#veazie

[daysinayear2015]

Day 258: September 15, 2022

It’s a lovely new challenge to try and photograph and film a sport I’ve never done before. Just hanging out in the rapids while I photograph Julia cruising on through. Veazie, ME.

[thebatgurrl]

Fell Hill Quarry at Veazie Unveiled

Fell Hill Quarry at Veazie Unveiled

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[dontaylor50-blog]

Photo Friday – Merrill, Valle (née Crone), Veazie (née Chase), & Vitone

Photo Friday – I identify the people in four photos. Patricia Joan Merrill, Zula Valle, Richard Valle, and Frances Veazie. I couldn't identify a 5th photo of Army Private Larry Vitone. #Genealogy #PhotoID

Ethel Wight Collection – Part 94 By Don Taylor This week, for Photo Friday, I identify the people in five more envelopes from the Ethel Wight Studio Collection[i]. The envelopes contain the names who paid for the photos, not necessarily of the individual portrayed in the image. As such, it is vital to analyze the pictures and information to identify the individual therein.[ii] Ultimately, my goal…

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[thebatgurrl]

Lost? or Disappeared? Unravelling the Veazie Mystery

Lost? or Disappeared? Unravelling the Veazie Mystery

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[adventureanywhere-blog]

Veazie Salmon Club

​Sometimes along the path of projects or life for that matter, you meet people that can only be described as characters. They leave an impression on you that is hard to shake. For me, this has been Cap. Doug “Cap” Introne is the assistant lab manager to the stable isotope lab at the University of Maine, Orono, the former president of the Veazie Salmon Club, and overall salmon enthusiast. With his long hair, white beard and jovial demeanor, Cap gives an aura of someone who has learned everything in life from experience. A Massachusetts Native, Cap found his way up to Maine in the early 1990’s and discovered his passion for the salmon fishing along the shores of the Penobscot River. As soon as he hooked on, he himself was hooked.

While Cap loves to fish for salmon, it seems to be shadowed for his love of the Veazie Salmon Club and those who have called themselves members. Described as his own personal waterfront property, Cap used to spend much of his time here, even when he wasn’t fishing. Sometimes he would show up just to sit on the porch, have a beer and watch the water flow. This place was his home away from home, his boy's club.

The club itself is a nondescript building on ​the outside, resembling if anything a contemporary log cabin. However, the inside is a shrine to Salmo salar. Plaques, photographs, cases containing flies and newspaper cut outs cover the walls. Well used benches and tables show signs of much love and care. An industrial kitchen lays dormant waiting its time to cook up another meal for a few hundred. Overlooking all is a painted portrait of Teddy Ballgame, Ted Williams, Baseball hall-of-famer and former member of the Veazie Salmon Club. Painted thick on these walls is the history of the sport of kings.

As Cap continued to tell some of the great stories of the club, it was hard not to notice the overwhelming sadness in his voice. Across the room from us sat 4 men who were playing cribbage. All in the senior years, they now play cribbage during the day since they can no longer fish along the banks. Salmon fishing has been banned on the Penobscot for the past 7 years. These four men collectively have over 200 years of salmon fishing experience, and with no new generation coming in, all that will go with them when their time comes. Thinking about this, Cap almost begins to well up.

This is the dark side of the Salmon’s listing on the Endangered Species list. With the listing came an outright ban on any kind of harassment of the fish, which angling has been categorized. While many conservationists celebrated the new level of protection that the fish was going to receive, Anglers heard it as a death rattle. Salmon angling culture in Maine had received its notice; it’s time was expiring. With no fish to go after anymore, many left the sport. This meant hundreds of years of experience and fishing wisdom walked away from the table. If there is to be one great tragedy from this, it is the lose of this culture, this body of knowledge. There is now a sign up front that reads Veazie Crappie-Bass Club.

What many did not realize was at that moment of the listing and ban on fishing, some of the Salmon biggest advocates and protectors became alienated were effectively shut out.

Cap remembers the day it happened. The VSC was having its annual opening day breakfast, a tradition that has taken place since its inception. Everybody was gearing up in anticipation of the announcement of the beginning of salmon season, one that was going to be catch and release. Instead though, they received notice that there was not going to be a season that year, and rather that Atlantic Salmon in seven maine rivers would be listed as Endangered Species. The Penobscot was one of those rivers. ​That was it.

After talking to Cap, I received an email from him about his feelings toward the listing and the inability to fish for Atlantic Salmon in Maine Rivers. When we first talked, he equated the ban to having an addiction and going through withdrawals. He later then told me that this was not a good and fair comparison. I do not believe I can do justice in explaining what he said, so I will let him do it:

“Yesterday when I said that salmon angling was like being addicted to drugs and then having the drug taken away, causing the angling community to be suffering from withdrawal...but that really doesn't capture the essence of it. 

It is more like this.

Do you know how some native american peoples in the Pacific Northwest say that the ritualistic hunting and killing of whales is an important part of their culture? 

Actually fishing for atlantic salmon is similar in that "the fishing" is just as important a part of the atlantic salmon culture to the atlantic salmon angler. It is something deeply etched into the psyche of every atlantic salmon angler. We all drank the cool aid long ago. We don't even have to kill the fish, we don't even have to catch the fish (although it would be nice) but it is imminently important that we are allowed to fish for this most spectacular of fishes, because when we do it encapsulates the whole bailiwick of atlantic salmon culture.  

The glue that binds together the men who fish for salmon and the salmon clubs is this indeterminate ethos.  

When we fish, it is the magnificent and uniquely interesting lifestyle of the fish, the conservation of the fish, the sun scintillating and sparkling on the water, the art of the atlantic salmon fly, it's selection, the perfect cast and presentation which entices the fish to strike, the silver explosion out of the water, the fish somersaults through space - but more importantly - through time, every detail is seen because it is almost as if time slows down with heightened awareness, the release (it actually "feels better" than the kill), the sportsman's ethic, the camaraderie, the fraternity, the friendship, the tradition, the history, the ritual.....salmon angling is righteousness. 

When there is no fishing there is emptiness in the atlantic salmon anglers heart and a void in his soul.

In my opinion an extremely regulated catch and release fishery which allows for this, benefits the angling community and even those businesses which depend on it and outweighs any harm done by incidental mortality to the resource or it's restoration which is caused by allowing it to occur.”

3/9/2013

A culture and way of life as rich as this should not be let out to sea, it should be celebrated and preserved. A sport where professors, plumbers and Ted Williams shared the same line and rotation is something that should be treasured.

Thanks Cap and the VSC for letting me join them this past Friday. It is my sincerest hope that I did not catch your organization in its twilight.​

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