Moosehead Region Fishing Report: September 12, 2007
The East Outlet is a perhaps one of the most popular river fisheries in the State. The river averages about 200 feet across and is nearly 3 miles long as it drops 75 feet from the dam on Moosehead Lake to the “Last Drop” on Indian Pond. The habitat is primarily rocky/boulder riffle with many pools and pockets. It is ideal salmon and trout water. There is, however, a shortage of salmonid spawning habitat in the river. Surveys indicate that less than 0.5% of the total area in the river contains gravel that would be suitable for successful spawning.
The East Outlet dam; which is owned and operated by Kennebec Water Power (KWP), was relicensed in the 1990′s. Paul Johnson, the Regional Fisheries Biologist, led the negotiations for the IF&W. The resulting new license had many benefits for the fish and the fishermen, including higher minimum flows. Paul also identified 2 areas in the river that could be modified to increase the amount of spawning and fry habitat in the river. KWP was very supportive of the proposed project and funded the work. A channel about 25 feet wide and 250 feet long was created just below the Beach Pool. This channel alone effectively doubled the amount of spawning habitat in the river. Another channel averaging nearly 30 feet by 520 feet was also improved. This area provides great fry and some spawning habitat. The project was completed just one year after the license became final.
We have been back to these sections since the work was finished and have observed many salmon using the spawning areas and we have also electrofished young salmon utilizing the improved nursery habitat.
Another method we use to evaluate the production of wild salmon in the East Outlet is the fishway in the dam. IFW staff has operated the trap in the fishway during 14 years in the period of 1974 to present, so we have good baseline data to use for comparison.
Tending the fishway is one of the more interesting projects we have in this region. While we are mainly interested in enumerating the small (less than 12 inches) salmon moving from the river to the lake, you just never know what the catch will be for any given day. Just as an example, this year the last day of tending was July 30. We anticipated a light catch of perhaps 50-75 fish based on previous tends and the warm weather. But as we dropped the water level in the trap, we were greeted by 315 brook trout in addition to over 100 salmon. How many people out there can say they caught over 300 brookies in one morning?
Staff from IFW, assisted by Mike Moon, the dam operator for KWP, tended the fishway trap this summer. We are very grateful for the help from Mike and KWP. They have made many improvements to our operation over the past years. We operated the trap during the peak period of salmon movement; which is generally from mid June to the end of July. Salmon don’t start moving upstream until the water warms to about 60 F and by August, the water warms to a level where it becomes difficult to handle the fish and their movement tends to decline as well.
This year’s catch of young wild salmon was the 2nd best since 1974. In fact, we handled over 1500 salmon in 2007. We categorize these young fish into size groups: less than 8 inches, 8 to 12 inches, and greater than 12 inches. We saw improvements across all categories. The overall catch rate for young wild salmon was just shy of the record set in 2001. In fact, there has been a general trend toward an increasing number of young salmon produced in the river since the habitat improvement project was completed. Salmon less than 12 inches far outnumber the larger size category by nearly 4:1. The largest salmon sampled was 22 inches. Many, if not most, of the legal salmon appear to be of hatchery origin. We do take other species in the trap as well, including: brook trout, lake trout, round whitefish, longnose suckers, white suckers, and various minnows. The salmon, brook trout, and lake trout are measured and a temporary fin clip is applied. All fish are then released into the lake where they will continue to grow and contribute to the lake and associated river fisheries. Check out some photos of this year’s East Outlet fishway operation above, at Region E – Moosehead Region – Photos from the field.
