Glen Gisel has caught only one large lake trout in Sebago Lake, where he has been fishing for about 40 years. And that was five or six years ago, he said.
Gisel, 57, of Raymond said he took Kevin Ronan, his friend and president of the Sebago Lake Anglers Association, as well as Ronan’s son Nick and Nick’s girlfriend Dylan, out last week in the boat he uses for his business, Sebago Sport Fishing and Guide Service.
They were all fishing for landlocked salmon, for which the lake is famous. That meant 8-pound test lines on light tackle. It was eight colors down, about 40 feet, where they caught a few salmon.
Suddenly the fishing rod bent down and the line started to roll off the reel, he said. Gisel slowed the boat and reeled in the lines from the other fishing rods.
The horizontal winder—the part of the reel that goes back and forth to ensure that the incoming line is evenly distributed on the spool—kept jamming, so Gisel had to pull the line out by hand every time the fish decided to run.
In the end, he had cast about 240 meters of line and a fish wanted to take even more. Gisel passed the rod to Nick, who took turns with Dylan to pull the fish out of the water. It took a whole hour.
In the end, both the people and the fish were tired.
As the fish approached the boat, its tail appeared above the water and Gisel could tell from its size that it needed a big net. Gisel had a smaller net that was big enough for salmon and a big net on board. He called out to the big fish.
Kevin Ronan brought it along, although he doubted Gisel would need it. Gisel said he would never have been able to get the fish out with the small one. Instead, he would have had to grab it with his hands.
“You always have to be prepared to catch the fish of a lifetime when you go out there,” he said.
The fish was 39 ¾ inches long and weighed 22.8 pounds. It was the largest fish he has landed on his boat in his six years of guiding. The largest Arctic char he caught in Sebago was only slightly larger, measuring just over 40 inches long and weighing just over 23 pounds.
Gisel said the tour guide service was supposed to be a collaboration between him and his good friend Bob Dunham. While they were still talking about it, Dunham died of cancer. Gisel then got his driver’s license and started the company in honor of a dream he shared with his close friend.
Salmon fishing is a successful business and he knows his friend would be happy to see it, Gisel said. This year he landed a 6-pounder. He has a 9 ½-pounder and a 7 ½-pounder he caught in the lake hanging on his wall at home.
But the lake trout was the biggest fish he had seen in a long time.
“The key to getting the fish in the boat was the patience of the customers – they passed the rod back and forth – it was actually them that got it in the boat. They were super patient,” he said.
Gisel has a special plan for the big fish. He has brought it to Squaretail Taxidermy, where it will be mounted on an antique ice saw.
The saw has special meaning for Gisel. He traded it from an elderly neighbor whose farm he had plowed. It was made in the late 1800s and belonged to her great-grandfather, who worked for the Chamberlain Ice Company, hauling ice from Sebago.
Somehow it fits.
