NDR--Brag--Good News for Maine Brook Trout

Nice work! Looks like a great area. Any plans to stock LMB to make it a better fishery :)?
 
Jeff: What a victory for the environment, the brook trout and, of course, present and future sportsmen.
Thank you for your efforts.
 
Nice work! Looks like a great area. Any plans to stock LMB to make it a better fishery :)?
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It's funny you should ask that. One of the first public presentations I did on this project was to the Forks Fish and Game Club, This is a very traditional rural "sportsmans" club, and there was some history of disagreement between the Club and TU over fish regulations in the area. The club was justly skeptical of a "snobby FFO TU guy from southern Maine", though they eventually came around to be strong advocates for the project.

After I finished my talk, one of the attendees came up and said, "I've just retired up here from Connecticut, and I have a camp on Big Wood Pond, and I want to know why I have to drive all the way over to Indian Pond to fish for bass." Why won't the state put bass into Big Wood and and some other lakes near home.

I was about to respond with some kind of high-minded talk about invasive species, native ecosystems, the fragility of brook trout, etc, when one of the club members who'd given me the hardest time stepped up and said, "Because God was smart enough to keep the f----ing things out of Maine, and we ought to know enough not to mess with that."

James, I still have your story from your boyhood trip up there tucked away, and look at it for inspiration a few times each year. Someday I'll find a place I can use that publicly if I still have your permission.
 
After I finished my talk, one of the attendees came up and said, "I've just retired up here from Connecticut, and I have a camp on Big Wood Pond, and I want to know why I have to drive all the way over to Indian Pond to fish for bass." Why won't the state put bass into Big Wood and and some other lakes near home.
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Amazing the number of guys that go, from here, to ME to bass fish. Reading on that project looks like there may have been some politics involved! Good work again...
 
After I finished my talk, one of the attendees came up and said, "I've just retired up here from Connecticut, and I have a camp on Big Wood Pond, and I want to know why I have to drive all the way over to Indian Pond to fish for bass." Why won't the state put bass into Big Wood and and some other lakes near home.
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Amazing the number of guys that go, from here, to ME to bass fish. Reading on that project looks like there may have been some politics involved! Good work again...
Click to expand...

I don't get it either. My family has a camp in northern Maine for the salmon and trout fishing. The smallmouths appeared in the lake about five years ago, luckily no green carp or stinklogs yet. With them come the missiles with a man aboard, no more paddling the lake in the quiet of the morning or evening. Why can't the carp guys stay down south where they belong? :))

Good work Jeff, thank you for your efforts on this watersheds protection and please continue to hold the line for the salmonids. Bass/pike in Maine are like McDonalds trash strewn along a tote road.
 
Scott--which lake, if I may ask. PM if you'd rather not send us all to your honeyhole (though I promise to stay away now that the bass are there).

I've been hearing rumors about new bass introductions up in the Moose River area between Jackman and Rockwood.
 
Camp is on South Twin, SW of Millinocket. Not a ton of trout in the lake but the salmon fishing can be decent. The first smallmouths I saw were around 2010 after fishing the lake since 72. Because they were in the river south of the dam I guess it was only a matter of time, now they have access to the upper west branch. If you do fish South Twin, be advised you'll need a party barge, from what I can see of the neighbors it's the new traditional way to fish in Maine now. LOL!

We spend a lot of time traveling around to nearby lakes and streams, one of my uncles lived in Millinocket years ago so I got "local" info. I keep a driftboat at the Big Eddy (one of about a 100 these days) when we're in town, my wife loves the 1 1/2 mile drift to the takeout because she can cast without an audience. I sure hope the bass don't like the upper west branch, what a great fishery that is. Don't even want to think about the teeth with fins.
 
Oh yes, the Pemadumcook/Twin Lakes eruption of bass is one of the ones that worries me the most. I think they've actually been there quite a while, but they seem to have really exploded recently. I first heard about from my nephews, who fish from a family camp there and came home after a July 4 trip really excited about all the bass they caught a few years back.

I'm not terribly worried about Twin Lakes/Pemadumcoook because I don't think bass will have huge impacts on lake trout or landlocked salmon, but there are some really special waters not far upstream on the West Branch Penobsot. We've already seem 1st Debsconeag Lake taken off the state's list of "Heritage" brook trout waters due to anticipated bass invasion, and I have concerns about the other Debsconeags, Nahmakanta, and ton of small and really special trout ponds in that region.

To my knowledge nobody has yet confirmed bass upstream of Nesowadnehunk Fallls on the West Branch. It may be a barrier and in any case the experience has been that river fisheries for landlocked salmon and brook trout have been a bit more resistant to bass introductions than pond fisheries for brook trout have been. For example, the Upper Kennebec River and the Rapid and Magalloway Rivers seem to have maintained high quality wild trout fisheries despite ~20 years of bass presence. But I'll cry if I ever catch a smallie in the Big Eddy.
 
Agreed that the bass won't impact the lake as much as the upper river.
Sad to say it's only a matter of time before the bass invade all the way up to Rip Dam. The chute on the north side of Nesowadnehunk Falls will let them through eventually, probably during a flood. Hopefully nobody gives them a toss in Nesowadnehunk Stream above the first falls. The first smallmouth caught in the BE will probably lead to a riot, like you I hope I don't see it.
 
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