Plight of the Pinkham Road Fishermen #57

Have you ever caught yourself saying, “Where did the time go”? Or “Wow, the year went by so fast!” I would wager that you have more than once. Well, that is exactly what I said when it was once again time to have the yearly get together of the group known as the “Pinkham Rd fishermen”. Why are they called the “Pinkham Rd fishermen, you ask? Pinkham Rd is where the camp is that we stay at and where we gather to fish, hence the name. I expect you could say that the name is very scientific on my part.

Every year, a group of us get together to hash over old times, and make new memories so we have something to talk about when we get together the next year. This year, we had folks from a few different states as well as from Maine. There was Mark who not only owns the camp we stay at, but also knows the North Maine Woods like the back of his hand. Then, there was Jeff from Pennsylvania who has fished all over the United States, but had never fished on a pond until last year when he joined us. Oh, and he was rewarded with his first pond fishing experience by snapping the tip of his Winston Rod off in the trees. Ryan was new to our group this year, but very much up to the test when it came to fitting in. Roger joined us again with his tall tales and adventures. We continue to encourage him to write a book on his endeavors and he says he might when he retires. I predict it will be a “Pinkham Road best seller” when it comes out, full of stories about Roger and every aspect of his life. The key is that each year he joins us, he has a new chapter to tell us about. I think he is currently up to chapter 14 as of this year. Then there was Matt. Matt was a Maine boy who grew up here and went to UMaine where he graduated. Eventually, he found the love of his life and they now live in Minnesota. Matt is an avid outdoors person who is quickly being voted the most likely to sleep in a tent while at the camp. See, he often raises the roof on the camp at night while sleeping. He disputes that claim each morning when he wakes up as he is removing his headphones full of music he listened to all night long. I think he is the only one there that really looks rested each morning when he wakes up, if you get my drift. Not to be forgotten is Jon. Now Jon is the quiet one who this year was charged with picking both Matt and Jeff up at the airport and driving them up to the camp. His patience is outstanding because it feels like Matt makes him stop at a lot of places on his way to Presque Isle from Portland. This year, they arrived with a sandwich that they each bought at Matt’s favorite sandwich shop in Bangor. I believe that was stop number four on their ride up.  Jon is also known as the photographer of the group. Each year, he brings his camera and takes a number of great photos which serves as a reminder of what we have done. Last year, Jon did a great job of capturing all the adventures, and we were all looking forward to getting his email filled with photos. Last year, I recall catching some nice trout on Peaked Mountain Pond and Jon, who was in my canoe at the time, was taking photos of them. As we got to the landing, I laid out the fish we kept on the picnic table and asked him to take one more photo. You could see him checking his pockets and his face becoming more and more concerned. Eventually, he let us have the bad news. All of the photos he had taken of the event were lost along with the camera. There was no question that the camera had been lost on the pond before we came in to the landing. At that moment, we swallowed hard, all knowing that the memories of our trip were down under, in the deep blue water.

Each year, I am responsible for getting the food and sending out emails a couple of months in advance to get the “party started”.  Those emails inevitably get the comments started and the challenge going between us all. Now, I still think that I hold the upper hand, because having fished these waters quite a bit, I know what the trout are taking and have those flies tied up and ready to go. And each year, I end up sharing those flies so they can have a good time. The result was that we fished a few ponds and caught a lot of trout. Each time, we would put the fish back, keeping none during our trip.

During one of our trips into a pond, I had one of those life altering things happen to me where I just wanted to sink to the floor of the truck and not come up for a while.  I was fortunate, or unfortunate, however you chose to look at it, to have Matt and Jeff in the truck with me as we were driving into this pond. As we got closer, we came upon a Maine Warden truck parked off on the side of the road. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see the warden just off the road in the trees watching some fishermen on the pond with his binoculars. As we were passing, Matt yelled out with a very loud voice, “Warden Service”. Jeff and I sunk in the seat and I said what the (blank) did you do that for? His response was, “They do it on North Woods Law”. Anyway, we continued on to the campsite, which was a short ways away, and there was a truck parked in the yard. As we got out of the truck, I looked back down the road and here he came. The face he was making was unmistakable and I knew we were not in a good place. As he got closer to us, he asked who yelled. Matt, stepped right up and said I did and I am sorry. He continued on by saying that he had been watching those guys on the pond and that they were using worms and Matt may have just messed up his day. He left us and walked down the path to get the fishermen. At that point, Matt looked at me and said,” We should leave right now.” My response was, no, you made your bed, now you are going to lay in it. Soon, the warden came back up the path, now with another warden, and accompanying him were the four fishermen. We kept our space as the wardens dealt with them. At some point, the warden came back to Matt and apologized for the way he had handled himself which I thought was quite professional. After the wardens were done with the fishermen, we talked for a minute and they were off. Interestingly enough, the fishermen did not go back to the pond choosing to pack up and leave. That meant that we had it all to ourselves, which was fine with me. I do expect that next year this will be a focal point of our discussions when we assemble again. Maybe we can have the first annual warden calling contest. Nah, I think not.

The sad thing about these gatherings is that they seem to end as quickly as they start and our four days seemed to end way too fast. Sunday morning came and we packed up and left the Pinkham Rd camp for Presque Isle. Once we arrived in Presque Isle, we said our goodbyes and talked about how we could not wait until next year. If the quick passage of time is any indication of how soon next year will come, I had better start planning right now. Can anyone say “Warden Service”? Oh, and by the way, things can happen year after year, because Jeff did indeed snap the tip on his Winston rod again. I expect that he and Winston will now be on a first name basis and they will want to know when he makes his trip to Maine so they can have techs on standby.