Acadia Pollock on the Fly From Shore

As Noah and I came around a corner and caught our first glimpse of Mt. Desert Island, my brain told me I couldn't possibly be looking at an island. That was an easy leap to make, we couldn't see the ocean yet. But we could see the hills. Hills that big, covered in mixed forest, with big rocks painted in colorful lichens, small mountain brook trout streams, and massive talus slopes, well... to my less than well traveled mind, those hills didn't belong right next to the Atlantic Ocean. But there there it all was.

Acadia is one of, if not the most grand place I have ever been. Those old hills still stand proud after ages of tectonic activity, glaciation, and gradual weather, even as the monstrous ocean mercilessly pounds at their feet. In the place where the island and the sea battle each other nearly constantly, at the foot of the cliffs, Atlantic pollock and mackerel swim.

Noah and I had spent time seeking pollock in Cape Cod, Gloucester, and Maine already without luck. We hadn't been after adult pollock because they were pretty much out of our range of capabilities on foot and on kayaks most of the time. The surf fishing for pollock in Montauk, Rhode Island, the Cape, and even in Maine just isn't what it once was. Giant pollock from shore is a thing of the past. Human greed is to blame. But there are still pollock to be caught in the surf. Harbor pollock are basically their species' equivalent of snapper blues. Small, abundant, and aggressive, they provide some fun surf fishing wherever the structure is right and the water cold enough. That's what Noah and I were after. And this time, we found them.

Lifelist fish #134, Atlantic pollock, Pollachius virens. Rank: species

It turned out that a big part of the deal was going further north to colder water. Though there are still pollock inshore in the summer in a lot of parts of Massachusetts and Maine (NH doesn't have enough shoreline to count. NH is just Maine extra. You'd think it would be easier to just include New Hampshire than go on this little rant. That is true. And yet, here we are.) the further you go, the colder the water, the rockier the shoreline, the more there are around in July. And Acadia was just loaded. Within our first hour in the park we'd both caught our lifer pollock.

Oh, and it wasn't just pollock. Atlantic mackerel also joined the party. I was pretty pleased to get some of them, seeing as I haven't caught all that many mackerel. Actually, by the time we left the Maine shoreline for the north woods, I'd tallied up a larger lifetime number of pollock than mackerel, including both Atlantic and Atlantic chub mackerel.

Scomber scombrus

The first evening was pretty good. I caught a bunch of pollock and a few mackerel on a simple white jighead streamer. Noah caught a ton of mackerel and a few pollock on a sabiki rig. The next morning was all pollock. We got thing a bit more down to a science, and frankly it was all too obvious.

It seemed that wherever there was both submerged ledge and white water there were pollock, and they were all too willing to take a white streamer fished on floating line with the 5wt. That gear for those fish was just perfect. It was a blast.

Aside from just being fun, these were beautiful little fish. Their copper and bronze colored flanks really shone in a way that photography couldn't quite capture. The subtle blue of their lateral line was unexpected, to me at least. Beyond that, they were the easiest fish to handle. No spines, no big teeth, no sharp gill plate. Nothing to cut, puncture or abrade you at all. Pollock taste really good too. Seriously, what's not to love. I left Acadia with a few things and one of them was a whole new appreciation for this species.

 Our time on Mt. Desert Island was short, but I know I have to go back there. It is an undeniably beautiful place, and Noah and I just barely scratched the surface of it. But we were both getting a bit sick of the driving and tourists there. It was time to go north; about as far north as we could go without crossing into Canada.
Until next time.
Fish for the love of fish.
Fish for the love of places fish live.
Fish for you.

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