Some days I can stand on the shore of the Androscoggin River beside our farm fields and I have views that are probably just as they were more than 100 years ago. And it’s all within sight of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge.

The water is low, and this weekend I watched two young boys clamber down onto a large flat rock that poked up from the water’s surface. They baited hooks on their fishing lines and made cast after cast into the river.

They were across the river on the Lewiston side, close to their homes but hidden in a way that transported them away from the city and back in time.

I have stood on these riverbanks through the decades, and I well remember the days when foam covered the water and an unbearable stench filled the air throughout the Twin Cities. I couldn’t fish in that polluted river when I was a boy, but I tried my luck a few times in Bobbin Mill Brook, which flows from Lake Auburn to the river.

I remember that I wanted to learn fly fishing, and it was largely because I had heard about a remarkable lady known as “Fly Rod” Crosby. She was Maine’s first registered guide in 1897, and an important ambassador for the Pine Tree State.

A profile of Cornelia Thurza Crosby on the Web site of Maine’s certified professional guides (www.maineguides.com) says she “first discovered her love for the wilderness when, on the advice of her doctor, she left her job in a bank (in Farmington) to seek ‘a large dose of the outdoors.'”

She worked as a housekeeper in Rangeley hotels where local guides taught her about camping, hunting and fishing.

“In 1886, a friend presented Cornelia with a five-ounce bamboo rod,” the profile says. “She became so adept at fly-fishing that she once landed 200 trout in one day. She began to write up accounts of her fishing adventures and submitted them, under the name “Fly Rod,” to O.M. Moore, editor of the Phillips Phonograph,” the story says.

Before long, “Fly Rod’s Notebook” became a popular syndicated column in New York, Boston and Chicago newspapers.

She said, “I would rather fish any day than go to heaven.”

It’s reported that she was the first and the last person to have legally shot a caribou in the state of Maine,.

However, “Fly Rod” Crosby’s most remarkable and enduring contribution to her native state happened far from the North Woods, the Web site explains.

“In addition to being its first licensed guide, she was Maine’s first public relations genius. She arranged an elaborate hunting display at the first sportsmen’s show in New York’s Madison Square Garden, starring herself, rifle in hand and wearing a daring, knee-length doeskin skirt.”

She died in 1946 at the age of 92 in a Lewiston nursing home.

Through the years, Maine has attracted fishermen from far and wide. Among the most noted have been President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Red Sox great Ted Williams.

The Androscoggin’s source is in the mountains of New Hampshire, and its first miles are still clear and clean. As communities of settlers appeared on its banks, a degradation of the water quality began even before the days of industrial and municipal pollution. Sawmills dumped tons of sawdust into the water and the bottom of the river is filled with sunken logs and bark from the days of massive log drives.

At one time, salmon could have reached the waters below the great falls, and maybe ascended them in spectacular leaps. Dams downstream make that unlikely to be repeated, no matter how clean the river may become.

Although the Androscoggin doesn’t rank with Maine’s great fishing destinations of the past, that may be changing.

Now, real fishing opportunities have returned to the Androscoggin River.

Cleanup is a reality and recreational uses are again possible. I can imagine the river now looks much as it did when my ancestors began farming here.

National sporting companies are taking note of bass fishing here. Tournaments are being held and it’s getting an important reputation across the country.

The most important days in the history of the Androscoggin are taking place right now.