Grand place for fishing in Maine

GRAND LAKE STREAM, Maine — From his seat at the square stern of his Grand Lake Stream canoe, master Maine guide Randy Spencer points to a splotch of light-colored water along the shore of Big Lake.

“Put it right in there,” he instructs.

My companion, photographer Bob Bukaty, casts the line 30 feet, dropping the yellow-and-red popper fly in the middle of the target area, a gravel-bottomed spawning bed where a male smallmouth bass may be hovering over eggs deposited by the female.

The payoff comes a few casts later, when a bass snaps at the fly. Bob sets the hook, plays the fish and deftly brings it in.

Repositories of wisdom and experience, registered Maine guides are known first and foremost for taking their clients — known as sports — to places where fish and game are big and plentiful.

Guides are more than mere fish finders: They are friendly companions, gifted storytellers and masterful campfire chefs whose expertise assures a safe and memorable experience.

The day begins around 7:30 as guides and pickup trucks with canoes in tow line up outside the lodge like chauffeurs and limos in front of a grand hotel, waiting for the sports to finish breakfast and begin a day of fishing.

The scene outside Weatherby’s, one of several lodges here, brings together three traditions that for more than a century have lured anglers to this village at the end of a 10-mile road in the eastern Maine woods: the guide culture, the distinctive Grand Laker canoe and the storied fishing lodges.

A former industrial community, Grand Lake Stream remade itself into a haven for sportsmen, principally fishermen who were drawn by the chance to match wits with landlocked salmon, bass and lake trout, known as togue.

The town, with a year-round population of about 150, is bisected by the three-mile-long stream of the same name, which links 15,000-acre West Grand Lake with the slightly smaller Big Lake.

In the center of town is the Pine Tree Store, where vacationers and locals alike can pick up sandwiches and a six-pack and share local gossip. The store is well-stocked with souvenirs, flies and other fishing gear.

Guides, who get their coffee free, congregate at the Liars Bench, where often they can be found trading stories over a game of cribbage. The bench is not exclusively theirs, however.

“It’s for anybody. As long as you’re on the bench, you can say what you want,” says store co-owner Kathy Cressey.

The community’s heart and soul are the three dozen or so registered Maine guides who work out of Grand Lake Stream, which boasts the largest concentration of guides in the state.

Like Mr. Spencer and third-generation guide Arthur Wheaton, most of them are in their 50s and 60s. Mr. Wheaton guided sports while going to school and went back to it after retiring from a corporate career and returning to the area where he grew up.

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