Skunked Again: To the Allagash!

Though I don’t have to write as if the Allagash is some lost wonder that eludes us, in truth, it is, isn’t it? It always surprises me the number of people who have never stepped foot in the 92 miles of Maine wilderness. For all of you who still have the chance, please go there and find out for yourself what a mystically scenic area Maine offers. For all of you who don’t plan on going or may never have the chance, read along and experience a first-hand encounter with Maine’s diamond in the rough.

You reach this neck of the woods like you do many places in Maine: via long dirt roads owned and frequently used by logging operations, an industry that has been a large part of this region for centuries. It’s a good idea to gas up when you have the chance, because it’s a long ride to get where you’re going. It means crossing endless streams, riding along mountain ridges and through the area’s countless tracts of land to get there. Eventually the road breaks away from the river and the various rafting outfits and continues deeper and deeper into the wilderness. I can’t stress enough that if it wasn’t for the logging industry, most of the roads we travel on wouldn’t exist and also wouldn’t be accessible year-round, so a tip of the hat to those folks. And, just a word of caution: Be sure to give the big trucks plenty of room because they’re sure to take it! Driving conditions can get sketchy during various parts of the year, but we hit it right this time and it was smooth sailing.

The posse I head up with generally stays on Chamberlain Lake, though other times we stay elsewhere depending on what our numbers are like and a general consensus of where we want to fish. The past couple years we’ve been unable to fish Eagle Lake due to the long snowmobile drive required, but we made a point to fit it in this year after hearing trail conditions were manageable.

After arriving at our lodge, known as The Farm, half-way up Chamberlain Lake, we unpacked our gear and claimed our beds (there was an accommodating eight beds upstairs and four downstairs so there was little quarreling). Our particular lodge had quite a bit of history, as did a lot of the region we were in. Back in the 1930s when David Pingree was looking for good timber to expand his logging enterprise, his eyes settled on the forests around Chamberlain and Telos lakes. The problem he faced was the water levels of the lake work differently than one would think; water flowed northward and would actually push logs towards competitors in Canada. To resolve this issue, and to the disappointment of many Canadians, Pingree constructed a dam on the north end of Chamberlain that raised water levels high enough to reverse direction of the flow, thereby bringing logs in the direction they wanted – down the Penobscot River towards Bangor. This plan worked and they soon built other dams in the same manner to access more of the valuable timber to the north.

Our cabin and surrounding land in particular once served as a place to grow oats and veggies for the horses and men working in the area; though hundreds of acres of tilled earth use to cover the landscape, only thriving flora grown in from the last 50 years grows there now. Buildings that littered the landscape have long since fallen or been taken down by the Maine Forest Service.

That morning, we crossed the lake and headed to Mud Cove, a convenient place we’ve fished in the past that generally yields a decent amount of trout. The rest of the group said they caught just as much fish that first day as last year, but it was slower paced for me: I was fishing for togue this trip and where my traps were set reflected as much. I figured I might have to wait longer in between fish, but once that fish comes it is worth the wait.

I eventually caught a beautiful 15- to 16-inch brook trout out deep where I didn’t expect to. I was happy to pull the fish, decorated in red dots, onto the ice. By the end of the day I had only caught that one brookie and a 21-inch togue — not the behemoth I was going for. The others fared well, catching just over 30 brook trout and a handful of medium sized lake-trout like mine. The impressive thing about these Chamberlain trout is their size; most of these “brook trout” are 14 to 15 inches long; if you caught one of these fish in an actual brook it would seem like a fish of a life time!

At one point I surveyed the encompassing wall of forest around me, including the massive pines that stretched powerfully to the skies. It will always be hard for me to believe that this wilderness as we know it used to be a functional little community, running full-steam-ahead in order to sustain the intense logging operation taking place. Though you may only see stretching lakes and sprawling forests 95 percent of the time, every so often you’ll spot signs and clues of a past not so long ago.

As a matter of fact, just on the shore of our camp on Chamberlain lay the remnants of a steam ship which used to bring logs to Telos Lake. The artifact seems so out of place out in the middle of nowhere that it’s hard not to imagine what the ship would have looked like in action. What the loggers left behind as used metal, or garbage, has since been weathered, worn, rusted, and ravaged by time only to become an iconic treasure of the past. If it wasn’t so heavy and cumbersome, it would probably already be in a museum. If you think old ship parts are cool, it pales in comparison to the two steam locomotives which stand proudly in the forest only a few miles away.

A Scare: Two Missing From Camp

Coincidentally, our trip up to the Allagash that weekend coincided with the trip of four of our friends who were staying at Nugent’s camps just south of us on Chamberlain. Two of the four made a trip up to Eagle Lake that morning to fish while the other two stuck around camp. We expected to meet up with all of them that later that night, but when we got back the two kids at camp reported the other two hadn’t showed up yet. We waited several nervous hours, thinking maybe the two guys were just late in heading back, but 8 p.m. soon came with no appearance of our friends. It had been a bitter-cold day and since the sun had set it had only gotten colder — it wasn’t a good night to get stranded in the Allagash wilderness. A group of five decided to go out on sleds to Eagle Lake (a handful of miles) to see if they could find the other two. After a little searching, they found the lost sledders, who were busy enjoying a nice campfire up on shore.

Hearing the story later, the fishing was so good our friends had fished right into the evening and got a late start heading back. After driving a good distance down Eagle Lake searching for the trail back to Chamberlain, they eventually turned around thinking they had gone to far, and began looking for the trail on the way back. It turns out they had turned around just before getting to the trail head. With time running out and only so much gas in the snowmobiles, the two did the practical thing: they set to work making a good strong fire.

One of the kids later said to me, “It stinks they found us, I was going to write my book about the experience!” I think deep down, he was relieved. To be honest though, as long as they had kept the fire fed they would have been golden for the rest of the night. Later on, we would all slip in to our cozy sleeping bags having learned something from our friends’ experience: to always bring extra beers in case of that unscheduled all-nighter in the woods!

My brother Tucker and I had been waiting on the couch for the return of the search posse. I guess you could say we were the search posse for the search posse, if they didn’t make it back to camp. The Allagash is a large, uninhabited place that is hard to navigate in the daytime let alone when it’s dark, so if it seems as though I’m embellishing the drama of the situation, I assure you I am not. A lot of people go wrong simply by underestimating the disarray a giant, island-ridden lake can cause when you’re trying to find the way back to camp.

A Big Laker

The next day our group headed right to where those other two had got lost: Eagle Lake. It’s a beautiful snowmobile ride over from Chamberlain, and we made our usual pitstop at the old abandoned locomotives. These steam engines of the early 1930s hauled logs from Eagle Lake to just north of Chesuncook Lake where they’d eventually float their way down the West Branch of the Penobscot River. When our group of nine sleds pulled down onto Eagle we made a group decision to fish off Farm Island. This was the day I planned to put all my traps in for togue, looking to hit it big. I personally don’t mind the slow fishing, and when there are a half a dozen guys with trout traps in, plenty of action is likely to ensue regardless of where I put my own.

Sure enough, flags went up everywhere on Eagle, and we found ourselves amidst another day of good fishing. This lake also produced the healthy 14- to 16-inch brook trout we had been spoiled with at Chamberlain. A few hours in to this fishing flurry was when I caught my big laker of the trip.

My traps were a long ways out from shore and I had to use binoculars to check on whether I had any flags up. My brother-in-law, Zach, who apparently didn’t stare at the sun as a kid, actually spotted one of my flags waving in the air before I could even find it using the glasses. Without seeing what he was talking about, I yelled, “Let’s go!” louder than I had to and we were off to the races. We met each other at the flag, and to my surprise, the reel was spinning like crazy when we got there—and with only a little line left. The problem with having your traps set so far from where you lounge is how long it takes to you to reach them after spotting a flag; that is, if you have a big strong fish on and it takes your bait and runs, you only have so much time to get to the trap before all your line is stripped out.

If you don’t get to the trap in time, then it’s up to just that tiny little knot you made when you originally tied the fishing cord to the spool. Conveniently, there were a few wraps of line left and I pulled the trap before the fish could take the rest of it. Setting the hook and briefly playing the fish, I eventually brought a fat 23-inch togue onto the ice. The fish had mainly swam towards the hole making it easy for me to pull in, but every now and then it would go against me, revealing how large of a fish I was dealing with. This ended up being my biggest togue – not the 10-pounder I was looking for, but quite a fish nonetheless.

At one point while hanging out next to shore, I heard a distant “Sam!” Spinning to see who was calling me, I saw Zach knelt down over one of his traps. When I arrived at his side it was clear he had a fish of some size at the end of his line. Zach had recently purchased an underwater camera and had been anxious to try it ice fishing. In order to utilize it though, he had to drill a separate hole next to each trap in order to get a good shot of the fish underneath the ice. I got out his telescopic camera handle, attached it to the base his camera, and dipped the contraption down the hole to see if I could catch anything going on. Here’s what the camera picked up, pardon the camera cord that floats by at one point.

A License Check

Everything had gone pretty smoothly for a day’s trip up to Eagle Lake. It was supposed to be windy but turned out to be very pleasant weather. It wasn’t until the game warden, who had checked all of our licenses earlier that morning, came back for a second visit that I realized our smooth streak was coming to an end. I was the first person he was interested in talking to. I had accidentally left my fishing license in my Carhartt jacket at camp, having switched to my windbreaker jacket when I heard what the weather was supposed to be like.

Usually when you forget your license it isn’t much of a problem, but this individual had run my information and come up with nothing. “I have my license” I assured him, “I get my combo so I have it all ready for when the moose lottery comes around.” Jared, another guy in our party, was also reported to not have a license, and coincidentally had also left his license back at camp. Forgetfulness aside, both of us were avid fishermen who had, in fact, purchased our permits online at the beginning of the year. The warden proceeded to tell us to pull our traps, which we did, though I think he disapproved in the pace at which we did so.

After the two of us eventually finished gathering our traps, the warden then ordered us to pack up quickly so that he, Jared, and I could head back to our lodge. Not realizing at first that he expected us to drive four miles back to our camp without waiting 20 minutes for the others in our party to get ready, Jared and I reluctantly broke from the group to show this guy what the computers at the other end of his walkie-talkie should have been able to tell him: we had paid our dues.

Though I understand its my responsibility to carry the license on my person, I didn’t leave without voicing my frustration with an online registration process that doesn’t actually register your name anywhere. Let’s just say the drive back felt like one of the longest snowmobile rides ever, being tailgated for four miles and only risking to check your dogsled behind you a couple times out of fear of being pulled over for swerving. However, it was only a quick “Oh…, huh….” back at our camp when he read both of our licenses and he was on his way.

That just goes to show you though, making sure your license is on you is the easiest way of avoiding trouble with the green men. Jared and I had a hot fire going and the camp nice and warm for the rest of the boys when they got back just a little while later.

We returned home at the end of the weekend in less than optimal condition; but as tired and weather beaten as we were, the Allagash had proven the same remarkable getaway we experience year after year. I didn’t get halfway back to my house before I started to look forward to next year’s trip. Happy fishing, Franklin County!