The Rangeley Region Guides and Sportsmen’s Association (RRG&SA) held the first ever Mooselookmeguntic Landlocked Salmon Derby on the weekend of June 19 & 20.
Directly following the derby, at the awards ceremony held late Sunday afternoon, RRG&SA president Gary Langille explained that Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) had the bag limit lifted on certain sized salmon on Mooselookmeguntic Lake last year and how that sparked the idea to have a derby. “I live on Mooselook and we were starting to call the larger fish our little silver bullets because although they were long in length, they had no meat to eat. So, when we heard this, Gerry (White) and Kirby (Holcombe) approached me and came up with this idea to put a derby together. We did this with the thought in mind that all of this, (seeing again how the pandemic had hit us last year), that we would do this all for the kids in our youth programs, that we provide around the region here: junior guides, scholarship funds, sending them to camp. Whatever we could do- helping them out with the wilderness, or to pursue their careers after they leave our area- which a lot do but find out what they had here is and what they come back to.”
Along with Bill Richards, Langille, White and Holcombe started meeting weekly way back in October over Zoom and right up until the event. Of course, they couldn’t have pulled off such a successful event without the slew of volunteers who donated their time and the many generous individuals and business sponsors and who Langille as well as Don Miller, Master of Ceremony, listed and repeatedly voiced their appreciation for.
Thanks to those generous donations, RRG&SA was able to raise enough money to give away over $10,000 in prizes. Prizes consisted of over 20 gift bags filled with $50 gift certificates and approximately $200 worth of merchandise and larger door prizes such as a portable ice fishing shack, 2-night stay at Bald Mountain Camps, a complete fly-fishing outfit and a Saddleback season pass.
Grand prize of $1000 for most caught between 12”-16” on Saturday went to Tom Marsh of Barre, VT who bagged 10 salmon and again for Sunday, another $1000 went to Torrey Burgess from Mexico, ME who bagged 6 salmon.
Overall winner for the entire weekend with a salmon count of 29 and a prize of $1500 was given to Jeff Patneaude of Roxbury. for most salmon caught over the entire weekend. Patneaude would have been the winner for both Saturday and Sunday but rules prohibited any one person from winning more than one grand prize.
The winner of the derby along with the organization he is a part of was a story in itself. Apparently sponsors received derby registrations and one of those organizations was Operation Reboot. You will find Operation Reboot information by going to their website www.operationrebootmaine.org or visiting them on Facebook where you will find a lot of great videos and other articles along with this profound statement: “Our mission is to use outdoors activities to help our veteran/LEO brothers/sisters to “reset their internal compass to true north”.
Daniel Waite, president and founder of Operation Reboot took a moment, along with one of his volunteers, John Curtis, and Jeff Patneaude to speak a little bit about their organization and what they do. Waite, “We do everything Maine has to offer. We do moose hunting, deer hunting, bear hunting, turkeys, fly-fishing, ice fishing, camping, maple syrup, gold mining/panning.” “Just everything outdoors” volunteer John Curtis chimed in.
They went on to explain that Operation Reboot was the opposite of boot camp and the difficulties of transitioning back to civilian life and how the healing qualities of being out in nature, out on the water, hunting and fishing, can be more beneficial than your standard treatments.
Waite concluded, “It takes a person who has been through it to understand and be able to help each other out.”
I asked Waite to tell me a little bit about who is a suitable candidate for Operation Reboot. He told me that they have helped over 600 people since they received their 501C3 in 2019. “Any vet that has served honorably and then any injured, anybody with a disability who doesn’t think they can do it anymore. And also, our biggest mission is to fight the “22 A DAY” suicide pandemic among veterans. Our goal is to pull them out of the house and have them meet somebody like Jonny or Jeff and they get that comradery back again, and don’t feel alone. We always tell them, the door is open, anytime they need it. Or anytime they want to talk to somebody, we’re there. So that’s our main mission.”
Friends before Operation Reboot, Curtis, Waite and Patneaude were certainly a winning team, but credit was given by Waite and Curtis to Patneaude. Said Curtis “If you’re on his boat you’re learning every second you’re on it. That’s a serious statement. I’m being really serious. Like it’s to the point where it’s like THAT good, where we’re expecting people to be like how’d they do it? but this guy literally knows what he’s doing and it’s almost, when I say stupid simple. If you go back to basics of fishing- it’s that easy”.
That was about all the advice I was able to wheedle out of them. They said they would have given more but they were told there would be another event next year. In the meantime, I have been told that Patneaude donated the $1500 in winnings to Operation Reboot. Apparently he’s a great guide and a generous one as well!
Speaking of great and generous guide guys, Langille confirmed plans to do the event next year. “We’re going to try and do this event every year as long as MDIFW is wanting to try and reduce the number of the fish in this lake and hopefully we have made a difference but hopefully for years to come we do make a difference and especially for our kids and their kids can sustain the fish and have the fish that we’ve been able to enjoy.”
