Lots of fins fly as DIF&W prepares to stock landlocked salmon

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Each spring, a few things remain constant. Roads will get muddy. Black flies will hatch and bite you until you bleed. And some fishermen will sit around and gripe about how bad the fishing has become.

Some anglers don’t fall into that trap, however. Some – like Dennis Higgins of Ellsworth – take a day off from work, head someplace like Grand Lake Stream, and do what they can to actually help our state’s biologists go about their work.

On Tuesday, Higgins took friends Mike Page of Hancock and Ed Douglas of Bar Harbor to the fish hatchery in Grand Lake Stream, where they were greeted by a large group of Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife biologists and fisheries staffers.

Eventually, a group of 11 students from Presque Isle High School showed up to join in.

And all of us (yes, they even let me get in on the act) spent the better part of the day clipping fins off landlocked salmon.

“Every year I try to find some people who are interested in coming down,” said Higgins, who has been heading to Grand Lake Stream for the past eight or nine years to volunteer.

“It’s as much a social thing [as it is work],” he said. “It certainly widened my appreciation for what the biologists do.”

In all, folks from the DIF&W had to clip 40,000 fish in Grand Lake Stream. The process makes future identification of fish simple, as each fish from a given age class has identical fins missing. Tuesday’s mission: Add 12,000 more fish to the crop that’s ready to be stocked.

Workers stood facing each other on either side of a low concrete wall in the raceways of the hatchery, working their way through a tub of anesthetized fish, then dropping them back into the water.

The job quickly became second nature, and conversations begin as the fins start to fly.

Yes … the fins fly (Picture a fingernail flipping across the room after being carelessly trimmed). Now, picture a dozen workers with fins pasted to their hats, raincoats … and faces.

Biologists Nels Kramer and Greg Burr traded fisheries info with the volunteers, and eventually Kramer and Douglas ended up comparing notes on a shared passion – making maple syrup.

A hundred yards away, in another raceway, Micaela Hotham of Presque Isle caused a bit of a ruckus when she let loose with a high-pitched squeal. It turned out Hotham had wound up a bit closer to a salmon than she’d planned.

“We were clipping the fins, and when you throw them over the side after you’re done clipping them, somebody threw one and it landed in my waders,” the PI junior said with a giggle.

“It was wiggling around.”

The salmon was quickly freed, and Hotham ended up with an interesting “catch-and-release” story to tell.

Art Archer of Beech Hill Pond checked back in this week with some good news for slow-trolling anglers who like to target togue.

Beech Hill’s ice went out at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.

Archer, who lives on the Pond that gave up the state record lake trout in 1958, said that good news travels fast.

“The fishermen already know [the ice is gone], as my wife saw one boat out there while there were still chunks of ice floating around,” Archer said. “We saw a total of four boats trolling [Tuesday] evening.”

In other ice-out news, DIF&W fisheries biologist Paul Johnson of Greenville says spring hasn’t really arrived in the Moosehead region.

“The ice-out line appears to be stalled in Dexter, but today’s warm weather should push it further north,” Johnson wrote on Monday.

“There will be open water to fish at the mouth of the Moose River in Rockwood when Moosehead opens to fishing on Thursday, May 1, but the whole lake will not likely be clear before May 7, give or take a few days,” he wrote.

Johnson said anglers shouldn’t get discouraged.

“Despite dire predictions of much later ice outs this year due to the ‘extreme’ winter, in retrospect the winter was about average in this neck of the woods. Ice outs will be too. We’ve just been spoiled these past few years.”

This has quickly turned into “Fish Week” for me, as I’ve logged more than a few miles catching up with DIF&W staffers going about their spring chores. Tuesday’s mission, as you just read, took me to scenic Grand Lake Stream.

On Friday, I’ll head to Greenville to visit with Johnson, Scott Roy and other helpers they can round up for a stocking experience you may find interesting. Johnson calls it a “bucket brigade,” and I’ll tell you all about it on Saturday.

Also on Saturday, we may talk a little turkey, and highlight a hunter or two who’ve had success in the first week of the season.

Plus, you’ll hear about the good work the Penobscot County Conservation Association’s annual scholarship fund, which donated $44,000 to area college students on Wednesday night.

Finally, I may have more to tell you about fishing opportunities on your previously iced-in hotspots. Stay posted, and if you’ve found some trolling water already, be safe.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.