Fishing America

Maine was my first stop on a 5 state ice fishing trip but easily ranked last in satisfaction. My target fish was the burbot AKA cusk. I sincerely don’t think my fishing guide knew the difference between burbot and bourbon.

I originally had planning going on with another guide, but issues at home caused me to scrap planning for Maine as it’s date conflicted with the issue. I resolved the issue at home shortly before my trip and added Maine back in as first stop with an all in one call for a lodge and guide. That was a mistake.

I should have taken the time and extra planning it took to call my original planned guide back and go through those variables of planning we had discussed. Well, it was what it was and so I took ownership of the mistake.

So as in Hawaii I found a way to make the best of it despite a distracted guide that had a full time job of maintaining the lodge and cabins of this resort. He had obviously worked late the evening before. So I hit the lake early on a snowmobile following a sleepy guide.

I had never ridden a snowmobile but one came with my ice fishing and cabin. There’s a first time for everything and so I got some time in snowmobile riding on this frozen lake. It became brutally apparent early on that this lodge custodian didn’t know much about fishing.

So I got him to take me to where he suspected fish may hang out but had no luck setting up tent there. Meanwhile it was brutally cold between 10 and 20 degrees. He did do a good job taking care of all the meals bringing some fully prepared and fully preparing some there.

So snowmobiling became part of my Maine highlights, but it is all about the fish when I go fishing. Although I was already planning a complete do over in my mind for Maine, I still wanted to get on the board on this trip. This was much too far from Texas to end up with a goose egg.

After riding a snowmobile all the way across this lake and back, eating three meals prepared or cooked on the lake, wondering why I didn’t leave Maine off this trip, I went back to my cabin that had no TV, and cleaned up.

This place was so far in the middle of nowhere a TV wouldn’t have worked if I had brought my own antenna. I checked. This froze over resort had one TV and it was in the bar in the lodge. So as I watched the Super Bowl at the lodge I made several new friends from ME, NJ, NY, CT and VA.

It became obvious by halftime I was the only one in this lodge bar that ordered diet coke all night. The personalities of my new friends changed with each drink but they were not bad. Just a crowd of people in frozen USA trying to create excitement watching the Rams score only 3 points which was more than I scored all day on the lake.

So the next day after suspecting fish at 3 locations, right before supper time a fish hit one of the tip-ups and started running. He was hooked before I got a hold of the rig but I set it hard again to make sure. I laughed out loud when I recognized the species. It was a lake trout.

My last guided trip was in Utah over 3 months before where I caught one lake trout at my last stop. As I laughed I hoped I was not starting myself a new trend with this count. Only one fish, so there was plenty of room in the ice chest on my first stop.

I didn’t have ice so I used fresh Maine snow to pack him in and then headed southwest to New Hampshire. I didn’t let the poor showing of Maine get me down. I knew enough about fishing with guides to know the rest of them were good ones on this trip.

The snowmobiling was different and I liked that, I had fun watching the Super Bowl with my new friends, and for the second time in a row and almost two thousand miles from home, one lonesome lake trout bailed me out and kept me from leaving a state empty handed.

Those of you that follow my fishing articles know I have had some really great times around this nation catching lots of different fish and I like to give credit where it’s due. Due to the quality of the guide, I will credit Maine for getting beat only by Hawaii in ranking at the very bottom of my guided fishing trips.

When I go back I will go with better planning starting by calling the guy I had to cancel and by focusing on only Maine. What I got on this stop was what one could expect from a custodian that was distracted by his real job, not prepared, and not experienced in fishing much less guiding.

But this trip was just getting started and my fishing was about to get hot while Fishing America through the ice.