GILEAD — Fifteen volunteers braved a few morning thunderstorms, downpours and aggressive mosquitoes to selectively stock about 300 brown and rainbow trout Thursday morning into the Androscoggin River.

Many were members of the Upper Andro Anglers Alliance, a group of area business people who work to provide economic impact for the Bethel area by promoting the river, Scott Stone, alliance president, said at the scene.

Using drift boats, they came to float the 10- to 16-inch-long fish a few miles downriver toward Bethel in net or plastic bin pens to then put the fish into likely hiding places and feeding habitats.

This float-stocking method helps to decrease stress on fish and prevent mortality.

The normal fish stocking method is to empty them from the holding water tanks on trucks down a long plastic pipe and into the river.

But when that is done, the fish tend to hang out in that area for a while, becoming vulnerable to predators and anglers before dispersing upriver or downriver.

Normally the river at the Gilead boat launch off Route 2 is crystal clear, Stone said.

But Wednesday night’s thunderstorms and heavy rains upriver had churned the Androscoggin into a muddy brown mess by Thursday morning.

The trip was supposed to happen on May 25, but alliance officials postponed it first to June 2, and then to Thursday due to high water from several straight days of rain. Water levels had dropped considerably since last month.

“The water is not really that high, it’s just murky,” Eric Melanson, a Maine guide and Sun Valley Sports and Guide Service employee, said.

High heat in the 80s and energy-sapping humidity were overcome with handouts of bottled water and sodas after five boats were lowered into the river and anchored by 9:45 a.m.

And then it was a long wait for two Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife trucks carrying 2,000 brown trout and 800 rainbow trout to arrive from the department’s Casco Fish Hatchery.

Hatchery supervisor Steve Tremblay said he and assistant supervisor Chad Ridlon would return to the hatchery, get 1,000 more rainbows and return to release them into the river. Later this week, they’ll bring 200 more up.

Once the trucks arrived about an hour later than expected, volunteers set up a bucket brigade.

Ridlon half filled plastic buckets of water from each holding tank, and then lifted out several fish twice by net and emptied them into each bucket.

Volunteers then carried the buckets of wildly sloshing fish down to the floating bins attached by rope to the drift boats and poured them into the bins. Covers were quickly attached to prevent the fish from jumping out.

Some escapees quickly vanished in the silt-laden water.

Chandler Woodcock, commissioner of the MDIF&W, was one of the volunteers in the bucket line.

“We’re excited with the float stocking program,” Woodcock said. “It certainly supplements the fish that are in the river and it spreads the population out a bit.”

He said it’s “nice” to have the assistance of working groups in the area, like Trout Unlimited, the Upper Andro Anglers Alliance and other fisheries conservation groups.

“They’re a big asset to us and we enjoy it considerably,” Woodcock said.

After the float-stocking teams paddled downriver, Tremblay and Ridlon emptied each tank of fish down a long plastic tube and into the river.

Adding brown and rainbow trout to the river each year won’t do any harm, Woodcock said.

“We’re looking forward to somebody coming along and catching a big rainbow trout or a big brown trout, and we invite you to do so,” he said.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link