More Amazing, Entertaining, and Sometimes Troubling Quotes About Maine

I’ve been writing a Quotable Sportsman column for The Maine Sportsman for five years, and over that period have reported on amazing, entertaining, and sometimes troubling quotes. From time to time I’m dipping back into those to share them with you in this column.

To put togue in Sebago would be like putting arsenic in my food… so as one salmon fisherman to another… please don’t spoil such a lake as good old Sebago with so-called mud hens.

Alfred Rosenberg of Lisbon Falls, letter to the editor, The Maine Outdoorsman and Conservationist, September 1956.

Why not make coyotes an invasive species rather than a furbearer?

Jeff Geel of East Machias at a forum on DIF&W’s deer management plan. Deirdre Fleming story, Maine Sunday Telegram, April 17, 2011.

I caught six sunfish and a stick. Sunfish, we don’t eat.

Nine-year-old Lily Melanson at DIF&W’s Hooked on Fishing event in Oakland. Amy Calder story, Kennebec Journal, June 26, 2011.

It’ not too late here. We can do real meaningful work by keeping things the way they are. It’s a whole lot cheaper than having to restore them 50 years from now after we screw things up.

Trout Unlimited’s Jeff Reardon, praising Maine Audubon’s partnership with TU and DIF&W to organize volunteers to survey remote trout ponds. John Holyoke story, Bangor Daily News, July 8, 2011.

I still prefer salmon and trout fishing.

13-year-old Joey Guimond of Fort Kent who won $1000 for the biggest muskie in the local tournament, a 15.1 pound fish. Deirdre Fleming story, Maine Sunday Telegram, August 21, 2011.

It was getting to be 7 am and you don’t want school busses and firearms on the scene.

Portland Lt. James Sweatt explaining why game wardens shot a 120-pound bear in a Portland neighborhood. David Hench story, Portland Press Herald, September 24, 2011.

In the public meeting, a man from New Jersey asked why we don’t stock walleyes or pike. He said they love them in New Jersey. So I had to keep everyone else quiet because at this point they’re going to kill this guy. And I said, ‘Quite honestly, you’re probably the only one in this room who thought of New Jersey as a fishing destination.’ That pretty much diffused the situation.

Robert Van-Wiper, DIF&W Regional Fisheries Biologist. Deirdre Fleming’s Freshwater Fishing column, Kennebec Journal, August 8, 2010.

Oh my God. He’s wearing a life jacket. If you have to wear a life jacket to ice fish, maybe it’s not worth it.

Warden Rick Clowry, observing an ice angler wearing a life preserver in the middle of Wyman Lake with dangerous ice conditions. Chris Cousins story, Bangor Daily News, January 2, 2011.

It’s not uncommon for law enforcement to use cell phone records, Facebook posts, and Twitter postings in conducting investigations as that’s how people communicate now.

Warden Lt. Dan Scott, acknowledging that an Atlantic salmon photo posted by Jordan Wright of Lubec on his Facebook page – a fish he caught while ice fishing Second Hadley Lake in Machias – led to charges against Wright. Tom Walsh story, Bangor Daily News, March 6, 2012.

PHOTO: loon carved by my Dad Ezra Smith. Dad carved more than 100 loons.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.