Angling Publications - Index

Angling Publications - april2008 - Index

JOHN STINNETT PHOTOS
Like many anglers who visit this place and fall
under its spell, you will undoubtedly try the
Dam Pool, where in early June a dry-hackled
stonefly in size 8, allowed to drift downstream
and be sucked under by current, will draw
strikes from holding salmon. It’s a great way to
break the ice with a fish or two before you go
exploring. Most of the best pools require hiking
to get there, but the more remote they are
the less disturbed they will be. You’ll come to
appreciate that, and walk in willingly. The fish
are often large for such a small place, and one
often feels that its salmon are more like wild,
sea-run fish. The small size of the river allows
comfortable fishing with a 5-weight or less.
In the early season, a few weeks after the
beginning of May this far north, the salmon
and brook trout move into the river following
spawning smelt, and experience teaches the
best angling opportunities exist when the river
is running under 400 c.f.s. Some anglers fish
large dry flies—like size-8 Wulffs—regardless
of conditions, though small, light caddis
are more common. Others use traditional
streamers, like the Black Ghost (I like sparse,
marabou versions), and the woolly bugger
supplants many traditional ties. The fish stay
deep, however, even after the smelt leave, so
stick with subsurface stonefly nymphs and
copper Barrs in various colors, caddis pupae,
and mayfly nymphs.
About the first week of June (continuing
through mid July), the hatches begin and the
quantity of fish per day increases—as does the
effectiveness of floating flies—but the average
size drops somewhat. That trend continues
through the summer, with the quality of the
fishing dependent upon the amount of rain
and water in the river. Late summer gets the
stoneflies actively procreating, before the really
big guys show up to spawn in October
and November. That’s the time to go back to
the sinking line and fool the residents with
imitations of egg-stealing baitfish. Fall can be
great and less crowded, with salmon and trout
in virtually every pool by September. If possible,
plan to be there to fish weekdays when
others are working, because even though
remote this becomes a popular place.
Dam Pool, almost under the bridge at
Kokadjo, is a deep pool well supplied with
oxygen, where fish hold regardless of the numbers
of anglers. Dump, Corner and Warden’s
Pools are accessible via a hiking path on the
north side of the river. Other pools are best
reached from a gravel road on the north side
of the river where turnout parking is available.
There is a rough—and I use that term
advisedly—foot path connecting Flatlander,
Highlander, Corner, Spring and Slaughter
Pools. They are smaller, and fish fairly quickly.
There is then a long stretch of pocket water
before reaching Ledge, Flat Rock and Moose
Hole, and finally the Lake Pool.
Friends who have fished this stream have
done so mostly in September, finding some
surface activity with mostly smaller fish on
emerger patterns and caddis dries, but the bigger
brookies and salmon were all taken on subsurface
flies. Dan Legere’s Roach River Robber
is a go-to pattern, as its silhouette is much like
both baitfish and long-bodied nymphs, swung
through pools manipulating the rod tip to
cause a twitching and tumbling motion in the
fly. The motion seems to attract more strikes
with this fly (as well as other patterns) with
salmon and brook trout ascending the river to
spawn. This is a principal spawning tributary
for Moosehead’s prodigious salmon and brook
trout populations, and a critical nursery for
immature salmon for a few years before they
venture into the open water of the lake.
Visualize yourself in one of the less traveled
pools early in the morning, with a bit of
mist over the surface on a June day. It’s false
dawn with light enough to see, but still there
is no real sun on the water. In midstream,
near a submerged rock you think there was
a movement, then surely a flash near the
bottom. As you strain to see, your peripheral
vision picks up another movement, and you
turn your head to find a moose fifty yards
upstream looking at you. It stays in the water
watching, moving slightly on occasion,
and you note that shortly after Bullwinkle
shuffles his hooves, the fish move in front
of you. I wonder, you muse, and place your
size-8 black stonefly in a drift lane to bring
it past the activity, finding yourself immediately
fast to a nice salmon. The young
bull is curious and holds his ground, as you
measure the time as five salmon past the
by Bob Rifchin
creature’s arrival. Finally there is a noise in
the woods and the moose moves off, leaving
the opportunity for you to add a nice brook
trout to the morning. The sun is up, the
morning just beginning, and you’ve already
had a miracle. What more could happen, you
ask, as you quickly turn toward the sound
of a big splash, only to see a black bear with
two cubs cross where the previous visitor
had vacated. Such things do happen in the
Maine woods, this being the second time
I’ve experienced “moose-aided fishing.” The
camera, of course, was in the truck!
The Ponds
Stretching for about 15 miles, there is a
chain of seven connected Roach Ponds beginning
at Kokadjo. First and Second Roach are
almost urban for this part of the world, developed
along their southern shores with roads
and boat launches, and smelt spawning streams
3/4 of the way up the shoreline. In addition to
the trout and salmon, there are lake trout here,
as well, and the feeders, shallows and connector
between them all attract fly fishermen in May,
where smelt imitations are the flies of choice. A
very sparsely dressed Green Ghost (marabou,
of course) is my favorite on this water in most
cases, though when the water is cold and the
light low, one never knows what might show
up for dinner. Small Clouser-type smelt patterns
also work well, keeping your flies near
bottom where the fish are.
Third Roach is best accessed by a 100yard,
near-miss gravel track on the north
side, and is predominantly a brook trout
pond, although there are a few salmon.
Fourth Roach is the site of several splake
stockings, and this hybrid is present in good
numbers. The rest are remote trout ponds,
dependent on the anglers best vehicle to
reach solitude: his feet. It is obvious that
the population figure on the Kokadjo town
sign—“not many”—refers only to the number
of people, and has no application to the
number of angling opportunities.
Bob Rifchin is Fly Fish America’s Northeast
Regional Editor, and lives in Natick, MA.
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