By Todd Mercer
OK, it wasn’t my first fish. My first fish was a red breasted sunfish caught off the big rock along the shoreline of my grandparents camp on Craig Pond in Orland, Maine. I don’t know how young I was, but I know pictures were taken of my and the fantastic beast. But, this is not the story of my first sunfish. This is the story of the day I caught my first real fish. Not that it was a game fish, rather than a warm water species panfish. Not that I hadn’t caught fish before, because I had caught fish, but always under the watchful eye of my first, and favorite fishing partner, my dad. This was the first fish I caught all by myself, with no father in sight.
In my formative angling years, I fished exclusively with my trusted, “Popiel’s Pocket Fisherman”. Sold by Ronco on TV infomercials. I can’t explain why for the life of me I chose this as my preferred rod, but I loved it. The Pocket Fisherman was easy to travel with. I could fold it up and put it right inside my tackle box. I didn’t get hung up in the alders while I was brook fishing and by gummy I could catch a fish in a mud puddle with that contraption. I carried that rod, and the tackle box that contained it, everywhere I thought I might get a chance to fish.
On May 25th, 1980, I was 9 years old, and obsessed with fishing. I was invited to visit the Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery in Orland Maine, by our neighbors up the street. I knew full well the hatchery was on Alamoosook Lake and I was sure to have a chance to cast a line, so I packed my tackle box and the pocket fisherman it contained and jumped in the neighbors car.
During the ride the other kids played games like naming the state on each license plate seen along US Rt. 1, and naming the landmarks we went by. But I was dreaming about the fish I might catch in each body of water we drove by. We crossed the Narramissic River, a shallow waterway traveled by Alwives from Penobscot Bay to Alamoosook Lake. We passed First Toddy Pond containing a wide variety of warm water species in the shallow rocky and often weed filled waters.
Finally I could see the corrugated metal roofed huts aligned like a fleet of semi trucks at Dysarts, with their roofs reflecting the midday sun. When the car holding the neighborhood championship kickball team finally stopped, my brother, sister and neighbor kids piled out and headed to the viewing pen. The viewing pen was filled with breader aged Atlantic Salmon. A pool filled with giant fish, calmly laying on the bottom like silver sided rockets, quietly waiting to strike at the impending rainstorm of food pellets.
While I like the idea of looking at big fish, I was lured by the siren call of a fish, and in my 9 year old mine, there was no doubt one of those salmon could have slipped out of the pool and was just waiting for me in Alamoosook Lake. After a quick glance at the captive giants, I headed down to the water.
On shore there were several other men fishing. I sized up my competition as I chose a spot among them, as confident as if I belonged there. I snapped an Al’s Goldfish onto my swivel and let it fly into the dark tannin stained waters of Alamoosook. I had a pretty standard retrieve going, snap the rod tip sharply, pulling the spoon quickly through the water and then pause and reel, let the lure sink, then start swimming before it shot forward again. Snap, pause, reel, reel reel, snap pause, reel, reel, reel. I don’t see any fish at the feet of the other fisherman. I don’t see the other fisherman catching anything, but I’ve only been here for a few minutes.
Cast, pause, reel, reel, snap, pause, reel, reel. The sun sparkled on the water like a set of . Wham, the fish hits and I’m startled to attention by the tug. I instinctively yank back like i was playing tug o war with somebody trying to steal my rod! I panic, as I often did when I had a fish on, and grab the line like I had forgotten how to turn the same reel I had used to effortlessly, pause, reel, reel, reel, a moment ago. I grab the line and pull hand over hand while I walk backwards, thinking, there’s no way this fish can get away if I get it on shore fast enough!
I walk back and pull until the fish until it was flopping unceremoniously on the gravel beach. THIS, is where I lost the salmon. I had hooked a salmon, fishing on my own on the rocky ledge above Roll Dam Campground on the upper West Branch of the Penobscot. In a similar hand over hand motion, I hauled the salmon up on the rocks where it flipped and flopped until it was off the hook and splash back in the water. For the record I had asked to borrow a net and was told they would “come running” if I caught anything. My calls were unanswered, and the silver beauty disappeared beneath the cold waves. My father heard about that one, I was angry at
having been denied a proper net to contain the fish, and here I was again, no net, and this great trout flopping about on the water’s edge. I was determined.
There would be no escape this time. I dove to the ground to wrestle the great beast, pinning it to the ground like Ric Flair and a “figure 4 leg lock”. Soon I had captured the great trout, and was holding it up to show the neighboring fisherman. It may be shadows of my memory, and somewhat exaggerated, but I remember all the other fishermen looking at me, with awed faces of jealousy and disgust with themselves. I can still hear them say “How could a 9 year old boy step in here and catch a fish like that”.
The brook trout barely fit inside my tackle box. It measured 13 ¾” and weighed 1.1 pounds, and I have never been more proud of any fish I’ve caught, of any size. Ralph Jewett, a local Principal offered to make a wooden copy of the fish, and, while I in my 9 year old brain was EXPECTING an exact replica carved and painted to look identical to the fish I caught, and while I may have been disappointed with the cut out block of wood, but 43 years later brings back some of my fondest memories now and reminds me of magical and exciting feeling of the tug at the end of your line. Thank You Mr. Jewett, for taking the time to trace out a copy of my fish and cut, sand and stain the fish silhouette, it’s more meaningful than any other trophy I have.
