Swimmers beware: Three-foot ‘monster’ pulled from Nickerson

By Ben Austin
Staff Writer
    A local fisherman calmly trolling in his motorboat on a sunny weekend morning at Nickerson Lake suddenly found himself caught in a nearly half hour battle with a mammoth of a fish.
Pioneer Times photo/Ben Austin
CATCH OF THE DAY — Wayne McGary, of Houlton, crouches down on the shore of Nickerson Lake to compare the size of his three foot lake trout to his one and a half year old grandson, Jay. McGary caught the monster fish on a weeping willow lure.
    Early Saturday morning Wayne Mcgary, of Houlton, was slowly cruising across Nickerson Lake, trolling the area. At around 7 a.m. Wayne noticed a tug on his pole and started in on trying to reel in his prize.
    After a little bit of a struggle with his nemesis on the other end of the line, McGary realized he had truly baited in a keeper.
    "After about ten minutes of fighting to bring it in, I realized that the thing must be about ten pounds," explained McGary on Saturday afternoon.
    It was not until fifteen grueling minutes later that McGary realized how seriously he had underestimated the size of the fish. Being alone in his boat, McGary had to multi-task in order to net the fish by holding both the pole and the net to get the giant fish into his boat. The trout was so large that, once he had it netted, McGary had to drop his pole and use both hands to bring the gorged net out of the water.
    When McGary looked at the floor of his boat he saw a three foot lake trout looking back at him.
    "I didn't know what to do. [I] couldn't throw it back because I knew no one would believe how big it was," explained McGary.
    When the trout was accurately and thoroughly measured it totaled 36 inches long, 20.5 inches around the stomach, and weighed an astounding 20 pounds.
    Just days before, McGary had come back to shore after a morning of fishing complaining that there just weren't any more big fish in Nickerson Lake, according to his wife Sharon. McGary said that he has a fish finder, but that it was not picking up any fish underneath his boat.
    It is hard to compare the prehistoric looking togue to any other fresh water fish in this area. The best comparison to the size of the fish McGary could think of on hand Saturday was his one and a half year old grandson, Jay. The frightening fish, when held up close to Jay, is considerably larger than the toddler.
    McGary is hoping to get his amazing catch mounted so that he will be able to show off his once-in-a-lifetime trophy for years to come.