Park my truck in the garage? Are you kidding? My boat is in there! Boats, actually -- two canoes and a Rangeley boat. One canoe is a lovely wood-and-canvas classic built by the late, lamented Andrew Weegar. That's my special-occasion canoe. The second canoe has seen some time on the water already this Spring. It's a 15-foot Old Town, just the right size for either two-person or solo paddling. It's light enough so that I can heave it onto the roofrack by myself, and big enough so that I can invite another angler to come aboard. When that happens, I always seat the guest in the bow, where they can't see how little work I'm doing in the stern.

The Rangeley boat, though -- now that's a beautiful boat. I admit, mine is not a classic wooden boat but a molded replica. Still, it possesses the sleek lines of the originals, the graceful flaring bow, the low sweeping profile in the water. When I slide the Rangeley off the trailer, heads turn. It's a very pretty boat to look at. Every time I open the garage door, the head-on sight of the Rangeley just about takes my breath away. And pretty is only part of the story. The Rangeley is about as seaworthy as a boat that size (17 feet) can be, and it rows like a dream, even against the wind or the current. I put her into the salt at Ferry Beach on Prout's Neck, where there's a wicked tide rip, and have no problem going with or against the water. Now that striper season is about to burst upon us, the Rangeley is coming out of hiding.

I had earlier experiences with a similar craft before I ever saw Rangeley or its famous boats: the Grand Banks dory. The Old Man was a Grand Banks captain for a good part of his life at sea, and as a boy I got acquainted with dories. There were always one or two tied up at the dock, and the fishermen didn't mind if we boys used them to row around the little harbor and fish for pollock or flounder. When impressed me most about dories was that we could practically stand on the gunwale, with the boat's narrow flat bottom nearly out of water, without fear of capsizing. The Rangeley shares that characteristic -- it's really hard to tip over.

Not that I haven't tried. One dead-calm evening on Quimby Pond I took a classic old wooden Rangeley out from the dock at the former Quimby Pond Camps and rowed as quietly as I could toward the northwest corner where four other boats were parked for what was an active evening caddis hatch. The pond was black glass. The air was so heavy and quiet we could practically hear each other's hearts beating. Every time a trout sipped an insect it sounded like a large rock hitting the water. That kind of evening. I let the boat glide slowly into position, a courteous distance from the other boats, and slid the mushroom anchor noiselessly into ten feet of water. Then I stood up, or tried to. Somehow I managed to trip over my own feet and pitched forward headlong, arms flailing, trying to regain balance in a now-rocking boat. I came down with a crash on the port gunwale, tipping the boat over far enough to ship water and shattering the calm with a clatter that could, I thought, have been heard in Oquossoc. When the boat stopped rocking and I looked up, eight pairs of eyes glared from under hatbrims, aiming mental WMD in my direction, and my embarrassment was so acute I must have glowed in the dark. I try not to think back on that incident too often, but when I do I can't help but think that if I'd been in anything but a Rangeley boat I would have swum home.