I can usually have you back in [the water] in record time. Put me on the clock. I can probably make the finals.”

That’s the way a day on the water is when you spend it with Legere. Whether you’re catching fish or not, there’s always something to talk about, learn about, or laugh about.

“There’s no fish here,” he told us at one juncture. “I don’t like this pool any more.”

That, of course, was malarkey. The fish were there, somewhere. But as he told us on our first drop of the day, sometimes expecting the worst is the only way to achieve the best … as long as you really, truly believe it when you say you’re done fishing a particular spot.

“[Giving up on this pool] should just about assure us of a strike,” he said.

Fish, you see, strike when you least expect it. They hear all. They know all. And when you let your guard down (or when the guide gives up on them), they’ll be there.

Sometimes.

This time, the theory didn’t pan out. Not then. Not there.

But it didn’t take long for Nichols to hook and fight a fish that gave us what Legere often calls a “cheap thrill.”

Cheap thrills don’t come when you hook and land a nice fish. Those are real thrills.

Cheap thrills are the ones you get when your strike indicator snaps below the surface and you vigorously set your hook … on a rock.

Or when you hook and fight and land something you really didn’t intend to catch.

“I think you’ve caught a non-targeted species,” Legere diplomatically told Nichols as the first fish of the day got closer to the boat.

That, he did. But we were still chuckling. And the day was young.

For quite some time, the fish didn’t cooperate, no matter what flies we cast, no matter how many times we taunted them by giving up on a given pool.

We threw streamers, and Nichols showed some skill roll-casting a heavily weighted two-nymph rig that Legere prepared, calling it “a train looking for a wreck, all the time.”

Nymphs, you may or may not know, sink. In Legere’s boat, that means there are plenty of cheap thrills for everybody.

When the strike indicator stops or sinks, Legere perks up.

“There’s some suspicious activity going on there,” he says.

Everything that could be, might be, should be good is suspicious.

And if our suspicions don’t pan out? Well, Legere’s got an explanation for that, too.

“If we didn’t catch a fish, it was a rock,” he’ll tell you.

And of course, you’ll agree. He is, after all, the guide. And if he says you didn’t miss an actual fish … he’s clearly correct.

Early on Saturday, there may have been a few missed fish that were later determined to be rocks. But as the day progressed, our successes became more consistent.

Well, let me rephrase that: Tom Nichols’ successes became very consistent.

Mine didn’t. As I may have already mentioned, however, even when I appeared to be fishing, I was actually working.

Nichols hooked plenty of fish, and boated several, including a nice, hefty male salmon. During a hectic 15-minute stretch, he caught three fish in the same pool on the same fly – a Magog smelt.

Being on the water with Dan Legere, I’ve often said, is like spending a day in a fly-fishing classroom, complete with a mouth-watering hot lunch program.

Saturday’s menu: Smoked salmon on crackers for an appetizer, pork loin and seasoned green beans for lunch, and his wife Penny’s scrumptious blueberry-cheesecake-in-a-jar for dessert.

And if that alone isn’t enough to make a day of fishing … I mean “work” … worthwhile, I don’t know what is.

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