The heydays at Branch Lake

By V. Paul Reynolds

For youngsters like me being “brought along” in the Maine outdoors, the 1950s were an era made to order. No cell phones, video games nor other electronic gadgets to distract our attention. Fabulous fishing in those days got me hooked at a young age.

As a sport fishery, Branch Lake in Ellsworth still offers anglers opportunities at togue, landlocked salmon and smallmouth bass, but, despite its historic potential, it is not the fisherman’s nirvana that it once was.

Flashback to a 10-year period between the mid 1940s and 1950s. Branch Lake was the place to go, ground zero for big togue, brown trout and salmon. As a youngster, with a father who loved to fish and bring his boy along, the memory for me is vivid even today, 70 years later! In those days, anglers put in at the fabled Hanson’s Landing, then operated by Allie Hanson. You could buy live bait there, rent a row boat and if you caught a nice one, Allie would weigh your catch and put your name on the big chalk board near the boat ramp.

My father fished with an Old Town sponson square stern canoe moved along by an old “kicker” outboard. At lunch time we put ashore at the sand beach, which was remote and accessible only by water in those days. A few times we tented overnight on that beach. We caught fish, too, and got our names on the big bragging board. My claim to fame as a 14-year-old novice angler was an 8-pound brown trout caught in May on a tandem streamer fly, a Grey Ghost as I recall.

How good was the fishing at Branch Lake? You would not believe how good it was! As evidence I offer a glimpse at a Branch Lake scrapbook loaned to me by Beth Smart, lifelong Branch Laker and volunteer historian for the Branch Pond Association.

Here are a few excerpts

1. 1944, April 25, ice out and the smelts are running.

2. 1944, May 6 The catch, according to the Hanson chalkboard, included 15 fish that day, among the mix a 10-pound togue and five brown trout all over 4 pounds.

3. 1955, May 14, the board lists a total of 15 togue, salmon and brown trout. Guy Carroll, a die-hard angler and father to a man I served with in the U.S. Navy, boated a 10-pound brown trout, and became that year’s recipient of the coveted Allie Hanson Trophy.

4. 1955, May 20, Bill Stymiest, father to another friend of mine, the late Air Force fighter pilot “Sandy” Stymiest, boated a 7-pound brown trout.

5. 1953, May, John Flynn of Bangor caught and landed an 11-pound brown trout, which may be the largest brown ever recorded from Branch Lake.

What stands out to me in poring through the scrapbook is the incredible brown trout fishing once offered by Branch Lake, especially during that decade. Today, any brown trout caught in Branch Lake must be released at once. According to retired fisheries biologist Greg Burr, the state discontinued the stocking of brown trout in Branch Lake years ago. In a 2001 brown trout paper by John Boland, he reported that “ Branch Lake in Ellsworth and Reddington Pond in Carrabassett Valley are the only two waters in Maine that have principal fisheries for wild brown trout.” 

The first documented introduction of brown trout in the United States occurred in 1883 when the species was imported from Germany and stocked in Michigan. Following this, other states, including Maine, began to acquire and stock brown trout in their waterways, as a way to give anglers a more diverse sport fishery. 

As a rule brown trout are not as easy to catch as salmon, which makes salmon a more popular game fish. But anglers found browns to be an angling challenge, and, as indicated above, these German imports thrived in Branch Lake in the 1950s, many weighing close to 10 pounds.

Perhaps it is time for Maine’s sport fisheries managers to revisit this issue of stocking brown trout in Branch Lake.

The author is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide and host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network. He has authored three books. Online purchase information is available at www.sportingjournal.com.