Greg’s very first fish ever! He won’t forget this moment anytime soon.
Greg, my 11-year-old great nephew, is visiting us from far, far away. He is a city kid who has never held a rod in his hands before. He has asked me five times over the last two days if I can go fishing with him… Where should one bring a child who has no clue how to cast a lure, has a 5-minute attention span, and absolutely needs to feel a scaly creature on the other end of the line? One of those winning spots is the Androscoggin River below the hydroelectric dam in Lisbon Falls. I have visited that location in summers’ past to catch smallmouth bass and did well (see here and here for examples). The public access is found about 1 mile south of downtown Lisbon Falls on Route 196 (Lewiston Road) and is called the Pejepscot boat ramp (see The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer map 6 B2). This hard-topped launch is spacious and offers unlimited parking.
Most of the bass are on the smaller size but they still provide plenty of fun!
Past experiences have taught me that this section of the Androscoggin River only “works” upstream of the launch where the water is still flowing strong after passing through the turbines. Downstream of the launch, the river becomes a 20+ ft.-deep slow-moving reservoir that has little to no appeal for smallmouth bass. The section I plan to fish this morning is full of back eddies, fast and slow currents, deep areas next to shallow areas, emergent and submerged boulders, and multiple current seams. Such complex habitat is ideal to attract and hold river bronzebacks which can hide and pounce on unsuspecting passing food morsels. More importantly for me, the bass are numerous and aggressive and are not too fussy about lure presentation. As a bonus, I have rarely seen anyone else fish here, which blows my mind given the proximity of several large urban areas within a 10-mile radius, such as Lewiston, Auburn, Brunswick, and Topsham. That, of course, suits me just fine. The one slight negative associated with this location is that the traffic on nearby Routes 125 and 196, and on the bridge crossing the river, is quite visible and/or audible. So, do not expect a “wilderness” experience… Lastly, multiple spots along this short stretch of river are accessible by foot and can be fished from shore. However, a motorized or hand-powered craft will greatly enhance the angling experience.
Fortunately, the river yields enough larger bass to keep things interesting. This one was caught using a #2 Mepps spinner on an ultralight spinning rod.
Greg and I arrive at our destination at the Androscoggin River at 6:30 am. My goodness, is he excited or what! He has been a non-stop chatter box on the drive in. I better produce if I want to maintain my special status of his favorite great uncle! We launch the boat and motor up to where the Little River enters the Androscoggin River. The former is hardly flowing this time a year but the area where the two meet has a nice current seam. I anchor the boat on the inside of that seam and take a minute to explain to Greg how to properly cast with a spinning rod. I team it with my favorite river bass lure, i.e., a 4-inch pink (“bubblegum”) soft stick bait rigged “wacky style”. This is also a great lure for a beginner because it essentially fishes by itself and requires minimum input from the angler to function properly. As I am about to cast out the lure to show him how it is done, I tell him that I expect to catch my first fish in less than two minutes. He tells me to stop messing with his mind. I cast the stick bait towards the shore where the two waters meet, let it sink for a few seconds, and immediately set the hook and fight the first bronzeback of the morning. His jaw drops! Now it is his turn and I tell him that he will catch his first fish ever in less than two minutes, which he scoffs at. He casts out, sloppily drops the lure 20 ft. from the boat, and fumbles with the spinning reel. But the lure below does its thing and attracts the attention of another eager bass. By the time Greg removes the slack from the line, he excitedly tells me that he has a fish on which he successfully lands. We high-five each other!
Greg also gets to fight with a larger fish!
Those first two quick catches fully set the stage for the next 2.5 hours. We spend about 60 minutes mining the Little River/Androscoggin River current seam, catching ten bass until the bite slows down on account of all the commotion in the boat. We then motor up just a bit and let ourselves drift down the big bouldery run across from the Little River. We simply toss out the stick baits and let them move downstream with the current. That approach yields another four bass. Finally, we motor up towards the road bridge and let ourselves drift several times along the left shoreline (looking downstream) and passed the old granite retaining wall. The bass are stacked up over there behind large boulders, in between current seams, and within various back eddies. We coax another eight fish out of that section of the Androscoggin River. Multiple additional locations are found further upstream of the road bridge, but unfortunately, we have run out of time to check them out. Overall, we had a fantastic morning with lots of action. Greg is beside himself for having landed eight smallmouth bass (and missing a bunch more). Even though most of the bronzebacks are on the smaller size (12-14 inches), enough are larger to keep the fishing interesting and entertaining. I highly recommend spending sweet summertime on this small section of river due to its easy accessibility and abundant but underutilized smallmouth bass population.
The results: I caught 14 smallmouth bass (largest = 17 inches) and Greg caught 8 smallmouth bass (largest = 16 inches) in 2.5 hours of fast and exciting fishing.
Was the information in this blog useful? I invite you to share your thoughts and opinions. Also, feel free to discuss your fishing experiences at this location.
Tight Lines, y’all.
~ ~ ~ ~ ><« ({(« º >
