Fun on the river!

[davidlt89]

Sooooo, I get a text from my buddy Darryl (dhitch) asking me if I wanted to canoe down the little madawaska river in the morning. so I text back, becasue its the courteous thing to do and ask "what time?" He texted back and said around 8:00 so I met up with him and we put in at a dam on an animal reserve on the old Loring airforce base.
 
we had a little carry for the canoe but got it in the water. I immediately started drowning worms. Was not long and I had a brook trout about 10"!!!
 
Darryl started to fish not soon after but was using lures. Did not take long to loose his first one on the bottom. then we got out on shore to relieve ourselves and decided to take a few casts before getting back in the canoe. Darryl managed to cast across the river into a tree and lure two was gone!!
 
So we got back on the water and did not take darryl long to get hung up again. this time we got the canoe stopped and back up where he could get out and try to get his lure. As I was watching him, I noticed the great caution he was using, these lures are 5-6.00 a pop. then all of a sudden his pole snapped in half. Man, I could not help but uncontrobally laugh, it was just funny!!! Before all this happened, he managed to get 3 fish but threw them all back. We were not sure of the bag limits as compared to the aroostook river, and if we did get in to the aroostook river, nothing could be under 10" so we threw anything under 10" back.
 
Now it seemed I had a helmsman to get me into the good spots!!! here is a pic of my trustworthy partner.

 
Not much longer I picked up this nice 13 1/2" brook trout.

 
It was real windy out with gusts probably up around 30mph. We were getting into some good rapids and a gust of wind picked up and we started heading towards a few blow downs haning over the river. Darryl let me know I needed to get my paddle out so I reeled up as fast as I could and got the paddle. My main intention was to stop us from ramming the trees but I hit the trees wrong with the paddle and they knocked it out of my hand and it went downstream. I grabbed the trees in time to see the tip of my pole ram the trees and snap off!!!!!! My heart sank!!!
 
For some reason, I did not uncontrolablly laugh when my pole broke, Darry was smiling a little. Then he asked me to pick up my paddle which I informed him that it had gone "down stream". I was then informed that he hand made that paddle himself. Neither one of us was smiling then:grin:.
 
Got about a 1/2 mile downstream and darryl seen the tip of his paddle in some deadwood, so we managed to get it back. We can thank God for that one.
 
So the rest of the trip did not entail any fishing, but we did manage to see 4 eagles, 3 deer, one beaver which came up right in front of the canoe, and one muskrat, along with many ducks and geese!!!
 
Darry had told me this trip would take 2-3 hours but it really takes 7;). All in all, I have not gone a trip like that since I was a senior in highschool!!! We did have some fun, and found some beaver houses, but not enough to justify using a canoe to trap.
 
Here are a few more pics of yours truly!


 
Here is a picture of our "broken" poles!!!

 
God Bless.

[gitano]

I don't think I'll need to be reminded not to go fishin' with you guys! Although some wild brookies would be very coo!

I'll bet it was a great day!

Paul

[davidlt89]

I don't think I'll need to be reminded not to go fishin' with you guys!

I am really fun to go fishing with Paul:grin: Really!
As for breaking poles, I have had that pole for 20 years!!! I did manage to get online and find another, I also ordered my oldest boy one!!!!!

As for losing lures, that goes with the territory when you canoe down the river. It is virtually impossible not to with trees downed in deep water that you cannot see. of course, one can control casting into a tree;)! God Bless.