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Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Worth the Wait
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||
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I looked ahead of her, but the lure was nowhere to be seen. Then I heard a splash behind us. "Grace," I said to her, "I never really know where your casts are going to go." She paused a minute, thinking it over. "I don't either," she said. But that night, it didn't matter. That cast, her first, landed her a dime bright 18-inch striped bass, fresh from the sea and points well to our south. More casts brought more fish. Our jigs would hit the water, we'd take a turn or two of the reel, then feel that tap, tap, tap and set the hook. A few head shakes, a short run and a bobbing rod tip later, these little stripers would come beside the boat on their side, spent. We'd unhook them, and just as quickly they'd kick their tails and disappear into the green water below. The fish had corralled bait in a small saltwater cove near West Bath, on the central Maine coast. Marsh grass lined its edges and white pines framed a deepening blue sky above, the first we'd seen in more than a week. The sun, low on the horizon, lit the opposite shore of the river and cast the waterfront houses in golden light --a light unique to our coast. We'd come out on the boat to celebrate. Summer -- warm weather, blue skies and the fish -- had finally arrived in Maine. Others, apparently, had the same idea. A heron stalked the waters edge, pecking at the water with the precision of a surgeon. Two eider ducks, mottled and brown, led ducklings around the cove as if on a string. Canada geese honked somewhere in the distance, alewives flipped and broke water in the main channel and black duck wings whistled overhead. June along the Maine coast, and particularly in the Kennebec Valley, is a celebration of life. Where for so many months there is nothing but ice and snow and gray skies, suddenly, in what seems like a day, there is life everywhere about us. The stripers, most of them under 20 inches, swarmed our bucktail jigs -- so many that we often found ourselves pulling the lures from their open mouths beside the boat. In just an hour, we caught more than a dozen fish apiece. Each wore a bright silver side, with a copper green back and dark stripes along its flanks. Most of them had sea lice fixed to their sides -- a sign they were fresh from the sea. These small stripers, known as schoolies, are the first to arrive in Maine from the Chesapeake Bay and the more southerly Atlantic, where they winter in warmer waters. This year, huge schools of small fish have arrived in Maine -- more than have been seen in years. Maybe that means the stripers had a successful season of spawning two or three years prior, when these fish were born. Times like these -- short seasons of bounty -- are what make Maine special -- and different. Sure, there may be year-round saltwater fishing in Florida, bigger bass in Texas and winter trout fishing in Colorado. But here in Maine, we earn our fish -- one wet, cold and snowy winter day at a time. So when they do show up: swarms of mackerel, breaking stripers, or trout dimpling mayflies on a northcountry brook trout pond -- we feel a sense of exhilaration -- and sometimes relief -- and deservingly so. These are things that those of us who spend time outdoors wait all year for -- signs of a new season to come. In today's busy world, fewer and fewer people find time to see, and appreciate, these signs. As our evening ended and the sun set over the pines, we saw a swirl near the mouth of the cove. Grace launched another cast. This one hit the mark. She jigged the bucktail. We saw a flash of silver in the water. The reel whined. They're back. Dave Sherwood 621-5648 dsherwood@centralmaine.com |
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