July 12 – 18, 2024Vol. 26, No. 5

True Stories of Maine Fly Fishermen

by Martha F. Barkley

I bought J.H. Hall’s True Stories of Maine Fly Fishermen for our son, but I ended up reading it first. The Montana chapter was how I became immersed in the waters of fly fishing. Boseman, MT is where our son does most of his fly fishing.

How the author travels to so many fly fishing locations, but Hall returns to Maine rivers and lakes in most chapters. His comparison of fishing in the Chesapeake and the lower Kennebec is pure poetry for me, a non-fishing observer only: “Perhaps it is the clarity or depth of water or proximity of the Atlantic, but the lower Kennebec looks black. The Chesapeake’s slightly milky shades of green fluctuate with the seasons, but the bay is never black. Both are beautiful…somehow comforting and soothing.”

Water in rivers and lakes and bays are observed closely by fly fishermen. Now as I sit by the lake I have new eyes to observe new happenings because of J.H. Hall.

Try a chapter or two and I bet you will be hooked. I sure was, and it is catch and release here in the Belgrade Lakes.

Photos abound in this book. Even father/son differences when it comes to fishing and sharing the sport or not.

Beautiful cover of pines reflected in the water and back cover with fall foliage beside the water’s edge. All photos by the author. Your kids would love the kid shots within the book of many black and white photos.

Nearby lakes have a few chapters, but I will not give away all of the author’s intriguing fly fishing tales. Go cast your line into the lake and read up on a very fascinating sport, even for me, a non-fishing person all my seven to almost eight decades of swimming and boating.

I even found four young men this summer sorting their beautifully made flies on a large picnic table by Salmon Lake. Such intricate work made by their large bulky fingers. Their proud dad was watching them work and sort and create.

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