June, 1921 
FOREST AND STREAM 
253 
of his feet, up his long, lean body, to 
the cap that was perched on his head 
like a bird on a telegraph pole, was one 
of tragical desperation. He never 
smiled, never laughed and never joked. 
Apparently he did not know the differ- 
ence between fishing and fighting 
snakes. 
So it was that after two days of the 
hardest and grimest kind of fishing on 
his part, a great experience happened 
to him — he caught a trout; while I my- 
self, being less favored by the presid- 
ing deities of the stream, did not have 
a single strike to my- credit. Great was 
his disappointment and vexation, the 
greater because after leading me on 
such a wild goose chase, he could not 
satisfactorily explain how it all had 
happened. He first blamed the weather 
and then the stream, and then blamed 
them both together for our failure, but 
his now humbled and contrite heart 
seemed to get more satisfaction from 
the simple statement that the trout were 
just not biting and that was all that 
could be said. His predicament, how- 
ever, taught me an important lesson: — 
never recommend a trout stream to a 
friend. 
Nevertheless, by catching that single 
trout he unconsciously rendered me a 
great service. It was in fact the turn- 
ing point in my career as a fisherman. 
If he had not caught it, it is not likely, 
after three such failures, that I would 
have fished for trout again. But it so 
happened that I was by his side when 
he caught it, and 1 while he treated its 
capture as if it was one of the tragical 
incidents of his life, it was a moment of 
great excitement to me. To see it pull- 
ing and tugging at the line, darting 
here and there as he reeled it in, and 
finally when he * exposed its luminous 
sides to the sun, was to thrill me 
through and through as if I had caught 
it myself. 
Then again, the size and beauty of 
the trout filled me with delight. Al- 
though not over twelve inches long, it 
was by far the largest I had seen, and 
I kept turning it over and looking at it 
as if I could not admire it enough. So 
when my friend asked me the following 
year to repeat the trip, visions of the 
size and beauty of this particular trout 
and reminiscent thrills of its capture 
so revived my flagging interest in the 
sport that I went with him without a 
moment’s hesitation. 
T HE slight success I had on this trip 
led me to turn my attention zeal- 
ously to trout fishing as my leading 
sport. It gives zest to any sport to pur- 
sue it with a definite object in view, and 
my great desire was to catch a big 
trout, and in trying to convert this pur- 
pose into a fact, it became a sort of will- 
o’-the-wisp that led me far and wide 
on many hopeful but, so far as the big 
trout was concerned, fruitless expedi- 
tions. To achieve success I visited every 
stream that was reputed to have trout 
in it within striking distance of my 
home, and endured all the ills that fall 
to the lot of a fisherman. But one by 
one the years slipped away from me, 
and still the big trout eluded me, and 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 275 ) 
THE SOURCE OF THE KENNEBEC 
THE BAFFLING CHARACTER OF THE FISHING AT THE EAST OUTLET OF 
MOOSEHEAD LAKE LIES IN THE FACT THAT THE FISH ARE VISIBLE 
By STANLEY T. WILLIAMS 
H UNDREDS of miles above the cot- 
tages of Bath the Kennebec River 
begins its journey through Maine. You 
may know that the source of the Ken- 
nebec is Moosehead Lake; you may 
know, more particularly, that the river 
first springs into being at East Outlet; 
but the delights there for the fisherman 
you cannot know unless — well, unless 
at sunset you have seen a giant square- 
tail lunge for a white-miller, or have 
heard the swish of a tense line, as a 
salmon rushes for liberty. 
The best way to reach East Outlet 
is to motor from Greenville by boat. 
Thanks to the gods that automobiles 
are here ineffectual. East Outlet has 
no motor road. 
This is why — a 
few hours from 
Boston — the shy- 
eyed deer come 
down at evening 
to the lake shore; 
■why the black 
duck rears her 
brood in ' peace ; 
why, in fact, 
though near three 
great railroads 
Moosehead is the 
most unspoiled of 
Eastern lakes. 
When you ar- 
rive at East Out- 
let you stay with 
Fred Wilson. You 
do this the first 
time merely be- 
cause you must be 
near the Outlet to 
fish. The next time, and at all others, 
you repeat the performance because you 
wish to be at his camp and with him. 
Fred’s association with the Outlet is 
ancestral; his father ruled the camp be- 
for him; Fred and the spirit of Nim- 
rod are in collusion to make this place a 
Paradiso for fishermen. All the tradi- 
tion of a long-established sportsman’s 
haunt broods over the camp — a cozy 
nest of log-cabins set down in a grove 
of pines. 
But this is a tale of the Outlet. Op- 
posite the camp, twenty blue miles 
away, at the wildest stretch of Moose- 
head Lake, rise the rounded domes of 
Big and Little Spencer. Far beyond 
gleams the crest of remote Katahdin. 
The camp is on a bay, whose waters 
flow gently towards the Outlet. Gently, 
at first; then with a roar like that of 
a hundred airplane motors, they plunge 
through the gateways of the dam; and 
the Kennebec is born. 
This fall is clearly less than that of 
the Zambesi, but to the fisherman it is 
more wonderful — an endless miracle. 
For, more than all else, it is a point of 
vantage for the wild beauty of stream 
and lake. At evening, looking north, 
the fisherman sees shadowy waters 
reaching out far — off to the dimmer 
country of the Spencers; turning to 
the south he watches the river crash- 
ing to the sea; 
and, if he glances 
westward, he be- 
holds the ancient 
sentinels of the 
lake, the pines, 
etched delicately 
as in a Japanese 
-print, against a 
fading crimson. 
For at last he is 
in the loca remotu, 
the penetralia of 
Maine, as untar- 
nished 1 here as 
when first roamed 
by the Indian. 
Far away in the 
evening stillness 
quavers the 
haunting falsetto 
of a loon; a 
(CONTINUED ON 
PAGE 273 ) 
Getting ready for a wilderness journey 
