Angling traditions endure in remote Maine village

GRAND LAKE STREAM, Maine -- From his seat at the square stern of his Grand Lake Stream canoe, master Maine guide Randy Spencer points to a splotch of light-colored water along the shore of Big Lake.

"Put it right in there," he instructs.

My companion, photographer Bob Bukaty, casts the line 30 feet, dropping the yellow and red popper fly in the middle of the target area, a gravel-bottomed spawning bed where a male smallmouth bass may be hovering over eggs deposited by the female.

The payoff comes a few casts later when a bass snaps at the fly. Bukaty sets the hook, plays the fish and deftly brings it in.

Repositories of wisdom and experience, registered Maine guides are known first and foremost for taking their clients -- known as sports -- to places where fish and game are big and plentiful. But guides are more than mere fish finders: They are friendly companions, gifted storytellers and masterful campfire chefs whose expertise assures a safe and memorable experience.

The day begins around 7:30 a.m. as guides and pickup trucks with canoes in tow line up outside the lodge like chauffeurs and limos in front of a grand hotel, waiting for the sports to finish breakfast and begin a day of fishing.

The scene outside Weatherby's, one of several lodges here, brings together three traditions that for more than a century have lured anglers to this village at the end of a 10-mile road in the eastern Maine woods: the guide culture, the distinctive Grand Laker canoe and the storied fishing lodges.

A former industrial community, Grand Lake Stream remade itself into a haven for sportsmen, principally fishermen who were drawn by the chance to match wits with landlocked salmon, bass and lake trout, known as togue.

The town, with a year-round population of about 150, is bisected by the 3-mile-long stream of the same name that links 15,000-acre West Grand Lake with the slightly smaller Big Lake.

In the center of town is the Pine Tree Store, where vacationers and locals alike can pick up sandwiches and a six-pack and share local gossip. The store is well-stocked with souvenirs, flies and other fishing gear.

Guides, who get their coffee free, congregate at the Liars Bench, where they can often be found trading stories over a game of cribbage. But the bench is not exclusively theirs.

"It's for anybody. As long as you're on the bench, you can say what you want," said store co-owner Kathy Cressey.

The community's heart and soul are the three dozen or so registered Maine guides who work out of Grand Lake Stream, which boasts the largest concentration of guides in the state.

Like Spencer and third-generation guide Arthur Wheaton, most of them are in their 50s and 60s. Wheaton guided sports while going to school and went back to it after retiring from a corporate career and returning to the area where he grew up.

Because the work is seasonal and unsteady with no health or retirement benefits, young people can't make a living at it, Wheaton said.

Across from the store sits a black granite monument, dedicated in 1997 to mark the 100th anniversary of both the Maine guide designation and the incorporation of Grand Lake Stream. Just down the hill, the state fish hatchery, built on the site of what was one of the world's largest tanneries, provides salmon for local waters.

The tanning operation went bust around the turn of the 20th century. By then, however, the area's bountiful waters had been discovered by fishermen from throughout the Northeast, who traveled here by steamer, rail and carriage.

Today's sports arrive by car, but the attraction is the same. Early season fishermen with light tackle come for the salmon that swim along the surface while the water remains cold. But by late spring, as the water temperature rises, bass fishing starts to pick up in Big Lake. West Grand Lake, deeper and colder, is known more for salmon and togue.

"The bass fishing is fantastic through September," said Spencer, as he took his 20-foot Grand Laker -- made from ash, cedar, mahogany and canvas -- onto Big Lake.

The sturdy canoes, capable of carrying a guide, two fishermen and hundreds of pounds of equipment, are fixtures in the town where they originated. The town's street signs -- in the same forest green as the canoes -- are carved in the shape of a classic Grand Laker.

With a 9.9-horsepower motor hooked onto the square end, Spencer's canoe shoots across the water to a spot where bass are biting. In some areas, Spencer takes a roundabout route to avoid treacherous shoals that can damage a canoe or its motor.

Within minutes, we are alone in a promising area of smallmouth habitat. The shoreline is an unbroken stretch of fir, hemlock, spruce and pine, with wooded hills in the distance and no cottages or docks in sight.

When Spencer cuts the motor, the air is silent, and it's easy to imagine that the landscape is just as it was when sports first visited the region more than a century ago or Indians fished the waters centuries before that.

On one of the lake's 28 islands, Spencer points out a large white cross planted near the shore to mark a burial ground for Passamaquoddy Indians who were quarantined after contracting diphtheria and other diseases brought by the white man.

Nearby, on a small outcropping, the guide points out an eagle in its nest near the top of a pine tree and cuts the motor to keep from disturbing the bird as we slip by. Soon after, we spot a loon adrift on the lake.

Around mid-day, Spencer pulls onto the shore at a site where the guides association maintains a fireplace and picnic table. There, a guide will light a fire and prepare a sumptuous meal that might include an hors d'oeuvre of fish caught by a sport that morning, chowder, a main course of chicken, steak or pork chops, and the traditional fried potatoes and onions.

Spencer demonstrated his chef's prowess by fileting Bukaty's two 11-inch bass, soaking them in his wife's secret marinade and frying them to perfection on the open fire.

While much of the fishing is concentrated on Big and West Grand, anglers are within easy distance of a couple dozen other lakes. If a day on the lake is not enough, some don their waders around 5 a.m. for pre-breakfast salmon fishing in Grand Lake Stream and may try again after dinner.