With winter settled in, ice fishing success increases

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brook trout

by Frank R. Richards

Ice fishing on Webber Pond can be really good, particularly in January and March. I’ve learned a few things over the years and I’d like to pass them on.

Usually, fish are most active just after the ice forms and in March as the snow melts, bringing oxygenated water into the pond. February can be slow.

The yellow lines indicate prime ice fishing spots on Webber Pond right after ice in and in March. Illustration courtesy of Frank Richard

When a lake is frozen, the wind can’t oxygenate the water. By late January, in a relatively shallow, mostly clay bottomed lake like Webber, there is often very little oxygen left in water that is deeper than 15 feet. Without oxygen, fish are not moving around much or feeding aggressively.

They will seek relatively warmer water with higher levels of oxygen. Locations may vary according to differences in individual years. However, generally the optimum seems to be about 8 feet for bass and crappies; about 4 feet for stocked trout.

Either jigging or tip ups will produce fish. I prefer to jig when I am alone. I like tip ups better when I am fishing with friends. Waiting for flags is a great time to socialize.

With tip ups, I think it is easiest to set the bait about 18 inches under the ice. In water as shallow as eight feet, fish will come up to it from where ever they may be located in the water column.

To go with the article, I have prepared a map and drawn yellow lines to indicate good places. Over the years, I have had my best results off Birch Point. However, the area off the Green Valley Campground has also been productive recently.

Stocked trout may be caught in shallow areas all over the lake. However, by far, the best trout hole is the “Two Rocks” area on the northern shore. Also, I have been told that there is a spring near Church Island. If anyone ever gets an exact location, it will be extremely productive because of the highly oxygenated water.

chain pickerel

Please practice catch and release on bass weighing more than three pounds. Large fish play a very important role in promoting the overall health of the total fishery. If the hook is deep, simply cutting the line is far safer for the fish than trying to disgorge a hook that is embedded deep down.

I believe the size of bass taken through ice has increased significantly compared to 20 years ago. I suspect it is because of the additional forage provided by juvenile alewives during the summer.

Crappies have also evolved as a popular fish on Webber, both through the ice and open water. They came down Seaward Mills Stream from Three Mile Pond and then proliferated. They were evidently not illegally introduced by a self-appointed bucket biologist. They did not come up the fish ladder from Seven Mile Stream.

Crappie are an excellent eating fish and so prolific that there is no reason to practice catch and release. Also, there is no reason to practice catch and release on stocked trout. If the bass don’t eat them, they will die as the water warms up during the summer. White perch, yellow perch, and pickerel are also frequently caught on Webber; and are good to eat.

Good fishing. And enjoy the winter.

Frank Rich­ards is president of the Webber Pond Asso­ciation.

largemouth bass

brown trout

Guitar concert benefit foundation

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Colby Charette, Cassidy’s brother, performed at the fundraiser. Contributed photo

The 16th Annual Warming Up for Christmas benefit Guitar Concert honoring Cassidy Charette brought more than 600 people to the Williamson Auditorium, in Fairfield, on December 2 and raised over $12,300 for the ShineOnCass Foundation. Orchestrated by Steve Fotter, a local musician and guitar instructor from Benton, and his wife Linda, the three-hour concert featured 80 of his students and local talent performing rock, blues, jazz and folk Christmas music. Fotter said it was the largest fundraiser in his concert’s history, which in total has raised well over $100,000 for local charitable organizations.

Fotter said, “We have tremendous talent here and the concert has become a special tradition to start the holiday season. We continue to be grateful and humbled by the people who support us.”

Cassidy Charette was killed October 11, 2014, as the result of a tragic hayride accident. Cassidy was a Messalonskee High School top scholar and athlete, and a life-long community volunteer and youth advocate. In the past three years, her friends, family and the greater Oakland community have started multiple programs and services to honor her. This is the second year the concert has benefitted the ShineOnCass Foundation, which was created by the Charette family to educate, inspire and empower youth to continue Cassidy’s passion for caring for others through volunteer charitable activities.

As part of the benefit concert, the ShineOnCass Foundation organized a collection of gifts for the Maine Children’s Home for Little Wanderers’ Christmas Program, which provides boxes filled with warm clothing and toys for 1,700 less-fortunate children in Maine. Over 200 hundred gifts, including books, pajamas, hats, mittens and toys were collected at the concert and by Messalonskee High School students, who delivered them to the program’s headquarters in Waterville. The Foundation will also gift proceeds from the concert to help purchase items needed to fill all the boxes before Christmas.

“This is how we Shine Cassidy’s Light, by giving back to our community,” said Monica Charette, Cassidy’s mother. “We know of no better way to honor Cass than to continue to support things that she was passionate about—especially programs that involve helping children.”

King named to NEWMAC All Sportsmanship team

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Abby King, of Fairfield, a student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Worcester, Massachusetts, was one of seven fall WPI student-athletes to earn a spot on their respective sports All-Sportsmanship team. King was a field hockey selection. Now in its second year, the NEWMAC All-Sportsmanship team is intended to recognize one student-athlete from each team.

Save the Mill fundraiser reaches preliminary goal

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The Olde Mill Place in North Vassalboro

More needs to be done to achieve $250,000 estimate for repairs to the roof damaged in October storm

Vassalboro’s “SAVE THE MILL” Campaign and Ray Breton thank all of who were involved in hard work and donations towards repair of the roof of the Olde Mill in downtown North Vassalboro! The $7,000 mark has been reached, and they still have a long way to go!

As many of you know, The Olde Mill, in downtown North Vassalboro, sustained significant roof damage as a result of the storm of October 28 – 29, 2017. The estimate for repairs is $250,000.

The mill is owned by Raymond J. Breton. Ray shares the mill with the town.

Vassalboro Days events are held there. Halloween at the Olde Mill is an annual event.

The Community Christmas Tree and lighting ceremony are held there.

The mill houses 2,000 rubber ducks and then hosts the Double Dam Ducky Derby.

The mill serves as storage for the 100 flags that fly along Maine Street each summer.

The Vassalboro Fishing Derby is held there, as are many of theVassalboro Business Association’s Scholarship Fundraisers.
Baseball and softball training occurs upstairs all winter long.

The Girl Scout’s Annual Cookies Storage and Distribution is all at the mill.

There is a clothing closet for the local food pantry to store clothing for those in need.

These and many other community events are hosted by Ray at the mill for no charge.

Ray has created a picnic park, a brookside gazebo, and a swimming hole with life vests, canoes, a float, and slide for the town to use for free. He has created a children’s playground on the property as well as several areas for playing basketball.

Ray’s properties are noted for their psychic richness. He leads many tours through his buildings and donates those proceeds to the Vassalboro Food Pantry.

Downtown North Vassalboro has undergone a huge and beautiful transformation in the last eight years because of Ray.

Now he needs our help. There is no insurance on the mill. Ray and his friends and crew work very diligently to maintain the building, but this storm was too much. In order to save the mill, the roof will need to be repaired or else ice and rain will ruin the mill structure. Right now, after many hours of patching, the roof is rigged with tarps and tar to hopefully keep as much of the weather out as possible. But by spring, real repairs need to happen.

Many have donated anonymously at the Vassalboro branch of Maine Savings Federal Credit Union to the “Save The Mill” account. They should know their gifts are truly appreciated.

Heartfelt thanks go out to Nate Gray, Bill and Deb Johnson, Harriet Stamler, William and Betty Branch, AgMatters LLC, Dawn Cates, Tim and Debbie Giroux, Luc Beaulieu, Evan Shorey, Rocky Gravel, Margaret Dowdy, James Ashton, Jacquelyn Murphy, Frank Reynolds, Peter and Jackie Reny, Kaitlin Hosea, Robert Nixon, Judith Davidson, Kelsey Houston, James Breslin, Laura, William Whitman, Vassalboro Retired Teachers and Friends, Leonard Poulin, Lucille Roy, Richard Desmond, Juliette Akins, Carol Axtell, Chris and Amy French, the Watson Family, Kimberly Kimball and friends, and In Memory of Thelma Rancourt, and The Town Line newspaper.

Extra-special thanks also go out to the movers and shakers behind the scenes, including Don, Lisa, and Jessica Breton, Linda Ellis, Mike Vashon, Darrell Gagnon, Tiffany Luczko, Meridith Cain, Therese Burns Barnett, Victor Esposito, Stacy Thorndike, the Titus family, April Stitham-Woodbury, Johnny and Becky Goodrich, and Mr. and Mrs. Dan Rodrigue.

Vassalboro is a small town of 4,320 and so many are involved with this campaign. If we have accidently omitted your name, we are sorry. Your help is so important and needed.

We cannot forget the thousands of dollars of items donated for the raffles going on to benefit the work!

The fundraising continues! Please mark your calendar for the following events, all of which will benefit the mill:

  • Saturday, Dec. 30, from 6 p.m. on, the Taylor Road Band Benefit. Tickets are $15/person. It is a concert and potluck at the mill! Call Darrell Gagnon at 649-3626 for more information.
  • Sunday, January 21, from 4 – 6:30 p.m.. spaghetti supper and huge raffle at Vassalboro Community School. Supper Tickets are $5. Contact Meridith Cain at 458-2075
  • Sunday, February 11, from 10 a.m., the American Woolen Mill Urban Mountain Bike Fundraiser at the Mill. https://www.bikereg.com/vassalboro-mill-fundracer for more information.
  • Sunday, February 11, from 1 – 5 p.m., Vassalboro’s Annual Fishing Derby and Huge Raffle at the mill! Tickets are on sale now! Contact Linda Titus at 631-3303.
  • Saturday, April 7, from 8 a.m. – 2 p.m., at the mill participate in Vassalboro’s First Indoor Yard Sale! Contact Stacy Thorndike at 446-2690 to reserve your space!
  • Saturday, April 21, from 6 to 11 p.m., a Public Paranormal Investigation by G.R.I.M. Tickets are $35 each and available from https://ghost-research-and-investigations-of-maine.ticketleap. com/save-the-mill-public-paranormal-investigation/

To keep up with all the fun-raising, please check out our “SAVE THE MILL” page on Facebook! Thank you. https://www.facebook.com/groups/787714818075573/.

Winter wonderland sleigh ride

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A family enjoying a sleigh ride at Benton Fun Park on Sunday, December 10. Sleigh rides will be offered again on Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 16-17, and Sat., Dec. 23. Call 314-1640 for reservations. Photo by Mark Huard, Owner of Central Maine Photography

Crockett elected Kennebec Historical Society president

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Patsy Garside Crockett was elected president of the Kennebec Historical Society at the groups annual meeting, held at the Maine State Library.

Patsy Garside Crockett

Society members re-elected were Vice President Bruce Kirkham, Secretary Emily Schroeder, Treasurer Ernest Plummer and board of directors members Stefanie Barley, Richard Bridges and Anne Cough. Also, John Lawrence and outgoing president Kent London were elected to the board.

Crockett, a Kennebec County Commissioner and former state representative from Augusta, said she is pleased to join the “family of members” again. She was the society’s secretary in the early 1990s and an executive committee member from 1996 to 1998. Her late husband, Robert Crockett, was the society’s president from 1995 to 1997, and their granddaughter Sarah Ann Crockett became the society’s youngest life member several years ago when she joined while a sixth-grade student at Maranacook Community School, in Readfield.

The guest speaker was John H. Twomey, who spoke about his book.

The Kennebec Historical Society, founded in 1891, has about 425 members. Its headquarters are at 107 Winthrop St., in Augusta, and is open to the public 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Wednesday through Friday, and by appointment. Researchers are encouraged to call 622-7718 for information about the society or its archive and library.

Opiates in Central Maine: Not just a National Crisis

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Drug overdoses rose 40 percent last year, costing the lives of 378 Mainers.

by Eric W. Austin

With words like ‘epidemic,’ ‘crisis,’ and ‘national emergency,’ the opioid problem has been in the news a lot lately. But how is this important issue impacting our local communities here in Central Maine?

That’s the question I set out to answer.

I started by contacting an old friend of mine. Jared Mills was a year ahead of me at Winslow High School, graduating in 1992. Now he serves as the Deputy Chief of Police for Augusta. He told me something I’d hear a lot in the succeeding weeks: The opioid issue really is a problem. It is a crisis, and we need to do something about it now.

“There have been eight pharmacy robberies in the last few years – just here in Augusta,” Deputy Chief Mills told me back in October. “We’ve solved them all, and they were committed by people looking for opiates.”

The message was: opiate withdrawal motivated the crimes. These weren’t hardened criminals so much as desperate people fighting an addiction that had become too much for them.

Something else became clear as I spoke to people involved in this effort: attitudes in law enforcement toward drug offenders are changing.

Detective Sergeant Tracey Frost, one of the Oakland police officers the town of China has hired part-time, put it most succinctly: “We can’t arrest our way out of this,” he told me. Frost has deep roots in the community, coaching at Messalonskee High and serving as the school’s Resource Officer.

We were eating lunch at the China Dine-ah. The enticing smell of burgers and bacon contrasted sharply with the somber topic we were discussing. “We have arrested our way out of certain social situations,” Frost explained. “Everyone knows you can’t drink and drive now. Everybody. We’ve made great strides in different areas like drunk driving and domestic abuse.”

However, according to Frost, the current opioid crisis is not an issue that can be solved that way. Still, Frost is hopeful. “Fortunately,” he continued, “we have police leadership in Maine who are smart, well-educated, and willing to say we’ve got to break the trend here, and start reaching out and helping people – as opposed to just throwing the cuffs on them and taking them down to jail.”

Arrest and incarceration is expensive, with costs that are significantly higher than comparable treatment programs. And it’s not effective, since addicts released from incarceration head right back to their addiction of choice, only to be arrested and incarcerated once again. Law enforcement is trying to break this cycle.

On the treatment side, medical professionals are dealing with a similar issue. Dr. Robert Croswell, Medical Director for MaineGeneral’s Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, in Waterville, and a sitting member on the hospital’s Opiate Steering Committee, met with me to discuss the matter. In his mind, one of the obstacles to providing people with appropriate treatment is the criminal classification of opiates.

“In opiate addiction treatment,” he tells me, “there are pill counts and pee tests. If someone is caught with cannabinoids in their system, they can be kicked out of treatment. It turns the doctor into a law enforcement official. This is detrimental to patients who need help, and discourages doctors from participating in treatment programs. Compare this to alcohol addiction where the emphasis is on treatment, rather than the policing of an illegal substance.”

Dr. Croswell advocates treating opiates like alcohol: controlled and regulated, but not illegal. It’s still a controversial opinion, but one that’s gaining traction among those trying to deal with this issue. In 2015, the police department in Gloucester, Massachusetts, started a program that aims to treat addicts as patients rather than criminals. It has seen great success, and there is talk of bringing the concept here as well.

In Maine, deaths caused by drug overdoses shot up 40 percent last year, with a record 378 Mainers succumbing to addiction. That number is likely to go up when official numbers are released for 2017. Drug overdose is now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50.

From my conversations with those on the frontlines, it’s clear we’re dealing with a complex problem that isn’t going away anytime soon. The solutions we need require not just a change in policy, but a shift in attitude as well. Fortunately, those involved have studied the mistakes of the past and are aware that a different approach is necessary.

In the months ahead, I’ll be delving deeper into the treatment side of things, and talking with some of those directly affected. I’ll also be speaking with more of our local law enforcement here in Central Maine, to find out what they’re doing to combat this alarming trend.

There’s still a long way to go in dealing with this issue. The fight is far from over, but thankfully, those involved are not hiding their heads in the sand.

UPDATE: The numbers for 2017 have been released, and there were 418 overdose deaths last year, a 27 percent increase over 2016.

Eric Austin is a writer and technical consultant living in China, Maine. If you or someone you know has been affected by opiate addiction and you would like to share your story, please contact him at ericwaustin@gmail.com. All correspondence is strictly confidential.

Colby College students perform at ‘Jazz at Lincoln Center’

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Student musicians and actors from Colby College, in Waterville, performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 6 as part of the college’s New York campaign launch celebration.

Kaylee Pomelow, of Canaan, was part of a group that performed selections from Lost With You for alumni and friends of the college at the event.

Emily Goulette, of Oakland, was part of a group that performed selections from Lost With You for alumni and friends of the college at the event.

Empire State Building in “Colby blue”

Lost With You is a musical written and produced by students that was workshopped with Broadway professionals last January at New York’s Ripley-Grier Studios.

The student performance was part of a larger New York event that included a lighting of the Empire State Building in “Colby Blue” and an appearance at the Nasdaq Stock Market by Colby’s President David A. Greene.

Dubbed “Dare Northward” to reflect the bold and unprecedented nature of the initiatives and priorities it will support, the $750-million campaign will make it possible for Colby to introduce transformational programs, build on already strong academic programs, improve access to a Colby education for deserving students from around the globe, and provide outstanding new facilities that support a multidisciplinary approach to learning and connect the college to the community beyond its campus.

Erskine Academy’s Winter Concert scheduled for December 20, 2017

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Erskine Academy’s annual Winter Concert will be Wednesday, December 20, at 6:30 p.m., in the James V. Nelson Gymnasium. The concert is free; however, donations are gladly accepted. Ensembles will be performing traditional holiday music such as Sleigh Ride, Carol of the Bells, Silent Night, and Silver Bells, as well as other selections that bring communities together and celebrate health and happiness. Snow date Thursday, December 21.

Clinton elementary students hold drive for homeless shelter

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Front row, from left to right, Kaylie Smith, Kylie Delile, Natily Reid, Kaulen Liberty and Jenna Furchak. Back, Layla Gagnon, Alyssa Carter, Colton Carter, Candace Day, Tanya of the Mid-Maine Homeless shelter and Oliver Lang. Contributed photo

The Clinton Elementary School Student Council recently led a school-wide drive for warm winter hats, scarves and mittens and/or money for the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter. Their “Hats for the Homeless” drive netted $181 and approximately 150 warm winter items.