FARMINGTON – Got brookies, need anglers.

Getting that message out to the world about Maine’s wild brook trout fishing experience is what state fisheries biologist Forrest Bonney and Maine guides are attempting this winter.

“It’s really about the fact that we have about 600 wild brook trout waters in the state when nobody else on the East Coast has any to speak of,” Bonney said Tuesday at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries

and Wildlife office in Strong.

“There’s an opportunity to kind of advertise this resource and maybe bring in more tourists from out of state who might appreciate fishing for wild brook trout, because I don’t think a lot of people know what we have here in Maine,” he said.

What Maine has for wild brookie fishing opportunities was discovered through the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture, the nation’s first pilot project under the National Fish Habitat Initiative.

The federally funded program was launched in 2005 to address regional and range-wide threats to brook trout from Maine to Georgia by building private and public partnerships to improve fish habitat and conserve wild brook trout.

Venture data revealed that Maine is the only state with extensive intact populations of wild, self-reproducing brook trout in lakes and ponds, including some lakes more than 5,000 acres big.

In comparison to only six intact subwatersheds among the 16 other states, Maine’s lake populations are intact in 185 subwatersheds.

Brookies are in 1,135 lakes and ponds, of which, 627 are supported by natural reproduction in the wild. Additionally, 295 waters have been stocked in the past but not within the past 25 years and 127 lakes and ponds have never been stocked. Therefore, they support pure genetic strains.

Maine also has 22,250 miles of streams that support brookies, virtually all of which are wild, and a brook trout fishery valued annually at $114 million.

Last week, Bonney and fisheries Director John Boland met at the University of Maine’s Cooperative Extension office in Farmington to figure out how to promote Maine’s wild brook trout fishery as a world-class fishery to attract anglers as a form of tourism-based economic development.

Between Bonney and Boland, guides and Marc Edwards of the cooperative extension, an idea was floated to create a Web site where anglers could find accommodations, restaurants, guiding services and information about brookie fishing locations.

“We’re focusing on brook trout at this time. There seems to be a lot of waters in the state, especially the backcountry ponds, that are not fished. Well, they might be fished in the spring, just a local flurry of activity, and then there’s really not many fishermen there.

“We’re talking about extending the season and getting people in to those ponds for, you know, a remote fishing opportunity where you might see a moose,” Bonney said.

Despite the downturn in the economy, he said now is a good time to get things organized and operational.

The state’s job is to publicize the availability of ponds and size of brookies anglers can expect to catch, determine regulations and possibly establish some catch-and-release fisheries.

“It may take a while to bring this together on a statewide level and, by then, maybe the economy will be on the rebound. We’re just starting with this Franklin County group with the intention of expanding it statewide … to see if we can make it here on a small level,” Bonney said.