Hello again, fishermen!
We live close to Sebago Lake, Maine’s second largest and deepest lake; the depth at the deepest part is below the level of the ocean. The lake is the water source for Greater Portland and 15 percent of Maine’s population. Sebago Lake is exceptionally clear and soft – clean enough to be exempt from the expensive filtration process required of most surface water sources. It irks me to see someone order bottled water in a Portland restaurant: what comes out of the bottle is likely inferior to what comes out of the tap.
Sebago holds the world record for the biggest landlocked salmon ever caught – a 22.5-pound fish caught in 1908. Sebago Lake is one of Maine’s four original ranges of the subspecies whose scientific name is Salmo Salar Sebago. Salmonids (salmon, trout and their relations) are described as genetically plastic: they have a good deal of diversity in their genes and adapt to their environment. Landlocked salmon have evolved to stay in fresh water even when they have access to the ocean. Besides Maine and some other U.S. waters, they occur in Canada, Scandinavia, and eastern Russia. Young landlocked salmon spend one to four years as stream-dwellers before migrating to a lake, where their growth rate is determined by the availability of baitfish. In Maine, the principal forage is smelt.
Virtually all of the wild landlocked salmon in Sebago Lake, some 40 to 60 percent in any given year, spawn in the Crooked River. This river originates just south of Bethel some 60 river miles to the north. As Brooke Hidell of Hidell Guide Service says, the Crooked River and Sebago Lake should always be considered together as they form a single system. Indeed they do. This is arguably the most significant landlocked salmon habitat in the country.
I have floated sections of the river on two occasions, most recently as part of a redd survey conducted by Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Region A (Gray office) with Sebago and Mollyockett Trout Unlimited Chapter volunteers last November. Redds are the nests the fish build to shelter the eggs over the winter after spawning in the fall. Volunteers in two-man teams waded the upper river, volunteers teamed with an IF&W fisheries biologist to cover the lower river in canoes. We were all amazed by what we found: abundant redds in areas wherever there was the type of habitat required: shallow bottoms with loose gravel up to about 4 inches in diameter. The survey counted more than 2,000 redds!
It is good to see this. Wild fish survive better than hatchery fish. Wherever hatchery fish are stocked, survival rates for wild fish can suffer as they compete for available food. With aggressive feeding habits learned in a hatchery, they take food from the wild fish while being more likely to fall prey to predators themselves.
The Region A biologists will be setting up a portable weir in the Crooked River this fall to trap, count and enable them to collect data on landlocked salmon entering the Crooked River. The data collected will tell them a lot more than what is currently known about the lake’s population, and how it works. If successful, the weir will also provide a means by which to obtain eggs and milt from wild salmon to maintain the genetic integrity of southern Maine’s salmon brood program. Fisheries biologists Francis Brautigam, Jim Pellerin, and Brian Lewis are as intelligent, dedicated and hard-working as any civil servants that I’ve encountered in my over 25 years of government and government-support service. The data the weir provides will enable them to do their job better: Manage our fisheries. Let’s support their efforts. If you have any questions about the weir project give Francis, Jim, or Brian a call at 657-2345.
Steve Heinz is an avid fisherman who lives in Cumberland and is Conservation Chair for Sebago Chapter of Trout Unlimited. Comments and questions are welcome heinz@maine.rr.com
One of the Crooked River’s many landlocked Salmon redd, a spawning habitat made up of a pit, gravel mound and downstream sand. Fisheries biologists recently surveyed more than 2,000 redds in the Crooked River.Courtesy photo by Steve HeinzOne of the Crooked River’s many landlocked Salmon redd, a spawning habitat made up of a pit, gravel mound and downstream sand. Fisheries biologists recently surveyed more than 2,000 redds in the Crooked River.Courtesy photo by Steve HeinzSend questions/comments to the editors.
