All spring long, many avid anglers and conservationists have kept their regular vigils – either in person or via the Internet – as an important number has steadily risen.

Some sit for a couple hours a day at the Veazie Salmon Club, playing cribbage and waiting for a state fisheries official to post the newest number on the tote board atop the Veazie Dam.

Others go to the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission Web site, or to the site operated by Veazie fly shop owner Gayland Hachey, to get the same information.

That magic number, you may have already guessed, is the “trap count,” which announces exactly how many Atlantic salmon have returned to the fish trap at the Veazie Dam.

And this morning I’m happy to report that the number is still sky-high, and continues to rise.

As of Friday afternoon, a few more than 1,600 fish had returned. (The exact number wasn’t readily available, as biologists were still trying to figure out if a minor counting error had occurred).

It really doesn’t matter. Whether we’ve had 1,602 or 1,605 fish return to the Penobscot River since the trap was opened in mid-May, the total is still impressive.

How impressive?

Just ask biologist Oliver Cox, who works for the Bureau of Sea-Run Fisheries & Habitat (formerly the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission).

“This is the fastest we’ve gotten to 1,600 since the trap was installed at Veazie,” Cox said on Friday.

That trap was activated in 1978, Cox and colleague Norm Dube said.

Dube and Cox were quick to point out that even though the Penobscot has enjoyed a fantastic early run of fish, past experience has shown that a salmon run can shut down quickly.

“We’re still at that point where we don’t know [how good the total run will be],” Dube said. “If we get a week of this kind of [hot] weather they might just drop right off the face of the earth.”

Water can warm up to the point that salmon don’t consider it particularly attractive, and the number of fish that are out in the gulf, considering a run upstream may have dwindled.

“I think what we can say is that to this point of the season, we’ve had a great run,” Cox said. “What tomorrow brings, we can’t say for sure. We hope for more of the same. But to predict the end of the run is a difficult thing. There’s been some years when it’s started out really nice and then it’s just crashed and gone flat. It’s going to depend on water temperatures and a lot of things.”

Still, there have been years when the run has been sustained well into the first month of summer, and Cox said biologists aren’t sure whether that will be the case this year or not, as it’s not possible to know when the peak of the run is taking place until after the entire run is over.

Consider 1986, for instance.

Dube and Cox point at 1986 as the top year of the Veazie trap era, as a total of 4,137 salmon returned to the trap. In addition, anglers were allowed to catch and kill salmon that year, and when you add in those fish that were taken home by fisherman, a total of 4,529 fish are listed as having returned to the river.

In 1986, the 1,600th salmon didn’t return to the Veazie Dam until July 1, but during early July nearly 100 fish were taken from the trap on some days.

According to Hachey’s Web site, on June 27 a year ago, just 489 salmon had returned to the Veazie trap. Last year, fewer than 1,000 salmon returned to the trap during the seasons when it is tended.

Dube said a possible reason for this year’s returning fish might be a stocking in smolts that took place two years ago.

Those young salmon – about 160,000 to 170,000 of them – were not stocked as far upriver as they had been in past years.

“Roughly a third of the [500,000 to 550,000] fish were stocked in Bradley, just below the Great Works Dam, so they only had to go over the Veazie Dam before they hit the estuary,” Dube said. “It depends on the flow in the spring when the smolts are moving out, but that spring we had sustained flows that weren’t terribly high going over the dams, allowing some good emigration.”

This year, all of the brood stock needed at Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery were transferred to the Orland facility by June 16, and most fish that arrive at the Veazie Dam now are being loaded into trucks and relocated up the Penobscot.

“We bring them above Great Works [Dam] and Milford [Dam], and we put them in up in Costigan,” Dube said.

All of which is certainly good news for salmon anglers and conservationists.

Thomas open house today

Anglers, collectors and those who appreciate fine hand-crafted goods may want to set aside an hour today for a visit to Brewer.

Steve Campbell, the owner of Thomas Rod Company, will hold an open house at his new showroom from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., and will welcome visitors to his new workspace.

Campbell bought the venerable Thomas Rod Company in 1999 and has been dreaming of the day when he could have a storefront or physical address to both display his collection of vintage rods and interact with visitors and prospective customers.

That dream came true a couple weeks back, and Campbell is proud to herald this new era of the company.

Campbell builds bamboo fly rods according to longstanding Thomas tradition, and his rods are joining other Thomas creations as keepsakes that will be treasured for generations.

Thomas Rod Company is located at 19 Sargent Drive in Brewer. To get there, turn onto Eastern Avenue from State Street, take your second right onto Sargent Drive, and look for the Thomas Rod Company sign on the garage next to the last house on the right.

Muskie derby on horizon

Organizers are already hard at work preparing for this year’s Fort Kent International Muskie Derby, and the event promises to be another huge hit.

This marks the fourth year of the popular fishing tourney, and folks up in Fort Kent pull out all the stops to put on a first-class tourney that’s fun for anglers and non-anglers alike.

This year’s derby will be held from Aug. 15-17, and some big cash is up for grabs. The largest muskie (by length) will earn the lucky angler $3,500, while second place is worth $2,500 and third prize is $1,000.

Kids will compete for savings bonds of $1,000, $750 and $500.

The entry fee for the three-day event is $35 for adults and $15 for those age 15 and younger.

In addition to the fishing, visitors to Fort Kent can take part in the Greater Fort Kent Area Chamber of Commerce’s Ploye Festival on Aug. 15-16 and can watch the fireman’s muster on Aug. 16. A bonfire and street dance will be held on Aug. 15.

On Aug. 16, another street dance will be held, and hundreds of onlookers on both sides of the border will watch a fireworks display over the St. John River.

Participants in the tournament have a wide variety of fishing opportunities, as they can fish in the St. John River and its tributaries. Included in that list of fishable waters is popular Glazier Lake, where dozens of anglers gather each year.

Organizers estimate that anglers can fish on 400 miles of continuous rivers, lakes, ponds and streams.

More than 400 anglers took part in the tournament in 2007.

Last year, Alan Ashley caught a 42-inch fish in the St. John River and took home the first-prize check.

jholyoke@bangordailynews.net

990-8214