This is how Canada dealt with smallmouth bass invasion

By V. Paul Reynolds

This is how Canada dealt with smallmouth bass invasion

Moosehead Lake, Maine’s largest lake, is still a fabled cold water sport fishery. Landlocked salmon, lake trout and record-book Eastern brook trout attract recreational anglers from around the globe. For those of us who value the legacy and look to the future, the presence of an invasive species, smallmouth bass, in the lake is a disappointment and a source of concern.

The theory is that the lake’s smallmouth population came to be in Moosehead Lake through the irresponsible act of some reckless bucket stockers. Suzanne AuClair, a seasoned outdoorswoman who writes a monthly outdoor column about the Moosehead area in the Northwoods Sporting Journal, recently wrote this: “The smallmouth bass were illegally introduced here at Moosehead Lake in the mid-1970s. Most locals consider them a scourge. They are now thriving throughout the Moose River/Moosehead Lake waterway. It is unknown when and how they will affect the native wild brook trout fisheries.”

AuClair poses an important question that can best be answered by fisheries  biologists and, perhaps more significantly, by Mother Nature. One thing we can be sure of is that the presence of smallmouth bass in this fabled fishery will do nothing to advance the cold water sport fishery.

What to do?

As AuClair reported after a visit to the famous Atlantic salmon river, the Margaree in Nova Scotia, the Canadians are wrestling with a smallmouth bass problem as well in the Margaree in Cape Breton. Unlike us, the Margaree fishery managers have taken the bull by the horns. She writes, “The Canadian approach, with the blessing of the Margaree Salmon Association, for trying to keep the bass population in check is to institute a mandatory catch-and-kill fishing regulation. Along with that comes a stiff fine of $100,000 if you are caught releasing a bass back into the Margaree. Yes, you read that right. A second offense brings a $500,000 penalty, and possible jail time!”

As AuClair observed, here in Maine there is divided sentiment among anglers about how best to deal with the Moosehead smallmouth issue. Bass anglers are just as passionate about their favorite angling experience as trout and salmon advocates. Moosehead has already experimented with a catch-and-remove policy on lake trout in an effort to reduce lake numbers and impose balance on the predator/ prey populations. From all reports, the policy bore fruit. “Today, the lake trout, brook trout, and landlocked salmon in Moosehead Lake are the best that have been seen in recorded history,” asserts AuClair.

Perhaps there is a compromise fisheries management policy that could nurture common ground between the bass community and the salmon/brookie acolytes. One would think that even the bass anglers would not want to see smallmouth populations endanger the Moosehead cold water sport fishery.

There can be a difference, or a middle ground, between a mandatory catch-and-kill policy on all smallmouth and a regulation that encourages a thinning of smallmouth numbers. It worked on the big lake with over populations of lake trout, so why not bass?

Fish biology and fisheries management is at best an imperfect science. In time, the Maragaree hardline experiment and catch-and-kill  regulation will be evaluated for its effectiveness in getting an unwanted species out of the famous salmon watershed. There may be lessons that can be applied here at home in managing unwanted species in Moosehead Lake.

The author is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide and host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network. He has authored three books. Online purchase information is available at www.sportingjournal.com.