Moosehead Region Fishing Report: February 21, 2007
Ice fishing this year on Chamberlain Lake was slow to start. Most of the fishing pressure early during the month of January was isolated to Round Pond and Telos Lake, since there were unsafe ice conditions on the big lake. On the first weekend of the ice fishing season we only had 4 inches of ice on Round Pond and open water and white caps were observed in the Arm of Chamberlain Lake from the trailhead on Chamberlain Lake. We interviewed 10 parties during the entire weekend. We saw only 3 brook trout on the first weekend.
Russ Danner, IF&W Fish Pathologist, accompanied me on the second weekend of the season. Russ brought some good insight into the work we are doing at Chamberlain Lake and pointed out some good techniques from his lab work, especially when experiencing the cold weather conditions we have seen the last few weeks. I will be using these techniques for many years to come. Time spent with Russ in the field was enjoyable and he is invited anytime he can get away from his duties in Augusta to accompany us with fieldwork in the Moosehead Lake Region. Russ and I interviewed and collected data from 11 parties during our stay. We collected biological data from 3 brook trout, 1 lake trout, and 1 lake whitefish.
Joe Dembeck, Research Fisheries Biologist, helped with the creel census duties on Chamberlain Lake on the third weekend. This was the first time we had safe enough ice conditions to get around the entire lake to check anglers. The lake was rough with many spots that went from glare ice to snow, then the occasional snowdrift that may have shook the cookie jar a little more than we may have liked. Joe learned firsthand the importance of making sure your pack is fashioned properly to the sled, since he had to backtrack many miles to retrieve his gear. The highlight of Joe’s trip was when he landed his first cusk ever, which weighed 4 ½ pounds, during an evening of fishing, after hours, in the thoroughfare between Round Pond and Chamberlain Lake. That weekend we saw 6 brook trout and 4 lake trout.
Tim Obrey and I were up for the last weekend in January and we saw our first marked brook trout of the season. Actually, this fish was not only marked, but it was one of our radio tagged fish. Unfortunately, this fish was harvested and would soon be on the breakfast table, but we were able to recover the radio tag. We have been using this tag as an educational tool to show our Moosehead Lake Region anglers what the tags look like, so not all is lost. Despite this tagged fish being harvested we are still encouraging anglers to release any radio tagged fish alive at once without removing the fish from the water. Data collection from our radio tagged fish in Chamberlain Lake is ongoing and data could possibly be obtained for the next two years, if the fish stay in the system. The typical half life of these tags is around 352 days and could be as high as 650 days beginning when they were surgically implanted into the brook trout. Airplane flights for tracking these tagged individuals have been ongoing since the middle of September ’06 and will continue until the tags lose battery life. The information collected from these tagged individuals is important to the management of the Chamberlain Lake system and could potentially help with the management of brook trout in other oligotrophic lakes in Maine. This weekend we saw 5 brook trout, 4 lake trout, and 5 lake whitefish.
Paul Johnson, Regional Fisheries Biologist Emeritus, donated his services and institutional knowledge of Chamberlain Lake for the first weekend in February. Paul’s time with me on Chamberlain Lake was well spent. Paul’s historical fisheries knowledge of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway and his insight to the work going on this winter at Chamberlain Lake is invaluable. As always, I continue to enjoy the information that I can bring together from our time spent together in the field. His continual return of institutional knowledge of the Moosehead Lake Region and love of the region is something that any apprentice should not take for granted. He had such a good time interacting with anglers he is going to take some more time away from his retired life to accompany me during my tour on the first weekend in March. When we arrived on Thursday, I made a trip around the Chamberlain Lake parking lot and I interviewed one party that had fished that day. Data collected from this party resulted in information from our second marked fish of the season. This brook trout did not have a radio tag, but was one of our fin clipped brook trout. Over the course of the weekend we saw an additional 9 brook trout, 9 lake trout, and 13 lake whitefish and interviewed 28 parties in total.
This past weekend at Chamberlain, Tim and I had a successful trip collecting data and saw some nice catches of brook trout and lake trout. Over the course of the weekend we saw 11 brook trout, 6 lake trout, and 1 lake whitefish.
Harvested brook trout are averaging 16.7 inches and weight 1.7 pounds. The lake trout averaged 23 inches and weighted 3.5 pounds. Lake whitefish averaged 18 inches and running around 1.8 pounds. Brook trout and lake whitefish have looked very healthy, but the lake trout looked a little skinny.
We have interviewed 109 parties, representing 345 total anglers. Anglers have reported keeping 48 brook trout, releasing 246 legal trout, and 187 sub-legals. The breakdown of the lake trout catch has been 24 kept, 69 legals released, and 48 sub-legals. Anglers have also reported releasing 4 of our radio tagged brook trout in Chamberlain Lake this winter. Chamberlain Lake anglers are showing a very strong catch and release ethic with the high number of legal brook trout reported being released during the first half of the ice fishing season.
This is only half of one year’s account of the history of the fishery division management of Chamberlain Lake. The regional staff out of the Ashland Office performed the first survey of Chamberlain Lake in 1969 since Chamberlain Lake was under their management prior to the mid 1970′s. My understanding of the accounts of the survey paints the vivid picture of a small airplane taxiing to individual parties to gather information. It was not until the state’s fisheries regional boundaries were re-established with the addition of a seventh regional headquarters in Enfield that the Moosehead Lake Region took over responsibility of Chamberlain Lake. Anyone interested in the summaries of this past fall’s work at Chamberlain Lake can go to www.flyfishinginmaine.com.
