Salmon fishermen still pushing May trial run

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Sometime in April or May – just about the time Atlantic salmon anglers traditionally waded the chilly Penobscot River, hoping to coax the king of game fish to hand – the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission will hold a public hearing that will help determine the river’s fishing future.

And after Thursday’s ASC meeting in Augusta, during which a proposal for an experimental one-month fall fishery was unveiled, one thing became apparent: All anglers aren’t pleased with the conservative approach being taken by the state’s salmon stewards.

“I’ll take a crumb,” Lou Horvath of Holden said, grudgingly, just minutes after telling the ASC board that he wished they’d put forth no proposal at all rather than the one that calls for a Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 season.

Horvath, a longtime salmon angler who has been president of all three Bangor-area clubs in the past, eventually admitted that if a fall season is approved by the board, he’d take advantage of it.

But it wouldn’t be his first choice.

That sentiment seems to be growing and will likely be heard several times when the hearing is held in a couple of months.

ASC Commissioner Roland “Dan” Martin of the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife hailed the proposed regulation as “a great moment, an exciting milestone,” as a river that has been closed to salmon fishing since 1999 may be reopened.

His fellow ASC commissioner, Dick Ruhlin, said he agreed.

But Ruhlin, another veteran salmon angler, was careful to tell the assembled crowd that he has much higher hopes for the Penobscot than a one-month season during a nonpeak period of salmon activity.

“I think this is a major milestone,” Ruhlin said. “I look at it, though, as a child learning to walk. I look at it as a little baby step, crawling. It’s not where we want to be, where we hope to be … but it is a step, as minor or small as it might be.”

The ASC’s science and policy teams have decided that the first step ought to be a small one. Conservation is the buzzword in salmon circles, and staffers are determined to be conservative in their approach.

On the banks of the Penobscot, in cozy clubs in Veazie and Brewer and Eddington, where anglers still meet to drink coffee and play cribbage and remember the way things used to be, hopes were high for something more.

Something … well … traditional.

In a sport where traditions are cultivated and nurtured and revered, that’s not unexpected.

And when you haven’t been allowed to participate in your sport, on your home river, in six years, all you’re left with is tradition.

The goal of many: Give us our season. Our spring season. When the weather is chilly and the river and sky are matching gunmetal gray and the fish are running.

But the more emotional the anglers get, the more their message gets diluted … the more angry and unreasonable they sound to some.

Now meet Vaughn Anthony.

Anthony, a member of the Maine Council of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, is a scientist by training and a salmon enthusiast by choice.

And on Thursday, when the ASC board asked the public if they’d care to make any comments, Anthony raised his hand, nodded, and made the argument that had been sorely lacking to that point.

Anthony cares … but it wasn’t emotion you heard in his voice. Instead, Anthony sounded slightly frustrated, entirely committed … and reasonable.

He didn’t talk about the way things were. He talked about the way things ought to be.

And he told the ASC that if they wanted to hold an “experimental” season, they ought to do so during a time when their experiment would yield more valuable data.

“Since it is an experimental fishery, I’m sorry that you aren’t doing an experimental fishery in May, as well, to see the consequences of that catch-and-release fishery,” Anthony said. “I personally believe you could have that fishery in May and suffer no consequences in terms of fish mortality.”

In staging an experiment like this, Anthony said, two pieces are essential: You want to have the ability to catch fish without killing them … and you want to be able to fish when there are actually catchable fish in the river.

“You’re only addressing one side of this if you’re doing this in [September and October] when you’ve only got, say, 50 fish in the river,” Anthony said. “A lot of people aren’t going to catch very many fish, and the media will be there and they’re going to say, ‘Is this what we spent all this money for, for what little fish we’re catching now?'”

For now, the ASC is opting for the baby-step approach.

Anglers will accept that approach, if that’s all they can get.

Many won’t like it. Not a bit.

And the more you listen to calm, reasonable voices like Vaughn Anthony’s, the easier it is to recognize the merits of their position as well.

Penobscot fishery in a nutshell

If you’re curious about the particulars of the proposed regulation that would allow fishing for Atlantic salmon in the Penobscot, here are a few more tidbits:

. The season would be open from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, 2006. Period. In order to have any fishing next year, a new regulation would have to be passed by the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission.

. The area open to fishing will stretch from the two painted markers 150 feet from the Veazie Dam downstream to the Penobscot Bridge – the site of the “Old” Bangor-Brewer bridge.

. No salmon shall be removed from the water at any time for any reason.

. The daily catch-and-release limit will be two fish. Catch two and you’re done fishing for the day.

. Fishing may not be open each day of the season, if conditions require the ASC to shut down the river. If a green flag is flying at the greater Bangor salmon clubs, the river will be open. If red flags are flying, it’s closed.

. According to ASC commissioner Pat Keliher, an Atlantic salmon license will cost $15 for residents, $30 for non-residents.

. Keliher also said that DIF&W wardens and Maine Marine Patrol wardens have indicated that they’ll be available to enforce the rules if it is passed.

. Anglers may expect to be required to file a report of their fishing activities so that ASC staffers can gather as much information as possible.

. All fishing directed at Atlantic salmon will be done with a fly rod, and only single, nonbarbed hooks would be used. Only one fly will be allowed at a time.

Pushaw pike update

Reopening the Penobscot to fishing for Atlantic salmon wasn’t the only item on the agenda at Thursday’s ASC meeting.

Not by a longshot.

ASC biologist Richard Dill may have had the toughest job, when he briefed the assembled spectators and commissioners on a topic everybody likely wished didn’t have to be addressed at all: Pushaw pike.

As you may recall, northern pike were illegally introduced into Pushaw Lake and first began showing up in 2003.

Dill’s report itemized the latest steps biologists have taken and further demonstrated how well entrenched the pike have become.

Dill said a winter creel census has been conducted, with 278 fishing parties consisting of 887 anglers being surveyed.

“Before [this winter] we had two confirmed fish turned in by anglers,” Dill said. “We’ve had a creel census going on and the clerk’s been out every Saturday and Sunday this winter. He’s seen 11 pike this winter.”

Eight of those fish were kept, and three released (including two that were fitted with radio transmitters and released by biologists). Ten of the 11 pike were females.

“It’s a good thing that we’re killing females, but it’s a discouraging thing that the majority of the catch has been females, so there’s the opportunity that they’re going to spread pretty quickly,” Dill said.

The fish ranged in size from 16 to 31 inches, and from one to nearly eight pounds.

The radio-tagged fish have been tracked since their release, and both have moved from a large basin (where they were initially caught) to the lake’s inlet at Pushaw Stream.

“That’s interesting. We seem to have keyed into an area where to look for them,” Dill said.

Dill said the biologists hope to find out where the pike are spawning and may take further action against the fish at their spawning grounds in the future.

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