The 28th day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

Isectacio Salmo Salar Sabago

The real adventure began after we were all out of college and working at our chosen professions. The period between High School and the first salmon trip to New Hampshire was a busy time. College was begun and finished, marriages happened, careers were launched, children were born, and new groups of friends established. Fishing more than an hour away from home was moved down the list of important things to do It took eleven years, but that itch to roam is sort of like a bad rash the keeps coming and going. It’s always there, just takes a trigger to get it going.

It was somewhere around late April 1969 when Abe, Abe’s father, and I went to the lake to fish for salmon for the first time.

That is Isectacio Salmo Salar Sabago, or in search of landlocked salmon. Prior to this we had only heard heard about salmon in the big lake.

Landlocks are the same fish as the Atlantic salmon; however they live in a closed environments like a lake. They also do not run to the sea and then return to the rivers of their birth to spawn as do their Atlantic brethren. As a consequence most all of the fish in Lake Winnipesauke are annually stocked by the state. The mature fish are netted in the fall, the normal breeding time for these critters. They are stripped of their eggs and milt which are then taken to hatcheries to grow and thrive in order to provide for future generations.

The first salmon taken at the Bell Camp was not by one of our merry band of expert anglers, but the wife of our perennial host. Both Abe and I married girls named Sue. And it was always told to me that his wife, Sue, caught the first salmon at the camp in bright sunshine off the dock on a spoon called a “Daredevil”. However, the log for that day, also reports Abe as having caught a Salmon off the summer house that day as well. The summer house is actually a gazebo perched on the rocky shore line on a small point of land about 40 feet from the main house. The dock is directly behind and to the right of the summer house as we look from the water. When we fish, the boats all leave the dock and we race to see who can get a line in the water first. Many is the trip that the first fish caught was only fifty yards away from the dock.

This is the spot at which he caught his first fish. For years neighborly fisherman say that they would laugh at us as we leave the dock on our daily forays. Many would wait until we have left and then fish just about where this photo was taken. It is a favored spot amongst the local anglers who know the water. However, I contend that after forty years there is know one who knows these immediate waters better than we “The Expert Anglers”.

More pages from the log will show up here as I progress, but this is the one for June 21 and 22 of 1964. The fishing logs are incomplete, and our neglect at keeping an accurate record has plagued us over the years. I will endeavor to reconstruct as best as aging memory can serve.

The best time for fly fishermen, in our opinion, is immediately after the winter ice has finally melted for the season. This usually happens in late April or early May, but can be as early as March such as this year of 2010. The theory, and we have proven this to be an angler’s fact, is that the salmon (preferring mid fifty degrees) and lake trout (preferring fifty degrees) stay within the layer of water that offers the most optimum temperature for their species. It is sort of like we old folks moving to Florida when our blood circulation gets so bad that we need warm weather all year round.

The fish follow the temperature of the water up and down depending upon the season, sunlight, ambient temperature, and general weather conditions. Believe me; we have argued these factors like old dogs chewing on a bone that no longer gives sustenance or taste. At any rate when the water warms up in the late spring and summer, the fish will go deeper seeking that temperature they prefer. There is a brief time in the fall and early winter when the water temperature at the surface cools sufficiently. Then they will feed on the surface again, but generally only in the early mornings or late afternoons. Once the water freezes the upper layers of course cool, and the fish will sink again following the preferred levels. Finally, in the spring lake ice begins to melt and form a honey comb. Those small open areas within the honey comb fill with water, thus making it heavier than the supporting water and it sinks. All at once. The sinking ice forces the warmer waters at lower levels to rise and the fish follow to the surface once again. That is the time we want to be on the lake, early spring right after ice out. Dragging (called trolling by we experts) long fly lines with long leaders of wispy monofilament, and flies designed to represent the smaller forage fish.

Therefore, the time they caught these fish and reported to the log is all wrong. It was June (too late according to we experts), the wrong time of day (you play cards and nap in the middle of the day), and a bright sunny day to boot. We want overcast, fog, rain, freezing rain, or snow to complete the ideal situation. And maybe a slight breeze so that the fish don’t clearly see that which is just below the surface. Furthermore, the lure was made of metal and not feathers and shinny beads and therefore did not count in the daily pool.

But these were the seeds of a forty plus year odyssey.