A day fly fishing from a guest’s perspective! He also happens to be an amazing photographer!
Working the weekend has never been something I have been excited about. Of course, “work” never meant photographing a fly fishing trip via drift boat, down The Kennebec River at The East Outlet of Moosehead Lake.
Lakefront Cabins from the docks
This past weekend My family was invited by Wilson’s On Moosehead Lake to come spend the weekend fishing, relaxing and taking photos of a 2 – boat fly fishing expedition accompanied by 2 world class Maine Guides. I have not got around to writing my bucket list cause I am a wicked procrastinator and now if I ever do it will be one item shorter.
We arrived late Saturday night to a stellar moonlit sky with crazy, fast moving clouds and glimmering stars that just painted the most surreal imagery. It felt like some kind of fantasy land that you only see in video games or movies. I spent a good part of the overnight trying to figure out how the heck to capture it with a camera in a way that really conveyed the feel, not so sure I could ever accomplish that but Ill never stop trying. I did pause however cause I knew I HAD to get some sleep, cause in just a few hours we were going to be on the river with fishing poles in hand !
There was no need for an alarm, all three of us were up and ready to go. I don’t think any of us were taking for granted how fantastic this was going to be. We met our host and Master Guide Scott and his son, also a Master Guide Colby, along with one of their clients Will, out front of the cabin just a bit before sunrise and made our way up the dirt road to the rivers edge where they had already staged 2 totally bad ass drift boats all set up to go for the day.
The sun had not even broke the horizon as we were floating blissfully on the east outlet just below the dam. We had a couple
I think she enjoyed the drift boat trip and catching fish!
casts in and a couple nice fish were landed. It was as perfect of a morning as I could ask for, I thought to myself “We have coffee, we have a stunning landscape around us, and we are fly fishing The East Outlet on a drift boat, Are you F$%&$*ng kidding me ! This can’t be happening…but it was. You will have to excuse my edited profanity but this was pretty damn awesome ! It was quite honestly a dream come true.
The sun did break the horizon and there was almost no wind, it was the calm before the storm and it was amazing. We systematically fished one pool after another working our way down the river. In every pool we fished we made another memory and had another laugh. Watching these master guides and their client, Will, fish was like poetry in motion. The fish seemed to “turn off” for a bit. However these guys just started throwing everything they had at them. We tried streamers, we tried nymphing and I even tried just flat out begging at one point, cause it was clear I kinda sucked at this fishing thing.
Scott was nothing less than the perfect guide and host, treating us to a mouthwatering bbq at one of the most scenic locations anywhere on this planet. The only thing better than the view and atmosphere was the lunch Scott and Colby prepared for us. Once we were full and WE WERE ! I think I ate 4 Lbs of chicken, we were back on the boat and fishing our way home.
Scott Snell, Master Maine Guide shows them how it’s done!
It was at the last pool where these guys just put on a show. The fish “turned on” and Scott, Colby, and Will knew exactly what they wanted ! They were landing monster landlocked salmon and brook trout that were stunning and just plain huge. Dark was coming fast and even though the fishing was starting to take off, there was a storm of epic proportions on the way and we had to be adults for a brief moment and make the decision to call it a day.We scooted across Indian Pond, which if you are not familiar, is only slightly smaller than The Atlantic Ocean. I guess they couldn’t call it Indian Ocean as that was already taken. Anyway, it was the perfect end to the perfect day and somewhere in the midst of all that I did manage to get some “work” done and here are a few images from our time with Scott and Colby Snell of Wilsons on Moosehead Lake. I really hope I have to “work” the next few weekends said no one ever…until now!
Corey of Corey Cain Photography & Digital Art