Western Mountains Fishing Report: September 20, 2007

With the appearance of red and golden leaves and threats of frost comes a drop in water temperatures, which has already sent trout and salmon on their way towards the spawning grounds. Although they won’t be dropping their eggs until October, they make prespawning runs triggered by shorter days and colder water temperatures. If that doesn’t do it, a good flush of water from a rainstorm will. And so it is that we have reports of nice trout being caught in the Rapid, Magalloway, and Kennebago rivers; presumably others as well. There’s also good fishing in lakes and ponds the last week of September.

We’ve pretty much completed our summer work of sampling lakes and streams. Dave Boucher and several fishery consultants have been working on the bass problem on the Rapid River and on the Dead Cambridge River as of late. We completed several stream restoration projects in western Maine this summer, including an experimental technique called “chop and drop”, in which tree stems are added to stream channels to slow the rate of runoff and to trap organic nutrients.

With the help of volunteers, we recently completed the annual monitoring of our stream restoration projects. It is in that regard that we sadly note the passing of a longtime and enthusiastic stream volunteer from Rangeley. Patty Silvia helped survey the Magalloway River, South Bog Stream, Bemis Stream, Cupsuptic River, South Branch of the Dead River, and Allagash Stream. She also helped every year with the monitoring of stream restoration work on the Cupsuptic River, South Bog Stream, and the Sandy River. Anyone who knew Patty also knew how much she enjoyed the outdoors and how much fun she was to have around. Our condolences to her family.