Page 84 - WCM-2021-Summer-Flip

Trophy Fishing Spots Revealed Leaving the Crowds Behind story and photos by William Clunie
Brook trout of every size are plentiful in Maine’s inland waters.
“Trust me – it’s much more
than casting a hook into the water.”
~ Denise J. Hughes
As I guided my truck off the pavement and onto the gravel road, the sun
had just started to rise above the peaks to the east. The clear sky and balmy weather promised a chance for a giant insect hatch, and a perfect morning for fly fishing in my favorite neck of the woods. The perfect environment.
The two-hour drive to get to this pristine location would have appeared to anyone as a good traveling distance to avoid a crowd, but when I pulled into the grassy turnout, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Several anglers were wading in the current, while just as many were crawling around on the banks, casting to and fro. I usually would only see a couple of folks here, maybe more on the weekends. Today the river was peppered as far as I could see, at least two hundred yards in each direction.
I walked to the river without my gear to talk with a few of the anglers and see if there was some kind of planned event taking place. The group closest to me chuckled and said they had heard about this location on Facebook, and wanted to see for themselves. Another group said that this was their second season up here, and that they’d learned about it from a fly fishing site on the Internet.
This new trend called “hotspotting” is a problematic method of alerting everyone about great fishing locations on social media sites that gets anglers focused and jammed into a few, specific locations. It’s too bad that these folks didn’t try and find a little place of their own. I stood and watched for about an hour, and nobody caught a fish. The large tangle of anglers positioned themselves at every “good spot” on the river, but were kind enough to offer one of “their” spots for me. I graciously declined.
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