North Oxford, Maine

First day in Rangeley was a bit of a rough start for the Maine trip. Left at 5 am to get to a lake I had in mind for 9. My plan was to kayak fish for arctic char, until I realised my fish finder broke. One of the positive wires for the battery came disconnected, an easy fix, except when you're in the middle of the woods. My plan was to target char on dropouts, as the lake goes from 20 to 100 feet rather quickly. Without my fiahfinder, I would be blindly vertical jigging, which did not sound enticing to me. So, I switched it up and drove another 1.5 hours to pond in the river. By the time I got everything set up, I was paddling at noon. I spent an hour trolling the shorelines of the lake and taking some casts with streamers with no luck, before I headed to the inlet of the pond. I spent about 3 hours throwing all different kinds of streamers along with some nymphs, but had nothing work. I did see a brook trout follow my streamer in once, but as it got closer to my kayak it swam off. After a long day, I decided to paddle back empty handed. Half way back, I started to see fish rise. Sure enough, a little smallmouth took my nymph. Along the way back, I saw a ton of 10" and smaller smallmouth, although I only ever got the one to commit. While I had high hopes for the fishing, it didn't pan out twice, although I beat the skunk. I can not be complaining though. It was a perfect day to be paddling on the water. Perfect temperature, almost no breeze, clear skies, and the trees were as peak as you will ever see the fall colors. My photos of the trees are not edited, I used mother nature's saturation. Hopefully can make it back here next year, maybe get to the Rapid in the morning again instead of at 1pm.

Today was an amazing day of fishing. I landed 4 brook trout between 12-16". I've been planning this trip to the Rangeley Region for more than a year now, and finally I was able to make it here. My original purpose of the trip was to try and catch arctic char. According to Maines website, there are vhat in Long Pond. However, I called up the local tackle shop last week to tey and get some info on how to target them, and they told me that many people have asked about the char but they've never heard of someone catching one. Hopefully I will be able to head further north next year to try and catch one This is not an easy spot to get to. There's about 20 miles of dirt logging trails before there is a gate and you have to walk the rest of the two miles. I made it to the gate just before sunrise and luckily was able to walk in with someone else who got there at the same time. He was telling me that the last time he was on this trail, a bull moose wandered out of the woods and started chasing him. Luckily he was on a bike. However, we were walking to the river on foot today. We were the first people on the river, which meant we got the first hole. I was using my euro rod to nymph the run and caught the first 2 broom trout of the day. After an hour, more and more people started to come, so I moved on as proper etiquette. The rest of the holes were not producing fish for me. It wasn't until noon when I got the 3rd brookie. I moving spots and just had my flies in the water when he snatched it. The first 3/4 fish all came on a 14 pheasant tail with an orange ice dub collar. The final run that ran into pond in the river was very good to me. I lost 2 fish, moved a 3rd, before finally hooking the 4th. All of them were from swinging a black streamer. The walk back to the car was sketchy. A 30 minute walk alone in the woods, just waiting for a 1500lb bull moose during rut to come rushing through the trees. Even though it was an amazing day of fishing, I am not going to be doing that walk again.

Continued using two hook set up with nymphs. Successful day hooking up. Small Copper Head was to their liking.

Nymphing tonight. White Hares Ear and a Green Coper Head.

Pond in the River day of fishing. Dual fly set up. Nymph and egg.