ESTESBOG

by Peter Walker

One thousand acre Wassookeag Lake lies just outside the little mill town of Dexter, Maine. From 1975 through 1977, Wassookeag was the most northerly of the more than 600 lakes on my watch as an Assistant Regional Fishery Biologist in Maine’s Fishery Region B, the south central coastal plain.

            Lying next to a minor population center in otherwise rural central Maine, Wassookeag received heavier ice fishing pressure than most lakes. The lake at that time possessed small populations of landlocked Atlantic salmon and lake trout (“Mackinaw”). There were never enough to go around, yet I could always find an assortment of several dozen “townies” trying their luck on Wassookeag.

Wassookeag was well inland and high enough in latitude to lie in a much colder climate than lakes along the coast. By late winter the ice might approach four feet in thickness. This was enough to support any vehicle safely. Read more…