26-pound salmon helps dream come true

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Fly fishing for Atlantic salmon can be a frustrating sport … if, that is, you choose to focus on the number of casts it often takes to land a single fish.

Ignore that fact, and focus on the beauty around you – salmon rivers are rarely ugly places, you see – and frustration never enters the equation.

There is, after all, always a chance for something special to happen. Maybe on this cast. Perhaps on the next … or the one after that … or one you’ll gracefully toss toward an inviting lie tomorrow.

And as the sun slowly sets on a pristine salmon pool, and you’re the one holding the rod when the fish of a lifetime does strike?

Just ask Elizabeth Hansen how that feels.

Hansen, who works here at the BDN as the director of marketing services, spent a few days at Millbrook Farm on the Upsalquitch River in New Brunswick last month, and ended up etching her name into the annals, among the great anglers who’ve visited the salmon lodge over the years.

Hansen was a guest of BDN publisher Rick Warren, the owner of Millbrook Farm.

On the first night of her trip – June 24, she quickly points out … nights like this are worth remembering – she hopped into a canoe with her husband, Peter Hansen, and head guide Bill Murray.

The destination: Home Pool, a place where many a salmon angler’s dreams have come true.

After a couple hours of fishing, Hansen’s certainly did.

“It was just amazing,” she said. “Peter and I had seen something roll. It wasn’t jumping. [We said], ‘What was that.'”

They soon found out.

“Billy decided to change the fly at that point,” she said. “He put on a rusty rat, which is my favorite anyway. I would say within five or 10 minutes of putting the rusty rat on, [the fish] struck.”

Hansen had caught a 10-pound salmon on the Upsalquitch before, but hadn’t hooked a fish as large as this one seemed to be.

“I tell you, it was amazing. It took off, I swear it went around the bend toward the ledges,” she said. “I think at that point Billy realized that it was a big one, because he reached into his kit and got out the tape measure. He got that ready.”

Hansen battled the salmon for a half hour, she estimates, before regaining enough line for Murray to reach for his net.

“I hadn’t seen [the fish] because it didn’t do any of the jumps like smaller fish do,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘This feels like a shark.'”

Warren is a catch-and-release devotee, and fish caught at Millbrook are expected to be treated well. Murray embodies that approach, and quickly measured the fish, Elizabeth Hansen said.

The salmon was 40 inches long.

“He didn’t know exactly what the weight would be until he got back to camp. He had a [conversion] chart,” she said.

According to Murray’s chart, the fish weighed about 261/2 pounds.

In some salmon rivers, fish top 20 pounds fairly regularly. In the Upsalquitch, that’s not the case. Ten- and 12-pounders are far more common, and anglers occasional hook a 16-pounder.

“That evening, Van Raymond, who was in the party, went and looked back in all the records,” she said. “The last time a fish that size was caught was in 1994, by Ollie Moores.”

Moores, who has since died, has a salmon pool on the Upsalquitch named after him.

Murray himself caught a 42-inch salmon in the late 70s or early 80s, and that fish was estimated to have weighed 30 pounds.

Hansen said she never expected to catch a fish like that, and was having fun even before the monstrous salmon struck.

“I was just happy to be out there on the water, for starters. And then, just to catch a fish was a bonus,” she said. “I don’t think I realized the significance of it, to tell you the truth. I just had fun getting it in.”

While Hansen won the 30-minute tug-of-war, the fish ended up getting the last laugh.

“The funny thing was, when Billy did let it go … that fish did a big jump, flipped over and splashed the water. It went all down through Billy’s waders,” she said. “It was like, ‘Take that.’ Billy said, ‘I think we should go home now.’ It was priceless.”

As was the memory, which she continues to relive, with plenty of help from her husband.

“I don’t think it’s really sunk in with me. I think guys talk about it a lot, and my husband keeps telling the world about it,” she said. “We were at a wedding in New Hampshire last Saturday and he had the pictures [in a pocket]. Everybody in the wedding party had heard about it and wanted to see the fish. I wouldn’t have thought about [bringing the pictures]. I guess it was kind of a big deal.”

And in the years to come, that fish and those memories will continue to grow even bigger.

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