When veteran anglers claim “we’ve seen the best of Maine’s fishing,” the discussion that follows invariably hooks onto the subject of fishing pressure.

Anyone who knows the difference between spoons and streamer flies knows interest in fishing has increased dramatically in recent years. For example, Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife records show the sale of fishing licenses increased from 265,189 in 1981 to 322,000 in 1990.

However, two decades – 1969 to 1989 – of statewide surveys of fisheries and monitoring of angling trends show that, during the 1980s, angler catch rates and harvest rates actually increased beyond those of the 1970s.

The 20-year program included “clerk surveys” by trained personnel who contacted anglers on the water and at access points, and “voluntary surveys” by anglers who kept records and reported to the DIFW’s seven regional fisheries offices. Catch rates are the fish kept and released per angler. Harvest rates are the fish kept per angler.

Now, the obvious question: If catch rates and harvest rates have increased, why are anglers complaining? The answer: Smaller fish. For the most part, the landlocked salmon, brook trout and togue that anglers catch nowadays aren’t the rod-bending, reel-running specimens that earned Maine its reputation as a fisherman’s paradise.

In discussing the decrease of size-quality fish, anglers bury their barbs in topics of improved public access, environmental degradation, deterioration and loss of habitat, advanced fishing technology, more leisure time and disposable income.

There is, however, one overriding factor that cannot be ignored: too many fish were taken from Maine’s salmonid strongholds for too many years. Eventually, those piscatorial wells nearly went dry.

For all intents and purposes, what followed were hatchery-supported, “put-and-take” fisheries. Unfortunately, fishing had become fashionable, so to speak, and most stocked fish were caught before they had a chance to grow much beyond the minimum-length limits.

Mention of fishing pressure to anglers brings an immediate rise regarding the phenomenal interest in ice fishing that has occurred during the past few years. DIFW records show that from 1969-79 the average angler days per acre for ice fishing was 53 percent of the average for openwater fishing. But from 1985-89, the averages were nearly equal.

Because interest in ice fishing continues to increase while a decrease in openwater fishing has been observed, some fisheries biologists believe ice fishing is now the dominant sport on many of Maine’s prominent fishing grounds.

Considering all of this, the question begging to be asked is: What can be done to develop and restore fisheries that will produce size-quality fish? Not surprisingly, the responses are as many and varied as fly patterns. Therefore, DIFW Commissioner Bucky Owen, Fisheries and Hatcheries Director Peter Bourque, and regional biologists are casting with both hands in efforts to land proposals from which to establish fisheries-restoration projects.

They emphasize, however, that regardless of how well the projects are organized or implemented, success will depend solely on anglers’ willingness to accept them and the attendant special regulations.

The initiatives

Appropriately, the first cast was made in the direction of regional fisheries biologists, requesting them to submit initiatives and management proposals for selected waters in their regions. Their submissions will be reviewed by the newly organized Fisheries Initiatives Committee.

Ray DeSandre, regional biologist of Fisheries Region D, is chairman of the committee comprising fisheries biologists, game wardens, and a total of five public members selected from the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, Maine Council of Trout Unlimited, Fisheries and Wildlife Advisory Committee, and Down East and northern Maine areas.

After reviewing the proposed initiatives, the committee will present its recommendations to Commissioner Owen this summer. If everything goes according to schedule, he will present the recommendations to sportsmen at statewide public hearings in early autumn.

Following are the initiatives submitted by regional fisheries biologists. In reading them, keep in mind they are only proposals. None have been accepted, and none will be adopted until after the public-hearing process. It is hoped that the adopted initiatives and regulations will become effective in 1996.

Region A

Cumberland, York, Oxford, Androscoggin counties:

1. Increase size and fishing quality for brook trout and landlocked salmon through stocking and regulation initiatives at the Presumpscot River’s Eel Weir By-Pass Reach.

2. Increase winter fishing opportunity and fishing quality for brook trout through stocking initiatives at Moose, Barkers, Sand, Trafton, Stone, and Big Concord ponds.

3. Increase size quality of brown trout on selected waters through stocking and forage-fish enhancement at Wilson, Square, Kennebunk, Hancock, Middle Range, Lower Range ponds and at Mousam and Crystal lakes.

4. Increase size quality of brook trout through stocking and regulations at Little Concord and Overset ponds.

Region B

Kennebec, Knox, Franklin, Waldo, Lincoln counties:

1. Increase size quality in warmwater gamefish fisheries based on natural reproduction in Androscoggin, Annabessacook, Cobbosseecontee lakes, Cobbosseecontee Stream, and Pleasant Pond.

2. Increase size quality in salmonid fisheries based on annual stockings of brown trout and brook trout in Alford Lake and Spectacle Pond.

3. Increase size quality in salmonid fisheries based on annual stockings of landlocked salmon in Long and Parker ponds and St. George Lake.

4. Increase size quality in salmonid fisheries based on annual stockings of brook trout in Bowler, Kimball, Mixer, and Little ponds.

Region C

Hancock, Washington counties:

1. Increase size quality of wild brook trout and stocked brown trout through restrictive regulations at Rift and King ponds.

2. Increase size quality of smallmouth bass through restrictive regulations at Third and Fourth Machias lakes, Silver Pug Lake, and Georges, Abrams, Webb ponds.

3. Increase size quality of landlocked salmon through restrictive regulations at Tunk and Alligator lakes.

4. Increase size quality and quantity of stocked brook trout through restrictive regulations at Youngs Pond.

Region D

Oxford, Somerset, Franklin counties:

1. Increase size quality of wild brook trout through restrictive regulations at Rapid River-Pond in the River.

2. Improve size quality of wild brook trout in a cluster of four ponds: Ellis, Round, Island, and Horseshoe.

3. Improve size quality and quantity of brook trout in Pierce-Upper Pierce, Kilgore, Grass, King, Split Rock, Dixon, Pickerel ponds.

4. Improve size quality of wild brook trout at Mooselookmeguntic-Cupsuptic Lake, and Kennebago and Cupsuptic rivers by restoring older age classes through restrictive regulations.

Region E

Piscataquis, Somerset counties:

1. Create trophy brook trout and splake fishing through restrictive regulations and stocking in a cluster of ponds; also through stocking, create opportunity for anglers to harvest brook trout in another nearby cluster of ponds. Trophy waters: Rum, Salmon, Secret, Brown, Indian ponds. Harvest waters: Prong, Sawyer, Shadow, Little Mud ponds.

2. Improve the size quality of wild landlocked salmon in sections of the West Branch of the Penobscot River downstream from Ripogenus Dam.

3. Use a variety of regulations to enhance the fishery for larger than average size landlocked salmon at Chesuncook, Caucomgomoc, Lobster, Harrington, Ragged lakes; also the West Branch above Chesuncook, Caucomgomoc, Ragged, Ripogenus streams and Duck Brook.

4. Create trophy smallmouth bass fishing at Brann’s Mill Pond through regulation and habitat improvement.

5. Provide a diversity of angling opportunity through regulations and the stocking of brown trout in the Piscataquis River, Kingsbury Stream, and Harlow and Manhanock ponds.

Region F

Hancock, Piscataquis, Washington counties:

1. Increase fishing diversity through introduction of brown trout at Pistol Pond.

2. Increase size quality of brook trout through restrictive regulations at Celia and Fowler ponds.

3. Maintain or increase size quality of smallmouth bass through more restrictive regulations at Upper and Lower Hot Brook lakes.

Region G

Aroostook, Piscataquis, Penobscot counties:

1. Provide catch-and-release fishing opportunity for brook trout at the six Currier ponds, also Moccasin, Ferguson, and Green ponds and their tributaries and outlets.

2. Improve size quality and quantity of brook trout in the Lower Fish River and Soldier Pond.

3. Improve size quality and quantity of brook trout in the upper Aroostook River drainage including sections of Millinocket, Munsungan, Mooseleuk streams and the Aroostook and Big Machias rivers.

`Hook and cook’ days are gone

Because the management proposals, including special regulations, are too extensive to list entirely, the most prominent among them are presented as an inclusive overview:

Continued stockings of fingerlings and yearlings at higher and lower rates;

Stockings of larger fish and-or multiple stockings;

Slot limits, maximum and minimum-length limits, reduced bag limits;

Closures to ice fishing and smelt fishing;

Establish and develop brown trout and splake fisheries;

Restrict ice fishing to the month of February, two-trap limits;

Fly fishing only, artificial lures only, and, of course, catch-and-release fishing with emphasis on the use of barbless hooks.

Without question, the catch-and-release ethic will be essential to the success of the fisheries initiatives program. Although many older anglers have difficulty accepting the ethic, younger anglers routinely release fish. And therein lies the future of fishing in this state.

That doesn’t say a fish can’t be kept for the table. What it says is, leave some for seed. The days of “hook and cook” are as gone as bamboo rods and rubberized raingear.

Some waters still produce

Although the proposed fisheries initiatives focus on restoring and developing size-quality fish to selected waters, keep in mind that many of Maine’s lakes, ponds and streams still produce salmonids in sizes that put smiles on anglers’ faces.

Understandably, biologists managing those fisheries prefer to concentrate on protecting and conserving the existing resource. It isn’t likely, however, that those wild fisheries can be maintained without implementing special regulations in the future.

In conjuring images of bragging-size fish, the “good old days” stigma has to be gaffed. Actually, it wasn’t long ago when the chances of catching 5-pound landlocks and 3-pound trout were better than good in many Maine waters.

But don’t for a second believe the stories that every fish caught had a shadow that weighed 2 pounds. To make a longer backcast, records contained in “The Landlocked Salmon in Maine”- an excellent book written by fisheries biologists Ken Warner and Keith Havey – showed the average weight of landlocked salmon surveyed at West Grand Lake in the mid-1800s was 1.4 pounds.

The Expenses

Obviously, restoring quality-size fish to selected waters will be an expensive venture. Accordingly, the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and the DIFW proposed a $10 million bond issue for the repair and improvement of the state’s hatcheries. The proposal has been passed by the Legislature and will appear on the November ballot. For that reason, Maine anglers should wait for election day as eagerly as they wait for ice out. Without updated, productive hatcheries, the state’s salmonid sport fisheries simply cannot survive.

A question frequently asked by anglers is: What does the Fisheries Division do with the $3.1 million it receives each year? The money represents $1.7 million in state funds and $1.4 million in funds from the Federal Sport Fish Restoration Act.

Following is an account of the combined total state and federal fisheries money spent in Maine last year: Fish stocking: state, $1,618,609, federal, $341,816; habitat improvement: state, $871; federal, $535; public access, state, 0, federal, $5,312; utilization investigation: state, 0, federal, $209,286; habitat investigation: state, 0, federal, $178,958; population evaluation: state, 0, federal, $296,000; public information and education: state, 0, federal, $63,163; developing strategic plan: state, 0, federal, $419; coordination and program administration: state, $24,206, federal, $393,763.

The $1,643,686 in state money and $1,489,252 in federal funds totals $3,132,938. But considering the magnitude and diversity of Maine’s inland fisheries, it’s clear that $3.1 million can be “fished out” in short order.

Nowadays, the adage “You can’t have your cake and eat it too,” applies directly to Maine anglers. Only through their acceptance of the DIFW’s fisheries initiatives, commitment to catch-and-release, and support of the $10 million hatchery bond issue will future generations enjoy catching size-quality fish that will bend a rod and run a reel in the Maine tradition.