Everything but the Fish
A Journey into the World of Fishing - Zach Smith
In this story, I'll cover my experience with getting into fishing after a long time spent not fishing. I saw lots of wildlife that I wouldn't have expected to see. The picture to the right has made me a little more scared of wading around in shallow water. It's a snapping turtle that's about a foot long, pretty scary. I realized that actually catching fish is about 10% of fishing, if you're lucky. Most of it is just sitting or standing by the water, wondering if anything is going to happen.
Machaias River
In the middle of the summer, I went on a trip to a super rural part of Maine referred to as the North Maine Woods. The map to the left shows the population per mile, and I was well into that area. My dad, grandfather, and I went to this cabin that's been in our family for years. I had no idea it existed until a few days before the trip. Running water was just added within the past 10 years, and all power came from a generator.
It's about 3 hours from Orono; the drive itself was interesting. First, the highway, then a 50 mph backroad, then a logging road, then 1 way paths that were barely as wide as the car. To say this place is rural would be an understatement. I imagine this is what people think of when they imagine Maine. We saw lots of wildlife, and I was terrified of seeing a bear the whole time.
Wildlife
Since there's >1 person per mile, the animals we saw weren't like the ones you see in Orono. Deer weren't as scared of us; that moose we saw didn't run away in fear, it finished drinking water and walked away like it didn't care at all.
The wild
It was eye opening to be in a place so unnefected by humans. Of course, lots of the surrounding area was and still is consumed by logging. We did get to see lots of untouched forest. The woods in Orono have probably been cut within the past 100 or so years, with smaller trees, less diversity, and less wildlife.
No ticks in the deep woods
As you can see in this picture, the woods there have something growing wherever something can grow. Like that tree growing out of a waterfall, that tree could be 100 years old or 20, without cutting it down, it's tough to tell. Walking through the woods up there was way harder than it is in Orono. The only thing breaking branches is the occasional deer, moose, or bear. The other thing that's mind-blowing to me is that there are no ticks there. They simply haven't made it that far north yet. We were trudging through the woods for days, and none of us got a single tick.
Oh yeah, the fishing was good too
The cabin we were in was on a small pond about 4 feet at its deepest, and with a simple worm and spinner setup, I was able to reliably reel in trout. Some of them over a foot long. Not trying to brag, since that pond has 0 fishing pressure, the fish were easy to catch, simply because they've never seen a lure before. I would be willing to bet the only humans some of those fish will ever see was us. In Orono, the bass population (especially in pressured areas like Webster Park) see and have been caught by anglers many times. The fish actually learn to avoid lures, and in even more pressured areas, like Boston, fish are super hard to catch because they see so many lures.
Images via Unsplash.
