NORWAY – A biologist is scheduled to discuss his findings from a program to reduce illegally-stocked bass in the Rapid River.

Bill Hanson, who is with Florida Power and Light Co., will explain radio tracking and electrofishing studies he conducted with Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife fish biologists Forrest Bonney and Dave Boucher last summer and fall.

The biologists studied salmon, bass and native brook trout to determine their spawning habits and seasonal movements. The information is expected to help biologists mitigate the negative effects of bass, which were illegally stocked several years ago in 7,850-acre Lake Umbagog.

Since then, the bass have rapidly multiplied and expanded their territory, invading the Rapid River to threaten native trout fisheries in Rangeley’s world-renowned fishing waters.

Last summer and fall, Brian Weidel, a researcher from Cornell University in New York, shared his electrofishing expertise with the group. Boucher said that Weidel’s work clearly demonstrated that intensive boat electrofishing was very effective at removing large numbers of adult and juvenile smallmouth bass.

“The study provided evidence that most native fishes responded favorably to large-scale bass removal, but that intensive bass removal efforts must be continued indefinitely, because bass continued to persist even after three years of intense removal,” Boucher said.

Using radio tracking techniques, Hanson, fellow FPL biologists Kyle Murphy and Bob Richter, Boucher and Bonney, did intensive studies to determine seasonal habitat use by fry and yearling trout.

“These life stages are most vulnerable to bass predation, so learning where the two species overlap, and when, may help us target any bass removal project more efficiently,” Boucher said.

He said the radio tracking work should provide biologists with better information about how landlocked salmon and smallmouth bass interact with native trout.

For more information about the presentation at a meeting of the Mollyockett Chapter of Trout Unlimited, contact Dick Walthers at 743-7461.

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