Any angler who has ever hooked and played an Atlantic Salmon on a fly rod just one time knows why this exquisite fish is called the “King of Gamefish.”

There are not many other angling experiences that measure up. That this is so also explains, perhaps, the passion and the politics.

For countless years, well-meaning biologists, scientists and salmon benefactors have expended millions of taxpayer dollars trying to restore the endangered Atlantic Salmon.

Despite Herculean efforts that include expensive stocking programs, meticulous research, and international agreements to cut back on commercial salmon harvests, there has been little progress.

Some stakeholders remain optimistic.

In his book “Maine Atlantic Salmon, A National Treasure,” retired fisheries biologist Ed Baum insists that it is too early in the restoration quest to write the salmon’s obituary. In fact, he writes, “I have no doubt that the Maine Atlantic salmon will endure…”

How bad is it?

This year, according to the fisheries folks, in excess of 900 salmon were caught making spawning runs up the Penobscot River in Bangor. That’s better than some years, worse than others.

For example, in 1986, 4,125 fish were trap-netted at Veazie; in the early 1970s, fish counts were well under 500. Maine’s other salmon rivers have, in the past decade, experienced similar cyclical salmon runs.

Members of the Penobscot’s three salmon angling clubs, most of whose members remember the happy hours spent working a fly on the river in late May and early June, have never given up hope.

Rods at the ready, they have been hoping and praying collectively for a resurgence of salmon numbers that would justify a lifting of the angling ban. For years, many of the clubs have argued that the angling ban was never justified in the first place, and that a well-regulated, abbreviated catch-and- release season in early spring would not have inflicted any significant mortality on Penobscot salmon runs.

These frustrated anglers were given a ray of hope earlier this fall when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a tentative plan to open the Penobscot to some limited angling next fall. Although nothing is firm yet, a couple of “scoping sessions” have been held to gather public feedback. Salmon officials got an earful.

Veteran salmon angler Tom Hennessey told those gathered that the fall fishing proposal was “eyewash,” and that, in his opinion, there was no scientific or conservation reason to close spring fishing on the Penobscot in the first place.

Bangor salmon activist Lou Horvarth and others in attendance echoed Hennessey’s views. Hennessey told me that he believes that the restoration program has become ” a farce, a fairy tale”.

He also believes that there is no such thing as a wild fish in the Penobscot, and that classifying these fish as Endangered Species because of some genetic strain found in DNA testing is a reach.

“If you tested the DNA of my English Setter, I have no doubt that somewhere you’ll find a wolf gene,” Hennessey quipped.

Hennessey also told the scoping session attendees that a spring angling option on the Penobscot would be far less stressful to the salmon than a fall angling option.

“Fall water temps tend to be higher than spring runoff water on the river,” he says, arguing that fall fish are also more vulnerable to hooking mortality that time of year.

Hennessey’s fatalism about the salmon restoration program is fueled by his conviction that politics, rather than logic and common sense, have been driving the attempts to save the salmon.

In his book, Baum contends that man is the salmon’s most lethal predator. Was he talking about man the political being, or man the destroyer of habit? Perhaps a little of both.

The federal government’s hypocrisy on this issue is palpable. On the one hand, it spends millions to raise and stock Atlantic salmon smolt, and on the other hand procrastinates when it comes to controlling the juvenile salmon’s chief predator, the ever-burgeoning cormorant populations on the Penobscot and other Maine salmon rivers.

The offer to allow limited fall fishing for Atlantic Salmon on the Penobscot seems a token gesture that isn’t likely to impact salmon restoration one way or the other. In fact, if — as Ed Baum predicts — the Maine Atlantic Salmon does “endure,” it may be inspite of , rather than because of man’s efforts.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WCME-FM 96.7) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].