DIFW casts to cut laws, but public isn’t biting

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The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife calls them “rule-making proposals.” In the future, anglers will likely call most or all of them “laws.”

And at a public hearing held in Bangor Tuesday night, more than 200 of those proposed fishing regulations were fair game for public debate.

The only problem: The public didn’t show up.

Well, Dennis Smith of Mount Desert did, and offered public comment on some of the proposals.

Six fisheries staffers, a game warden, the DIF&W’s commissioner and two advisory council members attended, as did two administrative staffers of the DIF&W and an outdoor writer.

Fewer than 10 citizens attended a hearing held in Greenville a week ago, and another hearing will be held at Princeton Elementary School at 6:30 p.m. tonight.

John Boland, the DIF&W’s director of fisheries said that a low turnout wasn’t completely unexpected.

Over the past 10 years or so, he explained, state fisheries staffers have worked hard to get word of proposed changes out to the public as early as possible, and biologists have explained the rationale behind those rule changes.

And in this case, he pointed out, many of the rules contained in the inch-thick stack of papers were changes being made to bring the state’s regions into accordance with each other, and to streamline a law book that has been criticized as complicated and confusing.

“We had lake trout minimum length [regulations] that went all the way from 10 inches to 30 inches. We had bag limits that went from zero to six, and all these combinations [of the two],” Boland said. “We pared it all down to what we all think, as biologists around the state, we need to continue to manage and manage quality fisheries.”

Most of the proposed regulations reflected those goals: A statewide minimum length on bass has been reduced to 10 inches, while it had been at 10 inches in much of the state and at 12 inches in Down East regions in past years.

Boland said as his staff began peeling away the layers of years of rule-making, trying to make statewide laws consistent, he found a few trends.

In some regions, for instance, a certain regulation may have become popular, while in other regions it was never used.

And even state fish and wildlife professionals couldn’t figure out why some rules existed.

“I asked my staff, ‘Why do we close ice fishing at night?’ [They said] ‘Well, I don’t know. It must be an enforcement issue.'”

Then he asked game wardens the same question. Their answer: It must be a biological issue.

“[As a result, the proposed regulation says] like it is in the summertime, you can fish in the day or at night,” Boland said. “[Adopting the rule] eliminates 300, 400 special regulations. That’s what we’re aiming for.”

Smith, who regularly participates in state fisheries debates and passionately debates existing and proposed rules, took issue with rules he said were “insulting” to landlocked salmon.

Pointing specifically at regulations proposed for Green Lake in Dedham, Smith said protecting a “slot limit” on bass by requiring fish between 13 and 18 inches to be released at once, while at the same time increasing the minimum length on lake trout to 23 inches, was sending the wrong message.

“We’re elevating the bass and the hatchery lake trout to a greater status than the wild salmon in this heritage water,” Smith said, pointing out that Green Lake is one of four Maine lakes that were native homes to landlocked salmon.

“I think that salmon should take precedence,” Smith said.

Rick Jordan, the regional biologist who handles Green Lake, explained the rationale for the proposed changes.

The existing slot limit on bass protects fish from 12 to 16 inches. The new limit is designed to be consistent with statewide efforts. As for lake trout, Jordan said that DIF&W biologists have a rare level of control over population levels in the lake.

“Green Lake is the only stocked lake trout population that we have in Region C that [has been stocked for several years]. There is no documented natural reproduction there,” he said. “We control the numbers of lake trout in there, as opposed to many other lakes in Maine [where] natural reproduction is running so far ahead that they have no control of the togue.

“Because we control the numbers of togue at Green Lake, we can keep [the number] low and the growth rate is extremely good,” Jordan said. “That’s why we want to protect them until they’re 23 inches. We had an 18-inch general law for a long time and the lake still produces five- to 10-pound togue that are very attractive and fat.”

Boland said looking at “specials,” or special regulations that must be itemized in the rulebook, has been a priority, and reducing the number of “specials” to make future books less complicated is important.

Some lakes and ponds had special rules that left them open in October. Others were open in October and November. Still others were open year-round.

Boland said people wanted to have more fall fishing opportunities, and the DIF&W has responded by opening nearly 2,400 waters.

By demanding consistency in the rules and proposing to eliminate the varying seasons on some waters, Boland said the opportunities to anglers could increase dramatically.

“[We thought], with [fishing with artificial lures only], why not allow [anglers] to fish on all of those waters [that are presently open to some fall fishing] in October, November, December?” Boland said.

Boland said the state will continue to work its way through the rule book, species by species, and said one of next year’s focuses will be landlocked salmon.

A long-term goal, he said, is creating a book of fishing rules that doesn’t have to be changed much from year to year.

That could lead to one law book being published to include open-water and ice-fishing rules, he said.

“We’ve moved away from tweaking, tweaking, tweaking. I don’t like it,” he said. “We’re going to make darned sure we make a regulation, we’re gonna give it several years, and see how it plays out.”

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