Marvelous Maine

Continuing with fishing travel updates before returning to "favorite destinations" posts, I drove directly from the Pennsylvania Crappie Camp to Maine to spend a few delightful days with Doug Teel of Northridge Outfitters. I also got to visit the home of Old Town Canoe and even picked up a new boat while I was in Maine, but that's another story for my next post.

Doug operates a modern lodge in rural Penobscot County and outfits adventurers year-round. He guides hunters for everything from rabbits to bears to moose, but from mid-May through the end of summer, he turns his attention to fish. Smallmouth bass are the main attraction, but Doug also fishes good waters for pike and largemouths and occasionally, he'll hit beautiful backwoods ponds and flowages for native brook trout or lead other types of fishing excursions. This was my fourth time fishing with Doug, so I admittedly arrived with high expectations.

I wasn't disappointed!

Doug and I squeezed in big variety for only 3 1/2 days, spending one full day running ATV trails and backroads for colorful brookies and splitting the rest of the time fishing two vey different sorts of lakes and the Penobscot River. The river, which is where Doug spends the most time during the summer, was the one "must do" part of the trip, and as a spoiler alert, you'll learn more about it if you continue to follow my list of favorite fishing destinations. Smallmouth fishing is crazily good and highly predictable, with lots of topwater action.

One lake we fished was new to me and about two hours away. Doug promised it would be worth it and was right. Of course, I never doubted that as I've learned to trust his judgement. We spent the whole day catching and releasing chunky smallmouth bass from ultra-clear water and only saw one other boat on the lake while we were there.

I guess my favorite outing was a short, early-morning river stop on the final day. I had plans to be at Old Town at 9:00, so we hit the river from about 5:30 till 8:00 and caught oodles of smallmouths in that short time, mostly on topwater, without ever running anywhere. Doug dropped the trolling motor as soon as we launched, and we just started fishing. If we even got out of sight of the boat ramp, it wasn't by much!

Of course, we ate well. You're supposed to do that in Maine. And if anyone ever asks, I can say without hesitation, that if you have haddock chowder to dinner, lunch the next day is not too soon for all-you-can east fried haddock, and the leftover chowder makes an excellent dinner that evening!