Kyle Jacques thought he had a large small-mouth bass on his ice fishing trap line because of the fish’s behavior.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Jacques of Gorham is not an ice fishing novice, but his true love is fly fishing.
He can be found on East Outlet, Moose River or one of the other fly fishing hotspots in the Moosehead Lake area during the spring, summer and early fall.
But his love of fishing draws him and his dad Bryant Jacques, who lives in central Maine, to the ice on Moosehead once or twice a year to try their luck.
Saturday was one of those days and it was a cold one. With high temperatures in the low teens and wind chills below zero, the men set their traps up early in the day.
After a few hours, a couple of the traps weren’t seeing any action so Jacques moved them to a new spot closer to shore. A flag went up on one of the relocated traps in less than two minutes.
Jacques could see the line pulled off to the side of the hole, but it wasn’t moving. He thought a fish had grabbed it and run, then dropped the hook. He began pulling up the line. It felt like nothing was there, he said.
When the leader was just a few feet from the hole, the line suddenly took off. Jacques speculated that the fish had grabbed the bait, taken off, and returned to the area nearer to the hole
After a few seconds of pulling the line toward him, Jacques suddenly saw a bright orange belly, which is characteristic of a mature male brook trout. He then got a glimpse at the size of the fish.
He called his dad over and told him he had a monster on his line.
The hole in the ice was about 8 1/2 inches in diameter. It took approximately five minutes to line the fish up with the hole and get its head through it, Jacques said.
“Am I in Labrador, Canada, right now? This is a world-class fish,” he said while recounting his story.
The fish measured more than 7 inches from the bottom of the belly to the top of the hump where the dorsal fin attaches on mature male brookies. It measured 21 3/4 inches long, which put the fish in the range of those that must legally be released alive back into Moosehead.
Jacques normally practices catch and release anyway, he said, unless there is a reason to keep the fish. He cited examples of no size or bag limit on salmon less than 16 inches from Chesuncook Lake and no size or bag limit lake trout less than 26 inches from Sebago Lake, both encouraged by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to maintain proper balances of fish species.
Jacques said that with the wind blowing so hard and the need to return the fish to the water quickly before it froze, he did not take time to weigh it but guessed it was well more than 4 pounds and less than 6. He got a quick length measurement and his dad snapped a couple of pictures, and the monster was returned to the deep to pass its genes on to its progeny.
It was the biggest brook trout Jacques had ever caught.
Last year, the men fished for salmon and togue on 10-12 inches of ice. They decided to target brook trout this year, but the ice was variable. It could be 8-10 inches in one area and have open water 10 feet away, Kyle Jacques said.
Both wore ice picks around their necks that could be used to help them pull themselves out of the water if they went through the ice.
Bryant Jacques caught a 16-inch brook trout on Saturday.
Kyle Jacques caught the big brookie around midday.
“I’m beyond words about it. You go fishing, thinking you might get a big one, but you don’t expect it to happen. It’s almost surreal,” he said.
