Dan Legere provides memorable fishing trip

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Dick Fortier of Caribou arrived in Greenville on Saturday afternoon, eager to take a daylong ride in Dan Legere’s drift boat.

Fortier admitted he’d never been in a drift boat before, and had done a bit of research to see what he was getting into.

When he showed up early Sunday morning to begin a day of drifting down the East Outlet of the Kennebec River, Fortier was smiling.

When he caught his first fish, he was grinning.

And his second. And his fifth. And his tenth.

And by the time Legere dropped the Caribou man back at his motel, Fortier had decided that drift-boat fishing wasn’t too hard to take.

“I can’t tell you how much fun this was,” Fortier said, over and over and over again.

Fortier was this year’s winner of our popular “Win a Drift Boat Trip” contest, which the Bangor Daily News runs in conjunction with the Eastern Maine Sportsman’s Show.

The trip is always a hit, for a couple of important reasons.

First, we fish one of the state’s premier fly-fishing waters.

And second, Legere is among the state’s most sought-after fly-fishing guides.

Each year for the past six, Legere has provided the trip, and the advice, and (this is important) the right fly at the right time.

Heck, he (and his wife, Penny) even provide the delectable shore lunch, which is always a hit.

I provide … well … something. Comic relief, maybe. Or the presence of an angler sure to catch fewer fish than our annual winner. Or perhaps just someone to document the trip so that my own fishing junket counts as a day of work.

Either way, I’m always there, along with Legere and our annual winner.

And each year, I have a blast.

This year, the weather didn’t completely cooperate. It sprinkled a bit, rained a bit, and even poured for a little while.

Then the rain stopped, and the fish started biting.

Not that we had any complaints before then: Legere had constantly put us over feeding fish, and each of us had managed to catch and release several landlocked salmon and trout.

Fishing had been so good, in fact, that that Legere was forced to disobey one of his cardinal rules: Never leave feeding fish to find feeding fish.

As you learn when you fish with Legere, the man is not short of cardinal rules.

Like the three-fly rule (If you can’t hook a feeding fish after drifting three different flies past it, you’re just out of luck … unless we get stubborn and decide to try four flies)).

Or the two-flies on one line rule: It’s a train looking for a wreck. But it works.

Or the first rule of fish behavior, which explains the reason fish strike at the least opportune time: They’re sneaky. They know when your hands are full or you’re not paying attention. And they make you pay for it.

On this day, however, we had no choice but to ignore the rule about leaving feeding fish.

The fact was, we had so much river to cover (and so much lunch to eat) that eventually, we just had to pull anchor and move along.

Our day was a success on many levels, as we spotted plenty of wildlife – a deer on the road to the river, a soaring eagle just after beginning our trip, several ducks, loons and geese – and took turns telling each other hunting and fishing stories.

A quick note to Fortier’s pals, who cautioned me that those who share a boat with him often don’t get a word in edgewise: That’s simply not true. Either that, or Legere and I are equally accomplished yappers, and never let him get carried away.

And at the end of an enjoyable drift, we ended up in fishing nirvana.

Legere had always regaled me with stories of how the fishing could be on the lower reach of the East Outlet.

All you needed was perfect conditions … and the perfect fly to match those conditions.

On Sunday, we had both.

The wind was nonexistent, which made the final segment of the river, just above Indian Pond, mirror-smooth.

Add to that the fact that the dam at Moosehead Lake was gushing cool water at 3,200 cubic feet per second downstream (a normal flow during our June trip is closer to 1,500 cfs), and we had perfect conditions for the fish to move upstream.

There were flies hatching on the surface of East Outlet, and everywhere we looked, we saw cruising fish dimpling the surface, working their way in our direction.

We were in the river. They were in the lake … and wanted to be in the river. It was a simple equation that seemed likely to work in our favor.

Every few minutes one or another of the fish jumped completely out of the water.

All we had to do was put the right fly in front of the moving fish, and we’d have luck.

Legere took care of the fly selection, with unbelievable results.

For the last hour of the evening, Fortier and I took turns tossing flies toward a steady parade of rises. Fish kept moving … and feeding.

And we kept catching.

“Every once in awhile, it happens this way,” Legere told me at the end of the trip. “I’ve been telling you that for years, and you were finally here when it happened.”

I was. Fortier was. And thanks to Legere, we were both able to enjoy a day of fishing neither of us will soon forget.

jholyoke@bangordailynews.net

990-8214