Smallmouth Bass Provide Coldwater Clash

By JOHN CORRIGAN

Traditional coldwater species are engaged in a culture war of sorts, defending territory in some of Maine’s most storied lakes and rivers.

Landlocked salmon and brook trout are battling it out with smallmouth bass, a species introduced to northern New England both at taxpayer expense and through illegal stocking.

Guide Bob Dupont of Lakewood Camps and biologist Scott Davis of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife led a lively seminar on landlocks and brookies during last weekend’s Fly Fishing Show in Marlborough, Mass.

Illegally introduced bass definitely have an effect on the two coldwater species that define a fishing tradition in a state that Dupont described as appreciating tradition.

Bass predation can depress both smelt and juvenile trout and salmon populations.

Bass are native to waters west of Vermont’s Lake Champlain, as documented in Jack Noon’s The Bassing of New Hampshire. In the Granite State, they were introduced after the Civil War by the state commission that evolved into today’s Fish and Game Department.

Maine holds the largest chunk of landlocked salmon and brook trout range in the United States. It’s part of a region known as the Northern Forest in stretches along the Canadian border in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York.

Going from west to east, Dupont defined three major fisheries as the Rangely Lakes Area, waters around Moosehead Lake, and the Grand Lake Stream region.

Landlocks do best, he said, in systems that have large lakes with major rivers flowing in or out of them. The lakes must support strong populations of large baitfish, which means smelt in Maine.

The silver-sided baitfish make up 80 percent of the diet of both landlocks and larger brookies.

Once winter recedes and ice goes out, the Maine salmon and trout fishing picks up around the third or fourth week of May. Dupont said it holds up into late June, and then picks up again in the fall.

"October is stunning," he said. If you don’t like to take that late-summer break, the West Branch of the Penobscot offers good fishing in August.

Fly fishers targeting larger trout and salmon will use the many streamer patterns that show the inventiveness of local fly tiers and designers. Entire books have been written about Maine smelt imitations. One of the most famous patterns is the gray ghost, which legendary tier Carrie Stevens tied and immediately used to catch a huge brook trout. Anglers still leave well-chewed samples on the historical marker near her home.

By eastern standards, Maine is a very large state. Dupont strongly recommended doing some research before heading there for a fishing trip. Conditions can vary considerably from region to region, he pointed out.

Good sources of local information include regional biologists who work for Inland Fisheries and Wildlife as well as local fly shops.

"We want people to come up when it is productive," he said.

After dismissing acid rain as a major problem for Maine’s waters, Davis provoked the discussion on illegal introductions of non- native species by describing them as the most significant threat to the fishery.

The struggle has been going on for decades. Smallmouth bass were first discovered in Lake Umbagog in 1986. He described the Kennebec as "polluted" with them.

Whether that’s a good or bad thing can be a matter of opinion. I’ve talked to serious anglers who argue that smallmouths now provide quality angling on Umbagog and the Androscoggin River.

Davis described bass, salmon and brook trout battling it out on the Rapid River, the remote stretch between Lower Richardson Lake and Umbagog. The colder temperatures give something of an edge to the brookies and landlocks. Bass have a tough life in the river, he said.

What Dupont described as "end of the line science" seems to confirm that. He said he has caught more small brook trout in the last three years. Before that, he hooked few young brookies. That suggested that bass predation was depressing the juvenile population.

One promising approach to controlling the bass population is to use the dams on the system of rivers and lakes to flush the Rapid with higher flows when juvenile smallmouths are vulnerable.

One unanticipated result of research on the coldwater species in the watershed is that Dupont now knows the trout in the system move around much more than he once thought. Brookies will swim for miles in a day to find waters that are at just the right temperature.

That prompted Davis to point out that the most valuable piece of equipment in an angler’s vest is a thermometer.

Some very good brook trout and landlocked salmon fishing can be found on Maine waters a few hours drive from Concord. If you haven’t yet fished on the east side of the state line, you are missing one of New England’s best opportunities.

(John Corrigan can be reached at corrigannh@verizon.net.)

Originally published by JOHN CORRIGAN For the Monitor.

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