Upper Richardson Lake

Upper Richardson Lake occupies the quiet middle of Maine's Rangeley chain, 4,549 acres of cold water in Oxford County pinned between two of the most storied pieces of fly-fishing real estate in America. At its head sits Upper Dam, where water pours in from Mooselookmeguntic and where Carrie Stevens tied the first Grey Ghost in 1924, launching the Rangeley streamer tradition that anglers still fish today. Downstream, beyond the Narrows and Lower Richardson, the Rapid River — Maine's most famous wild brook trout river — carries the chain's water toward Umbagog. Upper Richardson is the connective tissue of that whole legendary system, and it fishes like it.

No paved road touches the lake. Access comes by boat up from the South Arm on the Andover side or by the carry trail at Upper Dam, and that inconvenience is precisely the point: the shorelines are timbered, the campsites are primitive, and the fishery is predominantly wild. Brook trout, landlocked salmon, and lake trout share the lake, with the brookies supplemented by a modest annual plant — MDIFW stocked 2,880 nine-inch brook trout across the Richardson Lakes in 2026, managed as a single unit — while the salmon and togue get by on their own.

The fly angler's year here is bracketed by two events. The first is ice-out, when smelt-chasing salmon and trout stack up in the current below Upper Dam and along the shoreline shelves, and a stripped Grey Ghost or Black Ghost fished on its home water is both effective and something close to a pilgrimage. The second is September, when cooling water pulls brook trout and salmon back toward the surface and toward moving water, and the old Rangeley prescription of orange-bodied streamers and big dry flies accounts for the best fish of the year.

Between those bookends, summer fishing turns to structure. Brook trout cruise the shoals around Metallak Island, evening rises develop in the coves on calm nights, and sinking-line work along the drop-offs keeps streamer anglers in the game. The Upper Dam pool itself, fly-fishing-only and walkable from the Mooselookmeguntic side, holds fish whenever water is moving.

Upper Richardson is not a numbers fishery and it is not convenient, which is exactly why it still feels like the Rangeley country of the sporting-camp era. Bring a boat or a canoe, plan for wind, and fish it the way it has been fished for a century: streamers early and late, dries when the fish tell you to, and a copy of the lake's own history in your fly box.

Upper Richardson is a natural, dam-controlled lake with a maximum depth of 89 feet and a mean depth of 38 feet — deep enough to hold two-story habitat for lake trout, but with far more mid-depth structure than sheer-sided neighbors like Rangeley or Mooselookmeguntic. The MDIFW depth chart shows a lake of shoals, islands, and graded drop-offs rather than a single deep trench, with the water around Metallak Island standing out as classic cruising ground for brook trout.

The lake sits at roughly 1,448 feet of elevation and stays cold, with water levels influenced by the dams that regulate the Rangeley chain. Current at the two ends shapes the fishing: the Upper Dam inflow at the head delivers oxygenated water and forage from Mooselookmeguntic, while the Narrows at the foot funnels fish moving between Upper and Lower Richardson.

As across the Rangeley chain, smelt are the forage that grows the salmon and lake trout, and their spring movements concentrate gamefish where a fly rod can reach them. In summer the fishery stratifies: togue drop to the deep basins, salmon ride the thermocline, and brook trout hold on shoals, spring influences, and shaded shoreline structure.