Jefferson men Joe Holland (left) and Donnie Johnston stand in front of Johnston’s old time camping equipment on a winter camping trip last winter. (Photo courtesy Joe Holland)
There is nothing Joe Holland likes better than to traipse through the wilderness, by foot, canoe, or snowmobile to find some remote fishing spot. It is not unusual for the Jefferson man to spend a week or two camping, hunting, and fishing in the North Maine Woods, soaking up the serenity and peace he finds there.
Holland’s favorite time of year to be fishing is winter, when he can pitch his tent on the ice, and fish from within it during inclement weather.
He shares his wilderness adventures by producing videos for his YouTube channel “Joe Holland Fishing.” His videos have collectively had over 11 million views, and he has a following of 24,700 subscribers.
A former member of the FLW Pro Circuit Tour, he started recording his adventures on tour and posting them on YouTube in 2015. He started the videos for two reasons.
“The first was to give people an inside look of the pro tour,” he said. “At the time it was secretive. I wanted to let amateurs and those wanting to go pro to know what they were in for. It also gave fans an inside look, a more in depth look than they could find on television.”
Holland’s second reason was to gain sponsorships to underwrite traveling and tournament costs. “The tour is super expensive,” he said.
His parents, Jack and Ann, owned the Jefferson Scoop, an ice cream shop in Jefferson at the time, and when they decided to retire, Holland had the choice of taking over the family business, or staying on the tour and let the shop close permanently.
“I love the ice cream shop and the community,” he said. “It was a pretty easy decision to walk away from the tour.”
Once immersed in the family business, Holland’s fishing channel went “dead for awhile.” But, the seasonal business left him plenty of time to pursue his favorite hobby, ice fishing. After a short period, Holland started up his video channel again, but this time posting his fishing, ice fishing, and winter camping adventures.
Donnie Johnston and Joe Holland enjoy a fall canoe trip on the West Branch of the Penobscot River in September. (Photo courtesy Joe Holland)
“I really love ice fishing and winter camping. I stay in a tent whenever I can, unless I am shooting an instructional video, on how to catch a specific species,” he said.
“I try to break up videos, day by day,” he said. “If I go for seven days, I break it up into seven videos.” If the fishing is bad, he concentrates more on camping and staying as comfortable as he can in inclement weather.
Holland’s trips run the gamut from minimalist camping, to an extra canoe load of equipment. One winter trip he went super light, with no tent, just a cover over his sled.
Holland said that equipment advances have made ice fishing more comfortable. “Camping on the ice is so much more enjoyable than setting up every day.”
He makes enough money with his YouTube videos to pay for his “winter fun.” One year he was able to purchase a new snowmobile with his proceeds. “My goal is to break even doing what I love to do,” he said.
Although most of his trips take him north, Holland has done videos of fishing trips on Sebago Lake and the Belgrade Lakes. His goal is always to do the least amount of traveling and most fishing he can pack in, during a five to 10 day camping trip. The length of each trip is based on the weather and if he has good video opportunities.
“My trips have no time limits,” he said. “If I am not feeling it, I start on a new trip.”
On one ice fishing trip, he went 10 days without seeing another person. “I like the wildness aspect more than anything,” he said. “I can go 10 miles down a river and rarely see anyone else.”
Holland said his YouTube videos have to accomplish three things: they have to inspire someone, be educational, and be entertaining. Part of Holland’s mission is “to inspire people to get outdoors, and to get something out of it,” he said. “I have been fortunate to have mentors like my Dad and Donnie Johnston.”
By passing on his knowledge of fishing and camping, Holland hopes to be a mentor to another generation.
Joe Holland’s modern winter camping equipment. (Photo courtesy Joe Holland)
Johnston, 80, of Jefferson, has camped in the West Branch of the Penobscot area for 65 years. He introduced Holland to the area. “I indoctrinated him, and someone indoctrinated me. It is a place I have enjoyed over the years,” Johnston said.
When Johnston was 16 years old, Al Kleinberg, of Jefferson, took him under his wing and introduced him to wilderness camping. His first trip with Kleinberg was in 1957 and he has returned to the area at least once a year ever since,” Johnston said.
Johnston, who will turn 81 in March, said “as long as I can get in a canoe I will go. I thoroughly enjoy it.”
“Donnie has been teaching me the right ways. I am incredibly fortunate,” Holland said.
When it comes to his apparel, Holland goes old school and wears wool. “It is something that Donnie taught me. Wool stays warm even when wet and is fairly lightweight.”
Holland and Johnston have done several tandem trips. Each winter they make the trek north to find moose antler drops. They also do the West Branch trip each summer.
Two years ago on a canoe trip on the West Branch, Johnston took Holland to the site of an old lumber camp near the river.
“We love old Maine logging history,” Holland said. “It has always been a dream of mine to find some old ax heads. We looked around where the logging camp was and within five minutes found the old blacksmith shop underground. It was over 100 miles from the nearest town.”
“There were no signs of any buildings ever being there,” Johnston said.
Using a metal detector, the duo found six ax heads, more than 50 horseshoes, and a number of tools left over from a lumbering operation that dated back over 100 years.
“The horseshoes were huge. They were using some big draft horses,” Holland said.
Joe Holland wrestles a six foot anchor, used in the logging industry at the turn of the century, out of the West Branch of the Penobscot River this fall. (Photo courtesy Joe Holland)
In 2021, near where they take out of Lobster Lake, the men found a large anchor. They went back this fall and retrieved it. Holland plans to display it at his ice cream shop next summer.
“It was used on the logging drives, probably in the early 1900s,” Johnston said. “We fished it out this year. There is a video we made of that one.”
Joe Holland holds up a large lake trout, caught on a winter camping trip. (Photo courtesy Joe Holland)
On the return trip to the lumber camp in 2022, Holland and Johnston found part of a cast iron stove, two-man saws entangled in roots, part of a peavey dog, and more horseshoes, including some embedded in the roots of a dead spruce tree. They cut one out, which they plan to clean up and display.
The two men do not “sacrifice comfort” on their trips. On their 2022 trip they brought an extra canoe “jam packed with all kinds of stuff.”
“It is a standing joke we might have to take three canoes” next year, Holland said.
“We got everything on that canoe except the kitchen sink,” Johnston said. “Nothing like old timers used to do. They only had a wool blanket, piece of salt pork and some tea and they would head off through the woods. They did not need any of this stuff like we bring now.
Johnston does the cooking, and Holland takes care of splitting fire wood and other camp stuff.
Holland said it is ok to insult Johnston’s cooking, but he has to follow quickly with a compliment, otherwise he will have to cook. Johnston even cooks homemade donuts on their camping trips.
“We pig out, we really eat good,” Johnston said. “Joe scrounges up enough partridge. Between partridge and fish and all the grub we bring we eat good.”
On the West Branch trip, the men camped out at Ragmuff Campground, a state-run camp site. “Al and I used to camp at the same campsite. It is a nice little camp site, and the fishing is good,” Johnston said.
Fishing and camping tales
The coldest trip Holland has been on came last winter. His thermometer only went down to 40 below, and it bottomed out there around 1 a.m. Holland estimates it went down to 45 degrees below that night. He uses propane as a source of heat, but does not use a lot of heat on his winter camping trips.
His most disastrous winter camping trip came in the Allagash waterway. The ice lowered overnight and the water “sat on top of the ice.” When Holland got up in the morning he put his foot in six inches of ice water in his tent.
He then had to struggle to get off the ice, to get his gear out and to get his snowmobile unstuck. He went against the norms of YouTube, which recommends videos be between five and 12 minutes long.
“I cannot tell the story in under 12 minutes,” Holland said. “So I told the story the way I wanted to tell it. I worked really hard on editing, and hit the three points that were important for me,”
Holland said the resulting video was a little bit of a disaster, as it did nothing at all for almost a year. “It was my best work. I figured it was due to the ice fishing season being almost over,” he said.
When ice fishing season began the next year, the Canadians started watching it. Both videos of the disastrous trip hit 100,000 views in a month.
“It is what I love doing. Stuff with winter camping, ice fishing, solo trips, and trips with Donnie Johnston,” Holland said. “They cannot get enough of Donnie … He does old time traditions. His equipment is old school, and the way he approaches camping is old school too. If I get 10 comments, eight are asking for more Donnie, whether to ask for his donut recipe, or see more of his friendly demeanor, or hear his accent,” Holland said.
The worst weather Holland encountered came on Chamberlain Lake last year. It was 23 below, with a 40 mph wind. “It felt like 65 below. That was cold.”
Donnie Johnston, of Jefferson, holds an ax in front of a display case of items found by Joe Holland and himself at the site of an old logging camp on the West Branch. (Photo courtesy Joe Holland)
The worst snow storm Holland encountered came a couple of years ago, when seven inches of snow was predicted. He was running a trap line with a game warden friend up near Clayton Lake in Aroostook County. Forecasters missed the mark, as 48 inches of snow fell in 24 hours.
“The snowflakes were the size of golf balls,” Holland said.
The closest logging road was 20 miles away, and everyone in the area had left for Christmas. The men had been asked to check a diesel generator at a house, so the pipes would not freeze.
Every step they took they sank into the snow past their waists. “He would do 10 steps, and I would pack the snow down, then I would leap frog him and go 10 steps,” Holland said. “It took us four hours, 10 steps at a time, to check the generator, and only an hour to get home.”
Wildlife stories
Holland see lots of wildlife on his backwoods adventures, including mink, moose, otter, deer, and coyotes.
On one trip, he was sleeping in back of his truck while going bird hunting in the Forks. At about one in the morning, he heard something and his truck started moving a little bit.
“I grabbed my spot light and saw someone flashing a light at me. It gave me a start. I thought it was a person messing with me,” Holland said of his reflection in the glass. “It ended up being a moose licking the salt off my truck.”
One winter, while camping on Moosehead Lake, a mink went into his tent and stole a big lake trout Holland had planned to eat for his supper. “I saw a drag mark and followed it” to discover the culprit. Holland ended up catching and giving the mink four lake trout. The mink disappeared for a couple of days and when it did come out again it “looked like a belly after Thanksgiving dinner.”
Some of Holland’s favorite encounters with wildlife involve Canadian Jays, (Gorby). “They are so friendly,” he said. “When I am fishing up there, if I put a minnow or bread crumb in my hand, they will eat right of my hand. That is pretty common to have a Gorby hanging out around camp. I look forward to having one.”
Winter camping and ice fishing enthusiast Joe Holland, posts YouTube videos of his adventures at Joe Holland Fishing. Holland is pictured here at his Damariscotta Lake ice fishing seminar last winter. (Paula Roberts photo, LCN file)
While fishing from his tent, he had a muskrat poke his head up out of the hole. “He looked at me, looked around and went back down,” Holland said.
Johnston told of one trip down the West Branch with his late wife Barbie, of seeing 21 moose going down and back. “This last September, we never saw a moose on the river.”
Last winter, Holland held an ice fishing seminar on Damariscotta Lake. “That was my best day. My favorite day. It brought a lot of people together, to learn how to ice fish and winter camp. I think it inspired and educated a lot of people. I was overwhelmed by the support,” Holland said over 300 people that attended. “I was not expecting that. I am definitely going to do it again on Damariscotta Lake.
“It is something I am passionate about,” Holland said of ice fishing and teaching others how to fish.
“Since Barbie passed away, I guess he wants to keep me busy and keep my mind off things. We have a lot of laughs. He is such a good guy to go with, even-keeled and good natured. He would do anything for anyone. He is always positive,” Johnston said of Holland, his camping partner and friend.
Holland goes on as many trips a year as he can. The only thing that slows him down is editing and putting videos up on YouTube. A seven day trip takes him about four days to edit, before he can go out on his next trip.
His goal is to camp and ice fish for 14 straight weeks. He said he plans to ice fish this winter until “the ice cream shop opens up, or I run out of ice.”
