Central Maine has remote, wild brook trout galore

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Recently, Bill Woodward, a fisheries biologist from the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (DIF&W), was electro-fishing the upper reaches of a tiny, spring-fed brook, gathering data on wild brook trout. He wore a battery pack on his back and held a long, metal device in his right hand, making him look like a soldier, sweeping for landmines buried in the bottom. Rubber hip boots spoiled the war image a little, but this footwear protected him from the electric jolts that stunned fish long enough to be scooped up with a net.

A snowmobile bridge crossed in one spot, and just upstream, the "main" channel between two pools measured six feet long, one foot wide and five to six inches deep. Naturally, still water stood on both sides of the undulating current that was squirting out from between two rocks, but this brook was small by any definition.

Woodward sent an electric current into the tiny run and instantly rolled an 8-inch brookie to the surface, which flopped onto its side and began floating downstream.

"Holy cow!" I shrieked, and my voice sounded more like a woman than a man.

A fish of that size in such a tiny brook flabbergasted me, but Woodward calmly scooped the colorful male char up with a net, recorded information and then dropped the fish into the water. The little guy scooted off in a panic, instantly disappearing from sight.

Bill has electro-fished brooks throughout his 36-year career so reacted with far less enthusiasm than I had exhibited. He has found plenty of fish like that (and bigger) in tiny, aquatic environments around Maine, including during the 27 years he has spent in central Maine. However, most of the collected specimens that day measured 3- to 4-inches in length -- seed stock for the lower reaches where the brook flowed much wider and deeper.

I had wanted Bill to electro-fish the bottomland where the brook had much larger pools, but he decided to do the upper reaches, surprising me. In a catty way, I was asking myself just what in the hell he expected to find in a rivulet, when at the exact same second, the 8-incher came to the surface.

Woodward also found more 7- to 8-inch brook trout downstream of the tiny run. All of these mature specimens displayed well-defined vermiculations, bright, orange-red flanks and cerulean aureoles that stood out in contrast against three-dimensional red spots. In my opinion, brook trout rank as one of nature's most lovely fish.

These brookies were completely wild, meaning they had bred in a natural environment for several generations. However, Woodward doubted that they were pure strains untouched by hatchery-bred brook trout.

This professional's intimate knowledge of the region's fisheries-management history strengthened this notion, too. Just 2 1/4 miles from the brook lie the faint remains of an ancient hatchery long since reclaimed by nature. He feels quite certain that well-meaning anglers transported hatchery brookies to the brook and dumped them in.

Before DIF&W hired biologists circa 1950, Maine game wardens, sporting-camp owners and sportsman's clubs had stocked fish willy-nilly for well over a half century and in many cases, left no records. Such ill-planned stocking would have altered the genes in the indigenous creatures.

Electro-fishing the brook was the initial phase of a management program that DIF&W is planning for a remote, Kennebec County pond, a visual jewel. Woodward began the field research by electro-fishing two brooks that ran into the pond. Both had temperatures in the 60s, but neither had brook trout. One gave up a single creek chub, and the other had suckers, creek chubs and lake chubs.

To me, the amazing part of this story concerns how close these four waters lie to downtown Augusta -- a 35-minute drive followed by a 30-minute walk.

Little brook-trout factories like this one crisscross central Maine, but the one where Woodward found the 8-incher has a particularly special feature. It flows from springs on the side of a mountain and runs downhill into a bottomland before entering another brook. Nowhere does it come near a highway, but a century ago, a wagon could get to the upper reaches without leaving any fields. Stonewalls prove that statement.

I have fished this brook's bottomland and hunted the surrounding hardwood ridges for 25 years so know the country well. I had volunteered to help Woodward find the brook as well as the two others and the pond.

This woodland trout brook lies in the Kennebec River drainage, one of many. East of the Kennebec, Waldo and Lincoln counties really have brooks galore with dense brookie populations. Without a doubt, anglers who enjoy fishing for brookies in Blethen Central Maine Newspapers country brooks have an attractive resource for pursing this solitary sport.

How does the average angler find these trout brooks? Woodward answered the question with two words -- a thermometer. If you put a stream thermometer in a mid- to late-summer brook and it registers below 70 degrees Fahrenheit, then you'll more than likely find brook trout. Usually, a good trout brook will be in the mid-60s, or lower, according to Woodward.

A DIF&W study in the 1960s and early '70s showed the average Maine brook has 45 brook trout per mile that are six inches or more long, and that figure does not change much from southern to northern Maine. However, the north country has far more fish of all sizes per mile. Data from that study has not changed much in 40 years.

This long-term, intense study shows that even on remote brooks, catch and release still makes sense to protect the resource, strengthened by another statistic. Some brooks in the study have as few as 15, 6-inch or longer brookies per mile. In these spots, three people can legally clean out a mile in one day. Brooks with consistently cold water, proper sinuosity and adequate cover supported 90, 6-inch or longer brookies. We're talking finite numbers.

Ken Allen, ofBelgradeLakes, is a writer, editor and photographer. To reach him, send e-mail to KAllyn800@aol.com.