Everyone's fishing is no one's fishing
Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
The British have one of the world's most progressive approaches to salmonid management, and a succinct saying best describes the philosophy behind it — Everyone's fishing is no one's fishing. Those six words summarize the Brits commitment to a resource that attracts anglers across the globe.
Centuries ago in countries such as heavily populated England, it became apparent that indiscriminate fishing rights ruined quality angling, resulting in a fishery that would appeal to no one. English landowners are responsible for most trout waters and often limit angling pressure by imposing rod fees in the same manner that golf courses in the U.S. charge people to use their facilities.
At first glance, this pay-to-fish system appears to push out average citizens, but I have known Englishmen on limited incomes, who find money to fish weekly in the same manner that Americans with low salaries can play golf.
In our country, though, we shy away from rod-fee systems, and I applaud this attitude. We maintain quality fishing by instituting regulations to limit the kill. This step allows everyone to fish, despite income.
I love this democratic approach to maintaining quality because it is obvious that governing officials must do something to protect an extremely finite resource. That "something" must stop people from killing every fish in the water, and regulations are the least painful to the public. In short, if anglers do not keep a trout or bass for the table or bragging rights, they can catch it again and again.
(A century-plus of catch-and-release studies show that fish caught on artificial lures or flies have a high survival rate after release — 95 percent to 98 percent respectively — so ALO regs are crucial for protecting the resource. These figures need a caveat, too. I am merely reiterating research easy to find on the Net — nothing more, nothing less.)
A truth about Maine fishing gets little press, but it should. We have some of the most sterile, aquatic habitat in the country. An acre of water — say in the New York Catskills or in Pennsylvania limestone country — can support far more trout per acre than most Maine waters.
Please consider these fish-population figures:
In the 1960s, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (DIF&W) conducted a huge electro-fishing study of 177 Maine brooks and streams, which showed a shocking statistic. These waters averaged 45 6-inch or larger brook trout per mile, depending on the brook or stream. That figures ranged from as few as 15 to as many as 90 brookies per mile.
Because this state has a five-fish, daily bag limit on brookies in flowing water, nine people on an average Maine brook or stream can legally kill all the brook trout in a mile in one day. It happens, too. The study is 40 years old, but you can bet your 401K that the population figures have not changed for the better.
DIF&W manages most of its landlocked salmon waters for one salmon for every one to two acres. In short, a 1,000-acre, stocked lake may have as few as 500 landlocks — of all sizes.
We often think of small brook-trout ponds as having thousands of brookies 6 inches long or longer, but in truth, many of our 10- to 50-acre ponds have trout populations that can be described with a three-digit number, a small one at that. Rivers also fit into this category. In many states, a river may have thousands of fish per mile, but as a general rule, Maine rivers have fish numbers far shy of 1,000 per mile.
Maine has more fly-fishing-only (FFO) waters than any state in the country, which brings up a point. Have you ever noticed that FFO waters occur in clusters across our north country, but the bottom half of the state has virtually no FFO? Decades ago, sporting-camp owners in northern Maine worried about losing their trout fisheries, which would ruin their businesses. So, to protect their investments, they lobbied for FFO regs in waters around their establishments.
These days, I am watching an artificial-lures-only (ALO) movement in Maine that has gained momentum in the same way sporting-camp owners pushed for FFO years ago, and a perfect example is now occurring on the middle Kennebec River between Skowhegan and Wyman Lake. Sports shops and guides near this river need a strong fishery to thrive, and these folks know full well that stricter regulations will lead to that goal, one that will spur nearby, rural economies.
If you have traveled a lot, and I have, you know what quality fishing can do to regional businesses — conveniences stores, motels, bed and breakfasts, restaurants, etc. Revenues trickle down. Thousands of example of such economies dot the world. Right now, many communities along the middle Kennebec are languishing, but increased tourism could change that.
DIF&W has come up with a weird and in my humble opinion gutless proposal to make certain, quick-water sections of the Kennebec artificial lures only (ALO) and to leave still-water stretches open to bait, a very bad idea. This river already has complicated regulations, and a 1,500-word magazine assignment that I had last year underscored this fact. The editor insisted I include a full description of regulations, which took me 247 words — one-sixth of the article! Now DIF&W is going to make the regs even more complex and unenforceable in order to avoid a confrontation with bait anglers. It would make so much more sense to make the whole river ALO once and for all.
We need leadership at DIF&W to move toward this sane objective. Heck, we are talking about one of the best three trout rivers with fishable numbers of wild salmonids in the Northeast. Why squander a jewel?
Once again in Maine, we are seeing business leaders, not DIF&W professionals, pushing for protective, proactive regulations to insure the quality of a finite resource. Without ALO, I fear we shall have a firsthand demonstration of the axiom, Everyone's fishing is no one's fishing. The local economy along the Kennebec will be one of the big losers.
To reach Ken Allen