Gordon “Nels” Kramer has seen plenty during his 26 years as a fisheries biologist working out of West Enfield.

But even 20 years before Kramer started managing the region’s fisheries, a group of citizens was busy organizing an event that would end up introducing thousands of anglers to the fishing opportunities.

This weekend, that event – the 46th annual Schoodic Lake Ice Fishing Derby – returns for what promises to be another successful event.

The derby will be held on Saturday and Sunday on Schoodic, Ebeemee and Seboeis lakes.

The derby is staged by the Milo Fire Department, which always puts on a top-notch event, Kramer said.

“It’s just so well organized,” Kramer said. “They’ve always had great prizes. And even back in the old days, when the fishery wasn’t all that robust, a lot of people went just for the weekend.”

Kramer said that poor fishing never seemed to bother folks too much … at least when it came to participating in the derby.

“Some of those years, even in the worst of times, if they had a good day [of weather], you’d see 1,500 people on the lake,” Kramer said.

A change in this year’s event: Derby officials have met with DIF&W biologists and decided to institute a 22-inch minimum length on togue and salmon that are registered.

“[Organizers] don’t want to lose any derby sales based on [more stringent rules], but I kind of assured them that they could probably use that as a selling point,” Kramer said. “How many derbies have a minimum length of 22 inches on salmon and togue? That just speaks to the quality of the fishery as well as the quality of the derby.”

Kramer said derby organizers have always worked hand-in-hand with biologists in efforts to improve the fishery.

And at times, it has taken plenty of hard work and patience.

Kramer recalls one year in the early 1990s when he spent the derby doing a creel census of anglers on Schoodic Lake.

He measured and weighed about 400 lake trout that year. Only one of them was longer than 16 inches.

“In the ’80s and ’90s, we were looking to examine as many fish as we could because we were looking to find out what was wrong,” he said.

The big problem: no food for the game fish.

“You couldn’t buy a smelt in there in the early ’80s to mid-’90s,” he said. Extensive efforts – about 30, in all – to stock more smelts in the lake kept failing.

“We were still stocking a large number of salmon, and it was basically a feeding program at that time,” Kramer said.

Then the DIF&W biologists got bold.

They stopped stocking salmon for 13 straight years, and when they began stocking again in 2004, only 500 fish were added to the lake. Previous stocking programs had called for an average of 2,000 to 3,000 fish per year.

And as derby participants will likely see this weekend, the results have been profound.

Fish are big. They’re healthy. And they’re still pretty plentiful.

“Right now [the fishery] is in real good shape,” Kramer said. “Not that we’re not going to have a few bumps in the road, but we seem to have a real good balance between forage and predators.”

For more information on the derby, check the Web at trcmaine.org/fishingderby

Cabin Fever Reliever on tap

After two years holding the Cabin Fever Reliever, the Penobscot Fly Fishers pulled the plug on the popular show last year, vowing to return in a new location after a brief hiatus.

That hiatus is over, and the third (nearly annual) Cabin Fever Reliever will be held Feb. 23-24 at the Brewer Auditorium.

The event is smaller than most outdoor industry shows, and that intimate setting allows attendees and exhibitors to spend more time chatting about outdoor matters.

This year’s show will run from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Feb. 23, and from 10-3 on Feb. 24.

A variety of exhibitors from across the outdoor spectrum will attend, and several speakers will give presentations.

The schedule of speakers:

Saturday: Jim Fahey of Sunkhaze Outfitters will talk about hare hunting at 11:15 a.m.; members of the Sebasticook Chapter of the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association will discuss starting and training your versatile hunting dog at 12:15 p.m.; Capt. John Rogers will tell you how to become a Maine Guide at 1:15 p.m.; Members of the Penobscot Fly Fishers will teach you how to get started in fly fishing at 2:15 p.m.

Sunday, staffers of the Maine Department of Conservation will talk about the Penobscot River Corridor at 10:15 a.m.; Fahey and Rob Gould of Sunkhaze Outfitters will talk about bass fishing techniques at 11:15 a.m.; and Randy McEwen of Central Maine Navigation will help you learn how to better use your GPS at 12:15 p.m.

Admission to the show is free, and an Old Town canoe will be raffled off.

For more information and a complete list of exhibitors, go to www.penobscotflyfishers.com.

IWLA to meet

Speaking of the Cabin Fever Reliever, I received an e-mail announcement from Bob Croce, who mentioned that the Maine Chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America will have a booth at the show and will stick around afterward for a piece of important business.

The IWLA will hold its annual meeting at the Brewer Auditorium – site of the Cabin Fever Reliever – at 3 p.m. on Feb. 24.

The chapter invites anyone attending the show to stop by its booth and join the meeting afterward.

For more information, call Croce at 843-5456.

jholyoke@bangordailynews.net

990-8214