June 25, 2007
Down by the river | Can cleaner waters on the Androscoggin and Kennebec rivers lure more anglers to Maine?
By Whit Richardson
Growing up in western Maine, Tom Remington used to have nightmares about the Androscoggin River. It was black and it stunk thanks to towns dumping their sewage, runoff from nearby farmland and waste from paper mills along the river. "It was a really scary thing as a kid because it wasn't presented in any way that was to be enjoyed," says Remington, who grew up alongside the river in East Bethel. "Parents would put the fear of God in you to make sure you didn't go down and play near the river."
That didn't stop Remington and his three older brothers from occasionally casting a few lines on one of the many brooks that feed into the Androscoggin between Gilead, near the New Hampshire border, and Newry. Remington still remembers when he and his brothers fished the mouth of the Bear River at the point where it feeds into the Androscoggin in Newry. The boys pulled up a few brown trout, but they also caught 15-inch chubs, or "bottom-feeding junk fish" as Remington calls them. "I remember the first one I pulled out: I grabbed a hold if it to pull the hook out of its mouth and the thing vomited this yellow, gross, oozy crap out of its mouth," Remington says. "And that was probably the last time I fished on the river."
Today, it's a different story. Remington, co-owner of Skinny Moose Media, an outdoor-themed website network based in Bangor, began fishing the upper Androscoggin again in the mid-1990s and often can be found casting into the river's many eddies looking to snag a brown or rainbow trout.
Remington isn't alone. Anglers are an increasingly common site along the river these days. They also rent rooms at the local inns, use local guides and shop at the local tackle shops. Even the Rite-Aid in Bethel has an aisle dedicated to fishing gear. "It's really quite amazing," Remington says, when he thinks about how the river has changed.
As a result, communities throughout Maine are looking at their rivers with fresh eyes, and instead of seeing the river of old ˆ the kind that gave children nightmares ˆ they're seeing a natural resource with vast potential as an economic development engine.
That's at least the view of a handful of groups in Maine, including the Upper Andro Anglers Alliance. The group, which was formed last year by a group of Maine guides, western Maine businesses and anglers, aims to promote the upper Androscoggin as a destination for fishing enthusiasts. Among its goals is to attract deep-pocketed anglers to western Maine to spend dollars in area inns and restaurants during the warmer months when skiers aren't carrying the local economy. "We don't have the big attractions in the summer, but we do have the tourist infrastructure," says Wende Gray, a spokesperson for the anglers alliance.
And it's not a false hope, says Bill MacDonald, executive director of Maine Rivers, a conservation group in Hallowell. He says Maine's rivers have what it takes to become economic drivers for the communities they pass through. For instance, MacDonald says Maine has 97% of the native brook trout habitat in the country. "We really have the opportunity to promote a fishery that will be a destination for people willing to spend a lot to experience a native fishery in a pristine environment," MacDonald says. "The value of protecting and managing our watershed and protecting native stock really yields a big economic return."
"Open sewers"
For most of the state's history, rivers like the Androscoggin, Kennebec and Penobscot were not much more than dumping grounds for industrial waste. Many residents followed suit: "When it was time to take the garbage out, you'd throw it over the riverbank," Remington, now 54, says of his childhood growing up along the Androscoggin, which 50 years ago was one of the top 10 most polluted rivers in the country. "Washing machine that broke down? You threw it over the riverbank. Out of sight, out of mind."
Not surprisingly, communities were built facing away from these "open sewers," says MacDonald. But since the rivers have been cleaned up over the past few decades, thanks to an increased local awareness and stiffer federal environmental laws such as the 1972 Clean Water Act, the rivers since the 1970s have been the focus of renewed efforts. "Now as rivers are coming back and providing great recreational opportunities, the communities are recognizing what great economic opportunities those rivers are," MacDonald says.
Skowhegan, for example, wants to develop a whitewater park for kayakers in the stretch of the Kennebec River that passes through its downtown. In Gardiner, local officials recently expanded a waterfront park to include walking trails along the Kennebec and a larger dock to increase public access to the river, and a local group recently held a shad-fishing tournament to help promote the fishing opportunities in the city. "I think the Kennebec is very high value to city," says City Manager Jeff Kobrock.
Fly fishing ˆ an $850 million industry in the United States, according to the American Fly Fishing Trade Association in Athens, Ga. ˆ will be a major draw for communities along the Kennebec River if the business community can organize and effectively market the river to anglers willing to travel, says Josh Platt, project director of the Kennebec River Initiative. The state-funded project, launched last December by a coalition of organizations such as the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine and the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments, has brought together communities, business owners and landowners along the river to discuss how best to protect and promote the Kennebec. Platt expects to release an action plan this fall that will include recommendations such as how to manage the Kennebec's fisheries and improve and preserve access to the river. "The idea is when you get people to come to town to enjoy that resource you'll get them buying gas and sandwiches," Platt says.
Building a brand
The goal, says Bill Pierce, a marketing specialist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, is to create a brand around the Androscoggin and the Kennebec. Both are big rivers that are close to a big marketplace ˆ in this case, the entire Northeast as far south as the Mason-Dixon line ˆ and they have the tourist infrastructures already in place to offer a comfortable vacation, as well as options for non-fishing members of a family.
Pierce draws parallels to the Madison River in Montana or the Yellowstone River that snakes through Montana and Wyoming. "Those are brands in the angling community that are highly regarded, like Apple and Microsoft are highly recognized brands in the computer industry," Pierce says. "If we create that energy around the upper Andro and the Kennebec, we will establish those as brands and people will come and spend money and they will have an economic benefit."
Phil Monahan, editor of American Angler magazine in Bennington, Vt., says Maine has the best fly fishing in New England, and could certainly become a regional paradise for anglers if it promoted itself more. But he doesn't think the upper Androscoggin or the Kennebec will ever have the allure a river like the Yellowstone does for anglers. "Fly fishing tourism to a certain extent depends on a sense of romance for the angler," Monahan says. "You just say 'the Yellowstone' to any fly fisherman and it conjures up images. I don't know how the town of Bethel can generate that same kind of excitement."
The rivers still aren't perfect. Dams ˆ even the ones with fish ladders ˆ along the Kennebec, Androscoggin and Penobscot still hamper the ability of fish to travel up stream to spawn, MacDonald at Maine Rivers says. And certain stretches of river ˆ like the sections of the Androscoggin after it passes through Rumford, Jay and Lewiston ˆ are still polluted. Even the upper Androscoggin still has consumption advisories for fish caught in the river. (Pierce says that doesn't dampen the tourism potential since most fly fishermen release the fish they catch.)
But there are niche-marketing opportunities: Mainers don't consider carp worth fishing for, says Platt, but Europeans love to fish for carp, which are abundant in the Kennebec and Merrymeeting Bay. "There are other species like that no one's thinking about," Platt says.
In the end, the rivers can be clean and stocked with fish, the inns can have made-up beds and guides can be waiting with their waders on, but without a local effort among businesses and the community to promote the rivers and attract those deep-pocketed fly fishing tourists, it won't work, says Platt. "Until you create a place when tourists can do a lot of things, the fact that you have a great fishery isn't going to bring people here," he says.
That didn't stop Remington and his three older brothers from occasionally casting a few lines on one of the many brooks that feed into the Androscoggin between Gilead, near the New Hampshire border, and Newry. Remington still remembers when he and his brothers fished the mouth of the Bear River at the point where it feeds into the Androscoggin in Newry. The boys pulled up a few brown trout, but they also caught 15-inch chubs, or "bottom-feeding junk fish" as Remington calls them. "I remember the first one I pulled out: I grabbed a hold if it to pull the hook out of its mouth and the thing vomited this yellow, gross, oozy crap out of its mouth," Remington says. "And that was probably the last time I fished on the river."
Today, it's a different story. Remington, co-owner of Skinny Moose Media, an outdoor-themed website network based in Bangor, began fishing the upper Androscoggin again in the mid-1990s and often can be found casting into the river's many eddies looking to snag a brown or rainbow trout.
Remington isn't alone. Anglers are an increasingly common site along the river these days. They also rent rooms at the local inns, use local guides and shop at the local tackle shops. Even the Rite-Aid in Bethel has an aisle dedicated to fishing gear. "It's really quite amazing," Remington says, when he thinks about how the river has changed.
As a result, communities throughout Maine are looking at their rivers with fresh eyes, and instead of seeing the river of old ˆ the kind that gave children nightmares ˆ they're seeing a natural resource with vast potential as an economic development engine.
That's at least the view of a handful of groups in Maine, including the Upper Andro Anglers Alliance. The group, which was formed last year by a group of Maine guides, western Maine businesses and anglers, aims to promote the upper Androscoggin as a destination for fishing enthusiasts. Among its goals is to attract deep-pocketed anglers to western Maine to spend dollars in area inns and restaurants during the warmer months when skiers aren't carrying the local economy. "We don't have the big attractions in the summer, but we do have the tourist infrastructure," says Wende Gray, a spokesperson for the anglers alliance.
And it's not a false hope, says Bill MacDonald, executive director of Maine Rivers, a conservation group in Hallowell. He says Maine's rivers have what it takes to become economic drivers for the communities they pass through. For instance, MacDonald says Maine has 97% of the native brook trout habitat in the country. "We really have the opportunity to promote a fishery that will be a destination for people willing to spend a lot to experience a native fishery in a pristine environment," MacDonald says. "The value of protecting and managing our watershed and protecting native stock really yields a big economic return."
"Open sewers"
For most of the state's history, rivers like the Androscoggin, Kennebec and Penobscot were not much more than dumping grounds for industrial waste. Many residents followed suit: "When it was time to take the garbage out, you'd throw it over the riverbank," Remington, now 54, says of his childhood growing up along the Androscoggin, which 50 years ago was one of the top 10 most polluted rivers in the country. "Washing machine that broke down? You threw it over the riverbank. Out of sight, out of mind."
Not surprisingly, communities were built facing away from these "open sewers," says MacDonald. But since the rivers have been cleaned up over the past few decades, thanks to an increased local awareness and stiffer federal environmental laws such as the 1972 Clean Water Act, the rivers since the 1970s have been the focus of renewed efforts. "Now as rivers are coming back and providing great recreational opportunities, the communities are recognizing what great economic opportunities those rivers are," MacDonald says.
Skowhegan, for example, wants to develop a whitewater park for kayakers in the stretch of the Kennebec River that passes through its downtown. In Gardiner, local officials recently expanded a waterfront park to include walking trails along the Kennebec and a larger dock to increase public access to the river, and a local group recently held a shad-fishing tournament to help promote the fishing opportunities in the city. "I think the Kennebec is very high value to city," says City Manager Jeff Kobrock.
Fly fishing ˆ an $850 million industry in the United States, according to the American Fly Fishing Trade Association in Athens, Ga. ˆ will be a major draw for communities along the Kennebec River if the business community can organize and effectively market the river to anglers willing to travel, says Josh Platt, project director of the Kennebec River Initiative. The state-funded project, launched last December by a coalition of organizations such as the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine and the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments, has brought together communities, business owners and landowners along the river to discuss how best to protect and promote the Kennebec. Platt expects to release an action plan this fall that will include recommendations such as how to manage the Kennebec's fisheries and improve and preserve access to the river. "The idea is when you get people to come to town to enjoy that resource you'll get them buying gas and sandwiches," Platt says.
Building a brand
The goal, says Bill Pierce, a marketing specialist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, is to create a brand around the Androscoggin and the Kennebec. Both are big rivers that are close to a big marketplace ˆ in this case, the entire Northeast as far south as the Mason-Dixon line ˆ and they have the tourist infrastructures already in place to offer a comfortable vacation, as well as options for non-fishing members of a family.
Pierce draws parallels to the Madison River in Montana or the Yellowstone River that snakes through Montana and Wyoming. "Those are brands in the angling community that are highly regarded, like Apple and Microsoft are highly recognized brands in the computer industry," Pierce says. "If we create that energy around the upper Andro and the Kennebec, we will establish those as brands and people will come and spend money and they will have an economic benefit."
Phil Monahan, editor of American Angler magazine in Bennington, Vt., says Maine has the best fly fishing in New England, and could certainly become a regional paradise for anglers if it promoted itself more. But he doesn't think the upper Androscoggin or the Kennebec will ever have the allure a river like the Yellowstone does for anglers. "Fly fishing tourism to a certain extent depends on a sense of romance for the angler," Monahan says. "You just say 'the Yellowstone' to any fly fisherman and it conjures up images. I don't know how the town of Bethel can generate that same kind of excitement."
The rivers still aren't perfect. Dams ˆ even the ones with fish ladders ˆ along the Kennebec, Androscoggin and Penobscot still hamper the ability of fish to travel up stream to spawn, MacDonald at Maine Rivers says. And certain stretches of river ˆ like the sections of the Androscoggin after it passes through Rumford, Jay and Lewiston ˆ are still polluted. Even the upper Androscoggin still has consumption advisories for fish caught in the river. (Pierce says that doesn't dampen the tourism potential since most fly fishermen release the fish they catch.)
But there are niche-marketing opportunities: Mainers don't consider carp worth fishing for, says Platt, but Europeans love to fish for carp, which are abundant in the Kennebec and Merrymeeting Bay. "There are other species like that no one's thinking about," Platt says.
In the end, the rivers can be clean and stocked with fish, the inns can have made-up beds and guides can be waiting with their waders on, but without a local effort among businesses and the community to promote the rivers and attract those deep-pocketed fly fishing tourists, it won't work, says Platt. "Until you create a place when tourists can do a lot of things, the fact that you have a great fishery isn't going to bring people here," he says.
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