Moosehead Lake regional fishing report

By Tim Obrey
Regional fisheries biologist

    If you are a frequent reader of our fishing reports, you will likely remember the circumstances of Big Wadleigh Pond. Big Wadleigh Pond is located at the northern edge of the Moosehead Lake region in T8 R15 WELS. It is one of just 12 native Arctic char waters in the lower 48 states. An illegal introduction of smelt nearly 10 years ago threatened to wipe out the char in this 157-acre pond. 

    In the spring of 2011, we netted 10 adult char and implanted them with radio transmitters donated by the Natural Resource Education Center at Moosehead, so that we could return in the fall just before spawning occurred and hopefully locate and capture these fish and many others. We did just that, and moved 60 adult char to Mountain Springs Trout Farm, a private hatchery, in Frenchville. These adults were stripped of eggs and milt, and their progeny have been raised at the facility along with native brook trout that were also captured from the ill-fated pond. 
    While these fish were held and raised in Frenchville, we chemically reclaimed the pond in the fall of 2012. It was arduous work. Hurricane Sandy delayed our chemical shipment from New Jersey in early November and the Maine weather did not cooperate either. Scattered snow squalls, moderate west winds, and subfreezing temperatures were the forecast for the day and the weatherman was right on the mark.
    The crew of IFW Fisheries biologists was up before dawn and on the water as the sun crested the shoreline.  This was one of the largest chemical reclamations ever attempted by the department and we had scheduled two days to apply the entire dosage of chemical. 
    However, it was clear that the pumps that were mixing the chemical with water would freeze overnight if the project was kept on schedule. Therefore, the crew worked relentlessly to complete the project in one long day. About an hour after sunset on Nov. 6 2012, we distributed the last barrel of rotenone into Big Wadleigh Pond.
    We observed thousands of dead smelt floating up over the following days as the chemical thoroughly dispersed in the pond. The chemical was active all winter and into early spring, therefore, we held off re-stocking the pond with its native fish until this fall.
    On Oct. 24 we met with Gary Picard, operator of Mountain Springs Trout Farm, with a truckload of native brook trout and char destined for Big Wadleigh Pond. We restocked approximately 650 char fingerlings, two char adults and 3,500 brook trout fry/fingerlings. We held some fish in reserve at the hatchery for a spring stocking and to allow us to take more eggs and milt this fall.
    We hope that the char and brook trout will re-establish over the next few years in the absence of smelt and once again Big Wadleigh Pond will have flourishing populations of these native fish that provide such a unique fishing opportunity in Maine. In most cases, there is no option for restoration and the impacts of non-native fish introductions are permanent and devastating to native fish.
    We must all work together to stop the epidemic of illegal fish introductions which represent the largest threat to Maine’s indigenous fish species.