Salmon fishing ban catches heat from anglers Fishermen say reopening of river warranted

BANGOR – Lou Horvath didn’t catch anything when he went fishing at the world-famous Bangor Salmon Pool this weekend.

The angler didn’t lack skill, and the pool didn’t lack fish, but Horvath wasn’t looking for a trophy.

The Penobscot Salmon Club president cast an empty fly – no hook – into the river to protest the state’s continued refusal to allow wild Atlantic salmon fishing.

“This river has been the river of the working man,” Horvath said Tuesday, advocating a catch-and-release fishery on the Penobscot. “The average guy like myself should have the fun of going out for an Atlantic salmon,” he said.

Horvath, who caught his first Atlantic salmon about 15 years ago, said nothing compares to the thrill of casting for Maine’s most famous game fish.

“It’s like a locomotive hitting your line,” he said. “That lunge of a salmon going for the fly … it makes your heart kind of jump.”

Horvath won’t be experiencing that thrill for a long while.

The state’s Atlantic Salmon Commission issued a sweeping ban on Atlantic salmon fishing in 1999, under the threat of an endangered species designation. One year later, eight Maine rivers were identified by the federal government as “distinct population segment” rivers, or essential salmon habitat where the native wild populations faced extinction.

The Dennys, East Machias, Machias, Pleasant and Narraguagus rivers in Washington County; Cove Brook and Ducktrap River in Waldo County; and the Sheepscot River in Lincoln County have federal protection. But other rivers, including the Penobscot, are in limbo. They have not been federally protected, nor have they been declared to have healthy salmon populations.

Horvath and many other salmon fishermen argue that the stretch of the Penobscot between Veazie Dam and the Maritimes and Northeast Pipeline, a natural gas corridor which spans the river between Eddington and Veazie, could support a catch-and-release fishery.

“My research led to the conclusion that there is no biological support for the closure of the Penobscot to catch-and-release angling,” Horvath said in a prepared statement. “The closure was not supported by scientific evidence and should not be allowed to continue.”

This stretch of river includes the area near Eastern Maine Medical Center, which is known as the Bangor Salmon Pool.

In years past, the pool was famous for its fishing. Each year’s first salmon was sent to the president, beginning with William H. Taft in 1912.

The tradition faltered when endangered species discussions began in the early 1990s, but the Penobscot River remains an important symbol of Maine’s traditional Atlantic salmon fishery.

Today, the river is the major source of Atlantic salmon used in the state’s hatchery breeding program for reintroductions in several Washington County rivers, said Fred Kircheis, executive director of the Atlantic Salmon Commission.

“Even though the Penobscot isn’t listed, it’s very important to our state effort to protect the salmon,” he said. “The number of fish in the river is just barely enough to supply the hatchery needs.”

The fish that return to the Penobscot from the Atlantic Ocean each spring are tallied at a fish trap located on the Veazie Dam. The returning salmon population reached an all-time low of 532 in 2000, rebounding slightly to 787 last year. Of those, about 500 fish are taken from the river each year to serve as breeding stock.

Unless the population increases substantially the fishery will not open in the foreseeable future, even for a catch-and-release program that could have relatively low mortality rates, Kircheis said.

“Right now, that just flies in the face of logic,” he said. “I cannot justify angling for these fish.”