Maine Brook TroutThe memory of the first fish I caught on a fly in Maine is a vivid one. A Maine fall Brookie! These fire engine red beauties are abundant in Maine and highly sought after. Myself, “Boz” and Jeremy went in search of a few of these gems yesterday and found a couple. The day was bright and Sunny when I jumped into the truck to meet Boz and Jeremy. The sun disappeared just south of Topsham, Maine. Overcast was the rest of the day which I always figure improves the fishing or maybe I just tell myself that to stay motivated. I picked up Jeremy and Boz and off we went. We started the day trying our luck casting to a few Salmon. Boz quietly said, “cast to that one, drop the fly right on his nose.” I missed the Salmon’s nose but he took the fly, I didn’t feel it and did not set the hook! At this point I was seeing cruising fish and casting to them but could not get them to take my flies. I amused myself by comparing this to bonefishing, another great species for sight casting. The salmon bite appeared to be dying off in this spot albeit not for lack of fish! We moved on to another spot. A short ride and some heckling over my missed Salmon, we arrived at our next fishy destination. Along a trail of bowling ball sized rocks and rod busting bushes we walked while Jeremy and Boz looked into the water along the way. Jeremy waved me over saying,”hey Greg stand on this rock.” He and Boz took turns instructing me how to cast to a fish they saw and then I’d hear a chuckle and they would say “no more to the left.” Another chuckle from the peanut gallery and the fish kept coming up but I think he was in on the joke too. Again from upstream I hear,”Greg come up hear!” I thought to myself, “he just wants to run me around and make me nuts!” I walked through knee deep mud, tripped on logs and finally got up on the rock and took a look, the bottom of the river was red with beautifully colored brook trout! Boz, using his skills from guiding on the West Branch of the Penobscot, said I had to get down more and tied on a stone fly and a dropper fly off the stone. Then he and Jeremy took turns showing me how to nymph correctly, yes both had different styles and I know they really just wanted to catch the fish themselves. They announced they were going upstream (thank god!) As soon as they were gone I clipped off the dropper fly and put on my own #18 red bead head nymph and caught 4 consecutive Brookies! When they returned from investigating the waters upstream, the 3 of us spent the last hours of light catching a few more beautiful brookies and even a couple salmon and brown trout. We all caught fish, had a few laughs at each others expense and all had a great day. Doesn’t get any better than that.