Sebago Lake is one of Maine’s crown jewels, a nearly-pristine deepwater lake that bears the joys and sorrows of being one of the state’s primary recreation assets. The glaciers of the last Ice Age did us a big favor when they left Sebago in their wake, populated with frisky salmon and tasty smelts. Things went swimmingly for Sebago for the first ten-thousand years or so, until 20th Century Man gazed out over the rippling blue waters and said: “This is perfect. Let’s change it.”

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has produced a draft document, lyrically titled, “LLS Quality Size Management Evaluation Form.” Well, lyrical as bureaucratic documents go. The LLS are, of course, Landlocked Salmon, and the thankless task the document tackles is, What to do about Sebago’s salmon? The drafters, Francis Brautigam and Jim Pellerin, have done yeoman’s service to provide us with a detailed analysis of Sebago’s salmon fishery and its human fishery and their sometimes competing interests. The draft was forwarded to me by Kyle Noonan, the secretary of the Sebago Chapter of Trout Unlimited. Brautigam and Pellerin are soliciting comment on their draft, and TU chapter president Tom Brunelle says the chapter will in due course weigh in on the issue.

Sebago’s salmon population crashed in the 1960s because their main source of food, the smelt, was nearly eradicated – along with many other life forms – by the prodigal use of DDT, which poisoned the tributaries where the smelt reproduced. After DDT was banned in the U.S., the smelt and salmon rebounded, and Man had to come up with other ways to screw things up. So in 1972, lake trout were introduced by the MDIFW into Sebago, and over the following decade 300,000 of them were stocked in what had been a pure salmon fishery. And the lake trout began naturally reproducing.

Lake trout were an improvement over DDT, to be sure, but guess what’s for dinner at Mr. Lake Trout’s house? Smelt. Lakers eat a lot of smelt. The MDIFW stepped up salmon stocking as well, leading to a sort of golden age of Sebago fishing in the 1980s. But it couldn’t last, because all those lake trout and salmon “exhausted the smelt population,” as Brautigam and Pellerin put it, and the fishery crashed once more in 1990. More thoughtful management has brought the salmon fishery back to where the spring 2007 angling was terrific. The future of the noble Sebago salmon looks bright again, though some bonehead illegally introduced Northern Pike into the lake four or five years ago, and they are reproducing, posing a new threat to both trout and salmon.

The MDIFW’s current dilemma revolves around size, and what sort of fishery anglers want. Fewer but larger fish? More small fish? Wild fish, or stocked? Adjusting size and catch limits and stocking quantities can take it either way. If you’re a Sebago angler, put in your two cents’ worth through MDIFW or the organizations Brautigam and Pellerin have solicited for comment: Trout Unlimited Sebago Chapter; Sebago Lake Anglers Association; Windham/Gorham Rod & Gun Club; Pine Tree Rod & Gun Club.