RANGELEY – Anglers and smelt dippers beware – the state’s tinkering with fishing laws again, officials say, to make the law book more user friendly.
According to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, public hearings will be held across the state next week regarding 173 proposed changes.
Western Maine waters account for 48 of the changes. Most are minor, regional fisheries biologist Forrest Bonney said Wednesday at the department’s office in Strong.
But some, he added, are likely to generate considerable discussion. Among them: Proposals to toughen regulations on several waters regarding brook trout, restricting smelt dipping to grow salmon, and extending seasons on two rivers.
Bonney said South Bog Stream in Rangeley Plantation, Bemis Stream in Township D, and Cold Stream, downstream of Capitol Road bridge, in West Forks Plantation, would be changed to catch-and-release after Aug. 15 to protect pre-spawning brook trout populations.
Bonney said the streams have wild brook trout fisheries and are important for spawning.
The change would protect the early migration of large brookies heading upstream to spawn.
Don Palmer, president of the Rangeley Region Guides’ and Sportsmen’s Association, said early Wednesday evening that anglers in the Rangeley area are generally supportive of catch-and-release.
The department also wants to reduce the daily bag limit for brook trout in lakes and ponds in Franklin County from five fish to two fish, as it is in southern Maine counties.
Some waters with slow growing trout would keep the five-fish bag limit as a special regulation, Bonney said in a fishing report released Wednesday.
The change most likely to stir waters involves a proposal to close tributaries to the Richardson Lakes to the dip-netting of smelts, Palmer and Bonney said.
Because smelts are important forage fish for salmon and trout, they are considered a priority worth protecting.
“A smelt is something that you wouldn’t want to be if you ever came back in another life, because everybody wants you,” Palmer said.
Due to a lack of smelts, it is believed, Bonney said, that salmon growth has been poor for several years in Upper and Lower Richardson lakes. Salmon stocking was suspended this year to help the smelt population recover.
“I sympathize with smelters, because they have fewer and fewer places to catch smelt,” he said.
Smelt dipping is done over a period of a week or two in late April or early May.
“It’s a rite of spring,” Bonney said of the Maine tradition.
Closing the affected tributaries, “seems to me to be the wise thing to do,” Palmer said.
Other changes include extending fall seasons for the Carrabassett and Sandy rivers in anticipation of fall stockings of brook trout from the newly-renovated and expanded Embden rearing station.
Bonney said the hatchery is able to raise “a lot more catchable fish,” which presents an opportunity for “put-and-take” fishing. Both rivers, Bonney said, are too warm in the summer to support trout, but ideal for spring and fall fishing.
Palmer agreed, saying that the association has long supported expanding the season on waters capable of supporting fall stocking.
“In October, there’s only a half dozen waters you can fish in,” he said.
The department is also proposing to open Toothaker Pond in Phillips and Tibbetts Pond in Concord to children-only ice fishing. The ponds are stocked with brook trout.
Palmer encouraged everyone – whether they’re for or against the changes – to attend a public hearing on the proposals at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 11, at Rangeley Lakes High School.
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