Moosehead Region Fishing Report: July 25, 2008
The summer is certainly passing by at a rapid rate and the fisheries crew here in Greenville has been taking advantage of the nice weather we’ve been experiencing. One of the many tasks we’ve been working on is collecting a lake-wide sample of lake trout from Moosehead Lake.
Many readers may remember that this past winter new regulations went into effect on Moosehead Lake allowing anglers to keep two lake trout over 18 inches with a no size or bag limit on lake trout under 18 inches.
As usual during the winter season our staff put forth a substantial effort to collect creel census data from the Moosehead. A variety of data is collected from the coldwater species we encounter during the winter. We collect lengths, weights, and stomachs from all salmonids, as well as scales from brook trout and salmon for aging.
In order to accurately age a lake trout, however, we have to obtain otoliths from the fish. Otoliths, which are sometimes called ear bones, are located in the head of the fish. The process to extract these from a fish is not a simple task, especially when temperatures are hovering around or below freezing. Otoliths, lay down a layer of calcium carbonate each year. The layers appear much as the rings on a tree. The otoliths are examined under a viewing scope and the rings counted to determine the age of a lake trout.
This summer we will obtain a sample of lake trout from Moosehead to further evaluate this population. We have divided the lake into 3 areas. Generally, these areas can be described as the upper, middle, and lower portions of the lake. The “upper” section ranges from the top of Farm Island north to Seboomook, the “middle” portion of the lake from Farm Island south to the top of Deer and Sugar Islands, and the “lower” from Deer and Sugar Islands south to Greenville. Our goal is to collect a minimum of 30 lake trout from each of these 3 areas to obtain length, weight, condition, sex, maturity, stomach content and otoliths for aging.
This past week we spent 3 days netting Moosehead Lake and were successful in collecting 30 lake trout from the lower and middle areas. A total of 65 lake trout were collected. Sixteen (25 percent) of the lake trout were greater than 18 inches, 33 (50 percent) were between 14 and 18 inches, and 16 (25 percent) were less than 14 inches. The average condition factor or the overall fatness of the fish, for each size category is still fairly low. The condition factor of the two smaller-size groups [under 18 inches] were very similar to what we observed last winter. Condition factors on fish over 18 inches show some slight improvement compared to those observed last winter but are still below our management objectives.
We are finding a variety of food items in the stomachs of the lake trout, such as insects, smelts, suckers, and a few other minnow species. A couple of the bigger lake trout in the sample contained some interesting food items. One, a 24-inch, 4 pounds lake trout had a 14-inch lake trout in its stomach, and a second 26-inch lake trout weighing 6 pounds had a 13-inch white sucker in its stomach.
One notable fish we collected and were able to successfully release was a lake trout that measured approximately 32 inches long and weighed between 10 and 12 lbs.
Lake trout sampling will be completed by the end of the month and aging of the fish will be conducted over the course of this winter. At that point we will have a better understanding of the age structure and condition of the lake trout in Moosehead Lake.
