fisheries go through peaks and valleys. Events such as floods, droughts, heatwaves, and harsh winters can all affect a fishery from one year to the next. Then there are the parasites and diseases that can change a fishery for decades—or longer. Invasive plants and fish can severely impact a fishery as well.
Regulatory changes usually—but not always—impact fisheries in a positive way. Eliminating the use of bait reduces harvest, and incidental mortality, and can help stop the spread of invasive minnows. Catch-and-release, slot limits, and creel reductions all result in fewer fish being harvested.
Fisheries can be quite resilient, especially great ones. They often respond well—and faster than most expect—to changes such as stricter regulations, habitat restoration, and reclamation. They can also rebound from what might look like a hopeless situation. One need look no further than the Madison River in Montana, which, after losing 90 percent of its wild rainbow trout at the peak of the whirling disease catastrophe, has once again become a marquee fishery.
While one fishery is down, another may be up. All fisheries have good years and bad years. Some fisheries can stay down
for a decade, and then seemingly overnight rebound to the point where they were before they crashed. Some fisheries experience explosions for reasons no one quite understands. Some keep chugging along year after year, with little if any real noticeable change.
Striped bass populations are famous for peaks and valleys. After hitting rock bottom a few decades ago, the Northeast striper fishery rebounded to a point where people were coming from all over the country to enjoy it. But recent changes have some concerned again.
I suspect that all the fisheries that are currently down will eventually rebound. They are great fisheries, and great fisheries usually do come back. I also suspect some others will fall on hard times in the years to come. But they too will most likely come back. And in many cases, bad fishing on a great fishery is better than great fishing on a bad fishery.
The List
This book is about great fisheries, those that have been great for many years and will hopefully be great for years to come. I give consideration to infrastructure—lodging, food, boat launches, fly shops, guides, and so on. This makes a great fishery even better. I also give consideration to regulations, such as artificial lures only, fly fishing only, catch-and-release, and slot limits, which all help to improve the overall experience.
By far, the biggest challenge in writing this book was coming up with the list of waters. If the list was not solid, the book would suffer. There could be no glaring omissions. But there should be some surprises—regardless of whom I might upset.
I had to look at the waters in an objective and unbiased manner. This meant potentially leaving out waters I wanted to cover for professional reasons. In some cases, it meant omitting waters where friends, peers, and associates had a financial investment. In other cases, I would be directing anglers to a fishery that some people I know would rather I did not.
Each fishery had to be covered in a way that did it justice within the space available. To write about the Swift River in Massachusetts, and not write about the river below Route 9, would be a disservice at best. Conversely, trying to cover rivers as large and diverse as the Kennebec in Maine in just a few pages would present a challenge.
This book is about fly fishing. While fly fishing is often associated with trout, it is not exclusive to trout. While trout are often associated with moving water, they are not exclusive to moving water. As a result, this book is not exclusively about trout or moving water. It is, however, primarily about trout and moving water, as this is often the
best, and most popular, fly fishing available in the Northeast.
The Northeast’s primary saltwater species—striped bass or stripers—can be found up and down the coast. I have chosen a few destinations based on their overall quality and reliability.
Smallmouth bass are popular gamefish in the Northeast. In many areas they are the only game in town. They also offer season-long fishing in areas where the trout fishing falls off in the summer due to warm water. As such, they deserve a place in the book, and they get one. So do pike, which have gained in popularity over the last decade.
Last but not least, while clearly not as popular with today’s fly fishers as moving water, lakes and ponds deserved to be covered to at least some degree. I looked at stillwaters across species, giving coverage wherever I felt it most warranted.
So this is how the list, and by default the book, came to be. I hope you enjoy what is presented and find the information useful for years to come.
Note that waters are presented from north to south and east to west by state, and then north to south and east to west within states. This was done to provide some level of geographic continuity so that readers could easily locate the waters closest to them, or closest to a given area.
A Quick Word on Infrastructure
In a sincere attempt to provide the reader with some level of help in regard to locating fly shops, outfitters, guides, lodging, and food, we have included some general contact information pertaining to each.
This is by no means an all-inclusive list, nor necessarily even a best-of list—just what was available to us at the time the book was written. Lack of inclusion does not imply anything about a given business—just that we were unable to include it due to space, access to accurate contact information, knowledge that it existed, or that we simply forgot it.
It is also important to note that businesses come and go—especially these days. Businesses that have been there for decades can close overnight and without warning. New businesses pop up to take their places. Addresses, phone numbers, websites, and email addresses can change as well. Businesses change hands. And like fisheries, businesses can go through good times and bad times.
Be sure to contact businesses ahead of time to make sure they will be there to serve you when you arrive. In addition, it never hurts to search around the Internet a bit to see if any new businesses have come to the area since the book was written, or were missed by the author, editor, or contributor, or were left out due to space limitations.
Below. Kennebago upper river moose. Rangeley Region Sport Shop
Overleaf. Bob Mallard on the Kennebago River. Diana Mallard
1 . Maine Arctic Char Ponds
Maine is home to one of the rarest salmonids in the country—and by
