Maine Fly Guide

Maine Fly Guide is run by Registered Maine Guide Brandon Bichrest out of New Gloucester, and the Androscoggin is its home water. Bichrest has operated the business since 2015 and has logged more than a thousand guided trips. Float days are split between a lower Androscoggin run for smallmouth bass and northern pike and an upper river run for smallmouth, both booked as eight hour days at $500 for one or two anglers with $50 added for a third. The Androscoggin season runs April into the end of October, seven days a week, and the site notes that mill closures after 1990 left the river running clean and undeveloped. Average smallmouth fall in the twelve to eighteen inch range with twenty inch fish common, while rainbow trout and landlocked salmon turn up around the tributaries. The boat is an eighteen foot jet-drive river craft. Spring trips on the Kennebec near Waterville chase shad and striped bass and start at $350 for a half day. Gear, water and lunch are included. Bichrest also pulls old tires from the Androscoggin as a cleanup effort.