Brook trout first lured me to western Maine. But the region’s sporting tradition has kept me returning for more than 40 years.
It’s a place where I can hike over the same hills a young Johnny Danforth and Freddy Barker first trod during the winter of 1876 while hunting and trapping along the upper Magalloway River. Or I can cast a streamer across Little Boy Falls where Don Cameron guided President Dwight Eisenhower in June 1945.
A short ride from our fishing camp, Upper Dam is where I can fish in sight of the cottage where Mrs. Stevens tied her streamers while her husband, Wallace, guided sports in the 1920s.
Perhaps I’ll get the chance to battle a brook trout reputed to live in the deepest, darkest pools below the dam — the same fish memorialized by Shang Wheeler in his “Ode to White Nose Pete” and celebrated each June in Rangeley with a fly-fishing festival.
Perhaps I’ll cast a pattern Wheeler called the Aurora Borealis in hopes of hooking Salmo Polaris, a fish he supposedly caught during a blizzard in May 1945 that sported fur rather than scales along its flanks.
When the sluices of Upper Dam are opened, it’s always a thrill to play a salmon in the same rush of water where Joseph Bates learned to cast a fly as a young man before writing about his experiences in books on streamer fishing.
A ride down a series of logging roads brings me to Kennebago Lake. On its shores in the late 1800s, Ned “Ed” Grant established the precursor to Grant’s Camps, the present-day sporting lodge where I can motor one of John Blunt’s Rangeley boats while casting a Black Ghost, a pattern made famous by Herbert Welch in the 1920s.
Maybe I’ll wade the river and cast flies in the same rapids and runs once fished by Maine’s first registered guide, Cornelia “Fly Rod” Crosby.
But long before sports discovered the region’s brook trout, the Abenaki were paddling birchbark canoes over its lakes and down its rivers.
Unlike our sporting history, which has been written down for all to read, the Indigenous people relied on an oral tradition.
As a result, there is little contemporaneous writing about their stories, although one intriguing historical figure stands out.
It has been said that an Abenaki man named Metallak served as a chief of his tribe.
Known as the Lone Indian of the Magalloway by white settlers, Metallak is reputed to have lived for 120 years. During a time when many of his people resented the encroachment of settlers into northern New Hampshire and western Maine, he and his second wife, Molly Oozalluc, were known to assist them.
Legend says Metallak detested wolves and hunted them relentlessly. He was also known to enter settlements riding moose he had tamed.
Parmachenee Lake is said to be named after his daughter.
A gravestone marking his final resting place can be found at North Hill Cemetery in Stewartstown, New Hampshire.
Intrigued by the legend surrounding this man, I included a streamer designed by Steve Parisi called the Metallak in a program I created featuring the favorite flies of some of the Rangeley region’s prominent fly tyers and guides.
A few months ago, I wrote about the streamer in my column for The Northwoods Sporting Journal.
I didn’t know Steve personally, but was introduced to the pattern by well-known fly tyer Bill Thompson. Thompson and his late wife, Janet, previously owned The North Country Angler, a fly shop in North Conway, New Hampshire.
A few weeks after my column appeared, Steve reached out to thank me. Through a series of emails, I learned how he came to design the Metallak streamer.
Steve had been taught to fly fish by another noted fly tyer, the late Bob Bibeau. He also studied streamers designed by Emile Letourneau and Herb Sanborn, both of whom he admired.
Like me, Steve was lured to the Rangeley region by its trout fishing. In the 1970s, he purchased a small camp on Metallic Cove on Mooselookmeguntic Lake where, according to legend, Chief Metallak once maintained a camp during his travels.
Sometime around 1980 or 1981, Steve was trolling through the narrows between Mooselookmeguntic and Cupsuptic Lakes using a Nine-Three streamer on a long sinking line and a Liggett Special on a short line in the propeller wash.
As he released a rather large salmon, Steve removed a smelt from its mouth.
Holding the smelt up to the sun, he studied its colors as he turned the little fish in his fingers. That evening he sketched out a pattern to match what he saw, adding a few red barbules for a beard and tail.
Once back home, he showed the sketch to Bob Bibeau, who tied the first streamer based on Steve’s design.
Bob insisted the pattern be called the “Parisi Killer,” similar to the name he had given his own “Bibeau Killer.” But Steve preferred to name it the Metallak Special.
When Steve later received a box of streamers tied by his mentor, the name “Parisi Killer” appeared on the backing cards.
Bob told him, “These are really killer flies.”
Although Bibeau continued calling the streamer the Parisi Killer until his passing, his wife Frances later tied them under the name Metallak Special.
Over time, Bill Thompson, Selene (Dumaine) Frohmberg, Ed Demont and North Country Angler owner Steve Anger have all tied Metallaks on both tandem and single hooks.
As noted earlier, it’s Maine’s rich sporting tradition that draws me back to this region year after year. And with contributions from anglers like Steve Parisi, that tradition continues.
For more information about the Metallak streamer, Steve Parisi can be reached at canoemwa@aol.com.