Over the last 40 or so years, I've fished and canoed the North, South, East and West branches of the Penobscot River, searching for brook trout and landlocked salmon. It didn't take long to figure out that the West Branch is easily the best of the four, and the source of my biggest landlock ever.

By pure, dumb luck I caught it about two years into my fly fishing career; in an old photo, it hangs over both ends of a Budweiser case. It came from the thundering white water immediately below Seboomook Dam, an old and remote logging structure that marks the beginning of the West Branch.

These days, when people say "I fished the West Branch," they usually mean the reach below Ripogenus Dam, quite a few miles downstream from Seboomook. A wild piece of water, it's probably the finest landlocked salmon river fishery in the United States, and also home to lots of native brook trout. Just downstream from the dam is Ripogenus Gorge, a churning stretch with vertical walls that rise to dizzying heights. The river below the gorge is what attracts most anglers. Parallel to the south side of the river is a road called the Golden Road, which provides great access. Because of the proximity of the road, the known pools and runs tend to be popular when the fishing is good, but with some effort, it's always possible to find fish.

There's a wonderful piece of the Penobscot that's usually overlooked by fishermen who are interested only in cold water species. It's at least 50 miles long, stretching from about Medway to Old Town. The species of choice here is the smallmouth bass, and the fishing can be phenomenal.

I have fished and guided in the lower part of this stretch for more than 20 years, and put smiles on lots of faces. It's much slower flowing, and best fished from a boat, though there is certainly good wading water as well.

Finally, with the recent dam removals in the lower pieces of the river, there's a good chance that there may once again be a fishable population of Atlantic salmon. Stay tuned.

Related stories:

• Brook trout by Don Abbott

• Catch and release — Kill or conserve? by Roy Hitchings

• Grand Lake Stream by Jeff Space

• Tactics for trout by David Williams

• Favorite trout flies by Terry Walsh

Paul McGurren is a registered Maine guide and a member of the Georges River chapter of Trout Unlimited, georgesrivertu.org.

The Georges River chapter of Trout Unlimited is a local chapter of a national nonprofit organization whose mission is "to conserve, protect and restore North America's coldwater fisheries and their watersheds. Trout Unlimited has 147,000 members across the country. This is the sixth, and final, in a series of articles written by members of GRTU.